Apologies for the wait, but here it is! Finally! Chapter 9! Please read and enjoy! And if you have the urge, please review! I welcome all CC and praise!
I do not own Gargoyles. Disney owns them. Gargoyles is a show that I love, and write stories about. I own Crystal, and any other characters that did not appear on the show.
New Life, New Beginnings: Chapter 9
"I thought I said I preferred it if you two visited during the day."
"Some things came up today, and night time was the best time," said Isabella. "Would you rather have us not visit at all?"
"No mom, that's not what I meant." Nicole really hoped Crystal wasn't going to visit tonight. "I'm happy knowing you made time to come here."
"We're just sorry we couldn't be here for the first night."
"Dad, I told you yesterday, it's all right. You guys were out of town. You came here as soon as you could."
Vito smiled at his daughter. "Either way, it won't happen again." He wanted to hug her, but as he had learned yesterday, Nicole wasn't up to having any male contact just yet.
"So did the doctors say when you can leave?" her mother asked.
Cole shook her head. "Not yet." She heard the door click open, and looking at the clock, realised it was just the nurse making her rounds. "But they said that I'm recovering faster than they had anticipated. So if all goes well, I should be out in no more than two weeks."
"That's wonderful, dear!" Isabella exclaimed.
"It's so wonderful, we should celebrate by trying to kill your disowned cousin again!"
All three heads looked towards the door. "You!" Vito exclaimed angrily.
"Yes, me!" Crystal shot back. "Judging by the look on your faces, I'm guessing you haven't spoken with your hit men lately. Otherwise, you'd know I was still alive."
"Mom, dad... Crystal... what's going on?"
"Nothing you need to worry about, dear." Isabella soothed. "Your father and I will get her out of here."
"Oh, so you'd rather cause a ruckus outside the room, and run the risk of letting people know that you're related to a demon?" Crystal smirked, the hatred for her aunt and uncle burning in her eyes. "I know you two better than that."
"You little cane," muttered Isabella.
"Oh, so I'm a bitch now, eh Zia? Nasty word, coming from someone who says they never swear," taunted Crystal.
Vito's blood began to boil. "I'm going to make sure you regret ever being born." He squared his shoulders and advanced on the gargoyle.
Crystal simply smirked. "Lay one finger on me and I'll scream bloody murder." Those words forced Vito to stop short of his target.
"Enough!" Nicole looked around the room at her family. "I want to know what's going on between you three, and I want to know now!"
The older adults made no motion to speak, which caused Crystal's smirk to grow. "You wanna know what's going on? Fine." With a calmness that put her aunt and uncle on edge, Crystal pulled a chair to her side and sat down. "I'm pretty sure you remember that first day you met the others." Nicole nodded in confirmation. "You remember that story I told you, where only I had been kidnapped?" Again, she nodded. "And of course you know that that incident, plus the reason for you being here, is because of the Quarrymen."
Crystal's voice had slowly grown somber, and Nicole knew she wasn't going to like what was going to be said. In anticipation of bad news, Cole got a tighter grip on the bed sheets, and pulled them closer to her body.
The gargoyle let out a slow, sad sigh. "I know who sent the Quarrymen after me... who was behind it all."
"You liar!" Vito stepped forward defiantly. "No one knows who was behind it, not even the police know!"
"The general public may not know," said Crystal, "but you do, don't you, Zio Vito?"
The next thing anyone knew, Isabella was pulling her hand back, and Crystal was rubbing her cheek.
"Mother!"
The disguised gargoyle's eyes took on a reddish hue, and a growl broke out from deep within her chest. Isabella and Vito stepped away from her, until their backs were up against the wall.
"If that's the way you want to play it, fine." Crystal turned her sights to her cousin, who flinched. The slight movement reminded her of why she was here in the first place, and calmed down so that her eyes would stop glowing. "Nicole," her voice still held the anger she was feeling, "your parents are behind the recent Quarrymen attacks."
