DISCLAIMER: Joss owns Buffy and all Slayeresque references. I don't own So Weird, Disney does - and if I was making money off this I wouldn't have so much tied up in student loans. I've got nothing worth suing over. Promise.
The Guardians, the Delegates, etcetera, etcetera, are mine. Use them without permission and I *will* have your head.
The journey back to the Island passed in stunned silence. Terren walked slowly, clearly exhausted, with Katia and Arrah supporting him on either side. Matt walked next to them, his face still paper-white. Molly and Beilenya walked together, and Jack, Annie and Fiona trailed along behind the rest. No one said anything until they reached the Gate, and everyone passed through as quickly as possible. Everyone wanted to leave Aislinn Park behind them.
The late afternoon sunlight streaming into the Great Hall through the tall windows seemed, somehow, false and inappropriate. It took a lot of effort on Jack's part to remember that what they'd seen half an hour ago had happened two *days* past. Still, the image seemed uncomfortably near, unpleasantly real. He tried to put it out of his mind, to think of something else, but the mental image of Marya Bico's mangled body still remained with him. He wondered whether it would ever go away.
::...what a moment ago had been merely dark shapes became a hungry force surging after her. She could feel it at her back. She could feel its hunger, an alien savagery from a mind she could not comprehend, and she dared not try...::
He shuddered, shook his head as if he could shake the image from his mind, rid himself of the memroy of the dark, slinking things lurking in Aislinn Park, and lurking around the edges of his memory.
::Those things killed Dad,:: he thought, watching Arrah as she stood staring around at them. She looked as shaken as he felt, possibly more. He dared not meet eyes with his mother.
"Matt?" The Watcher looked up when Arrah said his name, as if surprised to find other people in the room.
"Yes?"
"I need to know what you know about this. And now." Areahannah was pale, and she seemed torn between the situation and concern for Terren, who for his part seemed close to collapsing again. Jack stole a glance at Annie and saw her fighting to conceal the same state. He surreptitiously stepped closer to her, just in case she actually did collapse like she'd done before; he saw Lann standing close to her other side, apparently with the same plan in mind. He envied neither Terren nor Annie - this was not a "Gift" he would want.
"Not now," said Katia sternly, so sternly that Arrah glanced at her with obvious surprise. "Right now, you are going to bed for two hours. That's an order."
Arrah started to protest: "Katia, there's no time. If this is as bad as Matt says it is, we've got to call an Assembly, and warn the Delegates, and someone needs to--"
"Oh, no, you don't," Katia interrupted her. "In medical matters I outrank you, First Guardian -- unless you plan to change that?" She gave Arrah a challenging glare, and the First seemed to shrink back slightly, and shake her head. "I'm telling you that he needs rest --" she nodded in Terren's direction, "-- and isn't going to get it passed out alone in your rooms. The Delegates can handle it without you for two hours - and it will take that long to get the other Watchers together, won't it, Matt?" She looked sharply at Matt, who was watching the entire exchange as if without seeing it. He actually jumped when Katia addressed him.
"Yes, yes, of course," he said, and Katia turned back to Arrah.
"There, you see? Now go to bed before I get someone to carry you there."
Areahannah seemed about to say something more, but she seemed to think better of it, and sighed. "All right," she said reluctantly. "Two hours." She turned and walked slowly from the Great Hall, Terren leaning heavily into her arm.
"I'm timing you!" Katia called after them. Then she turned on the remainder of the expedition. "And as for the rest of you--"
"Don't tell me, I'm already going," said Beilenya, halfway out the door. She beckoned to Molly. "I'll toss Molly into a room on my way past."
Katia set her glare on Molly, who went without further argument. That left only Jack, Annie, and Fiona - and Matt, still leaning against the table, looking pale and disturbed.
"You three," Katia said, "Especially you, Annie - Fiona, can you take them to your room? There's plenty of space in there, and I get the feeling that the place is going to fill up pretty fast in the next two hours."
Fiona nodded. "There's five times as much room as I've ever needed," she said, shrugging. "Come on, guys." She started out, and Jack followed a bit more slowly, half-carrying Annie, who by this time was beginning to stumble every other step. Katia nodded approvingly, then turned to Matt.
"I've got to notify the others, Kay," he said, holding up his hands before she could order him to bed. "I promise I'll pass out in an appropriate place immediately after I do - though I don't know if I'll be able to sleep."
