Author's Note: This chapter is kind of funky in the way it's spaced but I think it adds to it. Thanks to everyone who reviewed and I can ask you to be kind to Becka. She doesn't mean to be so evil, but god isn't she grand? Anyways, forgive the mistakes and share the love, review!
Chapter Five:
"Samedi." Hawke announced as he prodded the food with a folk. The ribs, fajitas and chicken legs sizzled angrily over the grill and popped as the juices exploded, causing the aroma to waft upwards. He smiled at his achievement, " Or actually, Baron Samedi if you want to be proper, is a deity in the Voodoo religion. His domain is Death."
Becka Stallens sipped her coke and Whiskey. She was watching Snape who had his hands firmly in his pockets and thoughtful gaze on his face. She smirked. "Samedi was Death?"
"No," Hawke said, like a child reciting a well-rehearsed lesson. "He was the guardian of the Dead. He took souls between worlds." He looked up, watching her closely. "It was said he could be invoked to do favors, including making Zombies for would-be Necromancers. Want to tell me what you found?"
Becka finally took her eyes off Severus and turned to study the fire. "I can't explain it, Hawke. You're going to have to trust me." She turned back at him. "Like you're going to have to trust him."
Hawke inhaled, and stabbed the fire watching it crack and burst. "How can I trust people like you?"
"Alex, darling, why are you shaking?"
"I'm just tired, that's all. It's a nervous habit I picked up in England."
"We'll have to break you of that, darling. I can't have my heroes being jumpy, can I?"
"No, I suppose not."
Snape turned and regarded the woman who gave her full attention to Chandra, and Snape the chance to study her. He had known Evelyn Faraday years ago, as Evelyn Moore, Becka and Billy's cousin. And in the years that had passed, she hadn't lost her constant smile or her affinity for referring to everyone as 'darling.'
"Oh Darling!" She was calling to her daughter. "Watch your brother!"
"I am watching him!" Nadia was leaning against the back fence. Her brother, William raced towards her, kicking a soccer ball at her. Nadia smirked, and kicked it towards the pale, auburn haired girl that was sitting Gideon's knee. Mallory smiled and kissed his daughter on the cheek before letting Pandora run off with the Faraday kids.
Dora took a shot at Hawke and Becka, who were standing near the grill. Becka glanced at Dora and tried not to smile. She kicked the ball back towards the children as Hawke called her attention back to whatever conversations they were sharing.
Snape's keen eyes found Becka. She was watching him watch her. He felt somewhere deep down he couldn't trust this woman, no matter what the others believed. She was Saint Michael, and he knew what Michael was.
Michael's actions had led to Melanie's death and who knows how many more- on both sides. Loyalty like hers was sold to the highest bidder. People like that knew nothing of honor, duty and sacrifice. Things that he clung to for life and sanity.
Things that he would die to protect from her.
Things he would kill to protect.
"He watches you like an enemy." Hawke said, keeping his eyes down. With one hand, he was guiding the food and keeping the fire in check and with the other, he touched her arm.
Becka flinched from his touch. "He'd kill me if he had the chance."
"Such callous comes from bitterness, bitterness comes from knowledge." Hawke glanced at Becka. "What does he know, that I don't?"
"He knows what I am." She said as an aside. "And what I was."
"What was he?"
Snape was asking about the past now. They could hear him over the children's laughter. Hawke was watching Becka. Becka was watching Snape and Snape had his eyes on Chandra. Time was beginning to blur now, in Becka and Severus' minds, corrupting what was real to that was imagined.
"What was he?" Hawke repeated.
"Just a memory." She whispered.
"What happened after I left?" Snape asked, but neither Evelyn nor Chandra seemed willing to answer.
"Left when?"
"After Billy…"
Hawke saw Becka inhale sharply at the sound of the man's name. She closed her eyes and took a long drink of the Whiskey.
Severus was shaking again. Twenty years of ignored history was now coming up to the surface, and he found himself questioning everything that he had taken for granted as truth. He wondered how much of what he knew was real, and how much was just Death Eater lies.
"Internal Affairs slammed down on Smith's command and anyone who knew Billy. His death was the first widely known act by the Hecate Judas. IA destroyed your old wing, Severus…"
In the world he had ruled as Prince, truth was just a lie undiscovered but now he was at Hecate, where everything was black, and white or the color of blood. He was only now beginning to realize how much blood.
"It was a witch-hunt. Gideon, Jude, Sydney…Erised, all of them were disgraced rather then denounce anyone."
Snape looked away, remembering the last time he had seen Sydney alive. If he had only listened to the man that day in Diagon Alley, if he had had faith and believed in the squad and returned to Hecate, nothing would have happened…
And no one would be dead…
"Becka, are you okay?" Hawke whispered.