"You monster!" Isabella screeched. "How dare you soil our names with such a horrendous lie! And to our daughter, no less!"
Nicole looked at her parents, and then back at her cousin. "How did you find out?"
"Nicola!" Vito stared at his daughter in shock. "You believe this monster over your own blood?!"
The young adult gave her father a hard glare. "If she didn't have wings and a tail, I know for a fact that you would still view her as part of the family."
"But she doesn't even have any proof to try and validate her lies," he exclaimed.
"Oh, but that's where you're wrong, dear uncle." Crystal stood up and walked to the door. "There's someone I'd like you all to meet." Smiling in a way that sent chills through her aunt and uncle, Crystal turned the doorknob.
"This is becoming ridiculous," Isabella said with a slight chuckle. "You had one of your devil-worshipping friends come here and 'verify' your story?"
"Actually," Crystal opened the door and allowed the young male on the other side to enter the room. "I had your nephew come and validate my story."
Back in Manhattan...
Life was carrying on as usual. The clan had finished with their breakfast, and Goliath was just beginning to assign patrols.
"Broadway, you and Angela will patrol the north side, while Lexington and Brooklyn will patrol the south." The four younger adults nodded, and turned to leave. "And be on high alert," he added, grimly. "It appears the Quarrymen have begun rallying again."
Barely a day had gone by since Crystal's departure before the smashing of gargoyle statues had begun again. Which normally wouldn't have alerted them, except most were being destroyed during the day. Either way, the gargoyles knew there was a chance that Castaway was recruiting again.
Broadway and Angela leapt off the castle parapets, and once they had glided down low enough, began their patrol of the city.
They glided in silence for a while, before Broadway finally said, "Think it'll be a quiet night?"
"I hope so," Angela replied. "I don't want to run into whoever's been smashing those statues."
"We've dealt with them before," he pointed out. "It's not like we can't handle them."
"I know. They're just getting on my nerves."
Broadway nodded in understanding. There were just some nights where he wished he was back in the days of Wyvern. Things just seemed to be easier back then, and most humans were content in just avoiding them.
The aquamarine gargoyle was pulled away from his thoughts when he heard Angela shriek out in pain. "What's wrong?"
She tightly grasped her arm. "Something just hit me, and cut me pretty deep."
Before another word could be spoken, an arrow shot through the air and pierced through Angela's wing. She faltered in her gliding and dropped several feet.
"Angela!" Broadway dove down and caught her before she lost any more altitude. "Angela, are you all right?"
"I think so," she groaned. "But I'll need your help to glide."
Broadway slowly glided down and landed on a nearby rooftop. He set Angela back on her feet and looked at her injured wing. "It's a pretty bad tear. I haven't seen an rip like this since before the massacre. We'll just need to patch it up when we get back to the castle."
"She's not going anywhere." The pair looked up to see a dark figure jump down from his hover bike, holding - of all things - a crossbow. Ah, crap, he thought as he landed and got a good look at the gargoyle. She's not the one I want.
Broadway stepped between Angela and their attacker. "What do you want with us?"
This was ridiculous. How on earth had he mistaken this creature for his target? He quickly realized the two gargoyles were staring at him; waiting for an answer or waiting to see if he would attack. He thought about taking them hostage and torturing them to get the answers he needed out of them, but decided against it. The male standing in front of him was quite large, and the female wasn't wounded badly enough. He was outnumbered.
"You're not my target." He pressed a button on his belt and his craft slowly dropped down. "But hear this: stay out of my way." He threw his crossbow over his shoulder and mounted his vehicle. With a forceful rev of the engine, he quickly flew off into the night.
Broadway eased his stance once their attacker was a safe distance away. He looked back at his mate, but still kept an eye on the man until he was sure he wouldn't come back. "What do you suppose that was all about?"
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"Figlio di puttana!"
Crystal advanced on her aunt at the outburst, but Christian held her back. "Let her call me what she wants," he said, trying to calm his sister down. "She's only insulting her dead sister more than she is me."
She stopped and smirked at her brother's words, and made sure her aunt could see the smile on her face.
Isabella huffed at her choice of words, seeing that they had backfired on her.
"ENOUGH!" Four pairs of eyes turned to Nicole, who had grown weary of the bickering taking place before her. "Get out. All of you." Everyone but Christian began to protest, but quickly grew quiet as Nicole raised her hand to silence them. "Right now I don't care who's done what. All I want is some peace and quiet so that I can leave this place as soon as possible!" She gave each person a hard look until they finally left her room.
Christian was the last one out and closed the door behind him. His aunt and uncle were already halfway down the hall. "So what now?" He asked Crystal, still watching the older couple walk further and further away.
"For now, we do as Nicole asked," she replied. "She's gonna need her strength for when I get her to come to New York."
"You really think she'll go for it?" He asked, as he watched his relatives disappear into the elevator.
Crystal sighed. "Probably not. But at the very least, I need to get her away from them."
"And how are you going to do that?"
"It shouldn't be too difficult, considering what she now knows." She looked at the door that separated her from her cousin. "I just want her to be safe. Isabella and Vito can't put hits out on me or the clan if Nicole is living there with us."
Christian raised an eyebrow. "So this isn't all coming with the best of intentions."
She shrugged. "Can you really blame me? You heard them."
"True." He wrapped an arm around her shoulders. "We should head back to the hotel. There's nothing more we can do here tonight."
Crystal nodded. She kept her eyes on the room door until she felt her brother pull her away; and even then she kept looking back, hoping that Nicole would open the door and ask the two of them to come back in. Her heart sank when they stepped into the elevator and the room door never opened. She wouldn't let her brother know, but now she was worried. What if this whole thing had gone too far? What if she had accidentally pushed Nicole away? Crystal dropped her head ever so slightly as the elevator doors closed. What have I done?
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Nicole laid back on her bed and stared up at the ceiling. She knew her parents hated Crystal, mostly due to their religious beliefs, but to hate her enough to try and kill her? Did they think they would be ridding the planet of an evil? That they would be cleansing their souls from having associated themselves with a demon?
None of that mattered, because it suddenly dawned on her; she was laying in the hospital because her parents thought Crystal was still living at the house. What exactly had her parents told them to do? Or had they gone off script once they couldn't find Crystal?
Nicole suddenly felt sick. She reached for the pan beside the bed and threw up what little she had managed to eat for dinner. She put the pan back on the little table and buzzed for the nurse. Her future was now filled with doubt.
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"I knew they hated me, but I never thought they'd try to kill me." Crystal hadn't spoken a word since they life the hospital, but now that she was safely in Fox's hotel room, she let it all out. "And it was like they didn't even care that their actions landed their own daughter in the hospital! Those... those..."
Fox gently led the gargoyle to the bed so that she could sit down. Crystal started crying the instant she touched the bed, which left Christian in charge of explaining everything to Fox.
"I doubt they're even Quarrymen," stated the redhead. "They're probably just your average Joe – albeit, crazier than your average Joe – and your aunt and uncle somehow managed to get their hands on some Quarrymen uniforms." Fox sat beside her and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. Crystal leaned against the woman. "I'm sorry you're going through this."
Crystal's crying had turned into silent sobs. "I don't know what to do. I can't just kill them, Cole would never forgive me."
Christian wasn't sure he heard right. "Does that mean you were going to kill the guys that attacked her?"
The gargoyle looked up at her brother. "I was keeping my options open. Anything can happen in the heat of battle."
"I... I can't believe I'm hearing this!"
Crystal grabbed her brother's hand. "I'm not saying I would have, but you need to understand, being in this form has forced me to change the way I view certain things, mostly just so that I could survive." She lifted her head off Fox's shoulder. "And I promise I'll tell you everything that I didn't get to the other night, but right now, we need to figure out a non-lethal way to deal with this current mess." She emphasized those words to put her brother's mind at ease.