"Fine, fine." She murmured. She was pouring herself another drink, trying to shut away the sounds that were invading her ears. It was a deep buzzing, like so many bugs clustering around a dead body- looking for food and shelter. She abandoned the coke and took a long, releasing drink of the whiskey.
Anything to shut out the voices.
"Jude and Sydney were killed, they never found Sydney's body…Amissa got a promotion, she was named leader of the Rune Masters, helped rebuilt the school. That's the same time Gideon took his teaching position. It was so funny to see them working together to rebuilt the Academy. For a while, I thought they were going to get back together…Um, the Kaga that was assigned to replace you quit his commission…what was his name?"
"Jean Andre."
"Yes, Andre worked as a Medic. Until he went looking for Erised."
The name, once spoken, was like invoking a ghost for Severus. The name brought to mind the image of this creature that, unlike Billy and the rest, was never thought about, never remembered. She had taken on a persona of a ghost, lingering near but always out of reach, always invisible but important. She was just another person that he had injured and wronged, he told himself, nothing more. It made it easier that way.
Becka had her eyes on Snape's face and she was making no attempt to hide. She wanted to see his face. Wanted to see how he would respond to the name of the creature that had ruined her life to save his. She wanted to see him react to her. She wanted to see Snape suffer or squirm, something that would prove there was still a heart beating within that chest of his, to prove that that heart still existed, however small, however black- but still beating, still alive. She wanted to see if there was anything left of the Auror she had known, had bleed with and suffered with. She wanted to see if there was anything of the Alexander Rouge she remember still surviving within this man before her.
Instead all she saw was the cool, exterior of a man who had years to prefect his features. A man who could wear a mask not of alabaster and gold, but of flesh and still show nothing but indifference.
She could not see the world of emotion that was running just below his skin, like veins of blood surging towards its source, always there but never seen.
For Snape was remembering.
Was remembering something half surreal, half corporeal; a relationship that excelled love. A relationship beyond family and friendship, something mysterious and tangible but as fleeting as the seasons.
And like the season, faded with time and misuse. He had long since rationalized the memories, to dull them and make it something he could live with. He had dehumanized it, sterilized it and made it something simple and defined.
And now, so many years later, it was finished and banished into dream and memory.
"Dream and memory." He whispered, as if speaking the words aloud would cement it, and cause it to be driven back into his mind.
"Would you like to know what happened to her?" It was Becka's voice now, loud and half slowed by the liquor in her system. She walked to Snape. "Or perhaps you just want to know the truth. How bout I tell you about how Sydney turned into a drunk rather then face the truth or how Malachi was driven mad? How before it was done Erised was begging for death, how she turned and now is no better then a common whore?"
Snape found himself on his feet, clutching Becka's neck. Disgust and righteous anger curled around each other and reared up inside of him, vying for a place. His anger and pain- directed both within and without was funneled to this traitorous woman. It was only fear of allowing the Prince take over again that stayed his hand from killing her. "Don't you dare speak of them like that, do you hear me? You have no right."
"And what right do you have?" She demanded. "You think coming here is going to change anything? The only reason you're here is because you're running again. Like you did then, and like you always do. I saw them die!" She shouted angrily. The children stopped playing and turned to stare. "I watched as they dragged Jude away, as they killed my brothers. I felt my bones break as they attacked me. I felt the Ripper's knife inside my throat." She stepped closer to him, lowering her voice so only he could hear her. "And I know you watched too. You were right there with them, killing our kind." She spoke louder now, "And you loved it, didn't you? That's the worst part."
"Becka, Hecate's calling."
Diego had appeared on the back porch. He stared at the scene before sighing and looking at Severus nervously. In his eyes were written anguish and regret, and he seemed to want nothing more on earth then to comfort Snape at that moment. Snape looked at him and thought it was odd, how a being as gentle and tender as Diego appeared to be could possibly cope with the storm that Becka was.
"Becka." Diego called again, walking to them. He put an arm on Severus' and pushed him back, ever so gently. "Hecate says she's throwing another tantrum."
Becka stopped arguing raced inside the house, to the Floo. Snape stared at her retreating figure, feeling anger and disgust for her soothe and settle, nestling for another time, and place.
"I'm sorry about her," Diego whispered. The weight of his hand on Severus' arm seemed unbearable and alien. It was a sincere gesture of comfort, meant to alleviate the pain, but Snape, unaccustomed to this, shrugged him off. Diego mistook this. "She isn't like this…I promise. It's just…"
"I know. It's just me." He nodded at Diego easily, and turned to Hawke. "This isn't going to work, you know." Hawke was staring at the fire again, looking deep into the food and flames as if staring into them long enough would bring him enlightenment. "I know."