Christian squeezed his sister's hand and knelt down. "I really think you should let Nicole handle this, and I can only guess what you're going to say in protest, but hear me out. Anything you do to them will only make them hate you more than they already do, and you run the risk of pushing Nicole away. These are her parents. Yes, anything she does to help you will still make them hate you, but at least you'll still have her."
Crystal smiled at her younger brother. "How'd you get to be so smart?"
"I wasn't raised alongside you? Ow! Hey, I was kidding!"
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It was another twelve days before Nicole would allow anyone to visit her. She had still allowed phone calls, she just didn't want her parents or Crystal together in the same room, and she wouldn't put it past either party to not intrude while the other was there. Christian had taken the opportunity to get to know his sister better, and to keep her distracted from the wait.
When they were finally able to visit again, Christian thought it best if he went to visit her alone. It took a while to get Crystal to agree, but finally did on the condition that she still take him to the hospital. If she couldn't be in the room, she wanted to be as close as possible.
Crystal waited impatiently at the hospital's front doors. Five minutes... ten minutes... she was forced to wait a while 45 minutes before she caught a glimpse of her brother again. But why was he hunched over? She had to wait another few moments before her view was clear. "Oh my gods..." She restrained herself from running inside. She held the door open as Christian approached, pushing a wheelchair, with Nicole sitting in it. "I don't remember planning to steal her."
Christian smiled. "We're not. She's been discharged."
Crystal looked down at her cousin. "Really?"
Nicole nodded. "Really. My internal wounds have healed faster than anticipated, and as long as I take it easy, I can go home."
The disguised gargoyle frowned. "But where's home?"
"I'll be staying with my parents as I continue to heal." She raised her hand to stop her cousin from interrupting. "They deserve to fix what they broke. After that, I'll be moving in with one of my girlfriends, which is where I was considering moving to before you offered me the house."
Crystal knelt down so that she could talk eye-to-eye with her cousin, and placed her taloned hands on her knees. "Are you sure this is what you want to do?"
Nicole took her cousin's hands into her own. "I know you'd rather have me live with you in the castle, but my whole life is here – my job, school, friends – I can't simply drop everything and run away. I would love to fight the good fight with you, but I can't stake my future on a rich man that I've never met. I have to make sure my future is set before I do anything drastic."
Crystal sighed and nodded in resignation. "You've gotta take care of you first. I get it. But you've gotta promise to call me if anything goes wrong concerning your parents."
She smiled. "You got it." She heard the door open behind them, and looked back to see a nurse waiting. "You two should get going. The nurse agreed to let us have some private time before my parents get here to pick me up. Her standing there is the signal that my parents should be here at any minute." She pulled the gargoyle into a hug. "I'll come visit as often as I can."
Crystal gently returned the hug, being careful not to hurt the woman. "Be sure that you do."
Before she could pull away, Nicole whispered in her ear, "So how are things with Red?"
Crystal pulled away from the hug and smirked. "I hate you, you know that?"
"Love you, too."
Christian smirked and rolled his eyes. Women.
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Christian waited on the ground while Crystal watched from the top of the burnt out lamppost as her cousin was driven back to her parents' home. Once the car was out of sight, she opened her wings and slowly dropped back down to the ground to join her brother.
"I don't think I'll ever stop finding that cool."
She smiled. "C'mon, let's get you home."
His eyebrows furrowed in confusion. "But, it was burned down."
Her smile grew wider, which confused him even more. "When I say home, I mean where I live now; the big castle in the sky in Manhattan."
His eyes widened. "Are you for real?"
"As real as I am."
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Fox flipped the last few switches and looked back at her passenger. "Everyone buckled up?"
Crystal gave her a thumbs up from the back seat. "Ready when you are."
She then turned her sights to the seat next to her. "Ready?"
Christian gulped and held on tight to the shoulder straps. "Ready as I'll ever be."
Fox chuckled and slowly lifted the helicopter into the air and turned it in the direction of home. Once the helicopter was moving forward, she looked at Christian and almost burst out laughing. His knuckles were white and his eyes were closed tight. "I don't understand you, kid."
Christian barely cracked one eye open. "What about?"
"How many times did Crystal carry you to and from the hospital, and you didn't bat an eye?"
"She was using her own wings!" His eye closed tight again as they hit some turbulence. "Nothing manmade! No chance of mechanical failure!"
Fox chuckled and shook her head. "Please tell me you're not like this in a car."
He shook his head. "No chance of plummeting to your death in a car."
In the back, Crystal didn't care about not laughing at her brother's expense. "Oh little brother, the trio is going to have fun with you."
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The helicopter had barely landed before Christian had unbuckled his harness and thrown himself onto the castle stones.
Crystal unbuckled herself from her seat and pulled her brother's bag out with her as she stepped out of the helicopter. "I wouldn't suggest kissing the ground. It's not every night we can get Bronx down to Central Park."
David came out to greet his wife. "Hello, my dear." He kissed her, and then turned his attention to the man getting back on his feet. "You must be Crystal's brother, Christian." He offered his hand.
Christian stared wide-eyed at the billionaire. "Uh, yes. Yes, I am." He shook his hand. "It's a pleasure to meet you."
"Likewise. You'll find a room setup for you down the hall from your sister's, and don't worry about the bag, Owen will take it down for you." Crystal nearly jumped as the majordomo seemed to suddenly appear beside her.
Where the hell did he come from? Christian thought. "Uh, wow. Thank you."
"Don't mention it. And Crystal," David looked over Christian's shoulder to address the gargoyle. "I caught the others just before they left for patrol and informed them of your return. They should be waiting for you in the courtyard below."
Crystal could barely contain her excitement. She grabbed her brother's arm. "C'mon, I'll introduce you." She called out her thanks to the Xanatos' over her shoulder as she led her brother down the stairs.
"Jeez, Crys," Christian yelled, "slow down!" His human form was having difficulty keeping up with his sister.
"Look, there they are!" She pointed to the group ahead. Once she saw her clan, she released her brother's hand and sped up. She didn't know why she was so excited to be back, nor did she care.
Angela put in her earpiece, and looked to her left. "Look, there she is."
The clan had barely turned around before they saw Crystal leap into Brooklyn's arms and nearly knock him over. "Oof!" It's good to see you too," he chuckled as he wrapped his arms around her.
She giggled, "Sorry. I rushed over as quickly as I could, knowing patrols were about to start." Crystal stepped back and looked at her clan. "So what'd I miss?"
"There's actually been some -" Lexington was cut off by the sound of someone clearing their throat. He tilted his head to look behind Crystal.
She followed his gaze and looked over her shoulder. "Oh jeez, how could I forget?" She waved the person over.
Goliath stepped forward. "Who is this?"
"Everyone, this," she placed her hand on the human's shoulder, "is Christian. He's my brother."
Brooklyn eyed this new person. "I thought you said you were an only child."
"And I thought I was," she replied. "I only found out about him while I was away visiting Nicole, who is doing better, thankfully." She could see the questions that were waiting to burst forth. "It's a long story, and one better told once patrols are out of the way."
Goliath nodded. "Well said. Brooklyn, you and Angela should head out now, and the schedule we used during Crystal's absence shall end tonight." He turned to Crystal. "I suggest you use this night to get Christian better acquainted with the castle." He looked at her brother. "And welcome to our home."
Crystal nodded her thanks and led her brother inside, with the others trailing behind, staying in until their patrol shift started.
"Let's go, Brooklyn."
Brooklyn wasn't listening. He was too focused on staring at Christian's retreating form.
"Brooklyn? Brooklyn!"
He blinked several times and gave his head a shake. "What?"
Angela motioned to the city. "It's time to patrol."
Looking one last time at the doors, he nodded. "Yeah, let's go," and followed the lavender female.
AN:
Figlio di puttana: Italian, meaning "son of a bitch"