Katia crossed back to the table and put her arms around him, her expression softening to one of concern. "Don't worry," she said quietly, kissing him on the cheek. "You'll sleep - even if I have to nudge you into unconsciousness."
Matt sighed. "You're too good to me," he said wryly.
Jack couldn't help but smile as they left the Hall.
By the time they reached Fiona's rooms, Jack was carrying Annie - in fact he stopped to scoop her up not five minutes after they left the Hall. Annie made a token attempt at protest, but was soon half-dozing against his chest. Jack tried not to notice just how light she was - it was like carrying a child.
"Is she going to be okay?" he asked his sister uncertainly over Annie's head. Fiona glanced over her shoulder at the slumbering Annie and shrugged, shooting him an encouraging smile.
"Aside from one heck of a headache when she wakes up? She'll be fine. Don't worry." Then she stopped, and set her hand on the join between one of many identical sets of carven double doors along the hallway they were standing in. The door creaked, then swung ponderously open. Jack blinked at it, and followed Fiona into her rooms without a single comment.
As the doors closed behind them, Jack looked around, and decided that "rooms" was not an adequate description. The plural certainly applied, though perhaps "suite" would be more accurate. Tall windows faced him from the opposite wall, and to the left and right opened wide, brief corridors - one of which led to what was obviously a bedroom. This room, the living room, was scattered with low, squashy-looking furniture and cushions - Jack set Annie gently down on something that vaguely ressembled a futon, and straightened up just in time to catch a stack of blankets that Fiona threw at him from the bedroom door. Two pillows followed.
"You can leave her there," Fiona said. "There's a sort of a little nook... thing... through there." She pointed down the other corridor, which, when Jack looked, proved to terminate with a long windowseat, also covered in squashy cushions. "She won't be waking up for a couple of hours, at least."
Jack stared down at Annie, who seemed quite peacefully asleep. "I don't know if I'll be able to," he said doubtfully, "Sleep, I mean." He looked up to see Fiona give him a knowing look.
"I used to feel that way after... well, after things like this," she said, yawning. "Take my word for it. You only feel that way until you hit the pillow. Good night, Jack." She turned and vanished through the door, waving absently at him over her shoulder until the door closed behind her.
"Mmmph... Fi?"
Jack turned back to the couch. Annie was halfway through sitting up, looking at him with eyes half-open. "Oh," she said as Jack came closer. "Hey, Jack."
"Annie, you should go to sleep..."
"C'mere," she said, gesturing to him. Her words were slurred as if she were intoxicated - but Jack knew over-extension well enough to know that this was merely the effect of over-using one's powers. It was a state very much like intoxication - judgement was impaired, motor skills...
Jack sat down, and was very much surprised when Annie pounced him like a small child, latching onto his arm. "I didn't like it, Jack," she said in a low voice. "It was... I didn't like it." She was shaking her head, and her eyes were fixed on some point beyond the open window.
"What you saw... in the park, you mean?" he asked. Annie nodded.
"I know I wanted... something. I'm not a mundane anymore, but now this... I always felt bad for Terren. I actually thought... anything but that." She turned her head suddenly, looked at him. "It must be like he doesn't even have privacy in his own thoughts. Even in dreams. All the things he sees... they're always there. He can't get away."
Most of Annie's weight was settled on his shoulder now, and as she looked at him he saw, through the haze of exhaustion, real fear in her eyes. He recognized it abruptly as something he'd seen in his own face several months earlier.
"You were scared too, weren't you, Jack?" she asked. Jack blinked at her.
"I was..." he blinked down at her, finding her looking at him with great intensity. "Annie... Katia said you should sleep--"
"You don't want to talk about it. That's okay. You never want to talk about it." She snuggled into his arm, and Jack found himself relieved that he was no longer the object of her direct scrutiny. Another side-effect of this state was that shields often became unstable, and while he didn't worry much about picking up something Annie would rather keep to herself - Annie wasn't much for secrets at the best of times - he himself was close enough to exhausted to have little confidence in his own shields.
"Really, Annie," he said again, nudging her slightly. "If you don't sleep, Katia will know, and I think I'm the only one she'll skin alive..."
"Oh, she'll be too busy with Matt," Annie said matter-of-factly. "Even though she says she'll knock him out, she almost never really does. She doesn't like using her powers that way."
Jack looked down at the top of Annie's head. She sounded almost lucid. "Then how does she..."
"Oh, you know," Annie's voice held a knowing tone, and he could tell she was smiling even though he couldn't see her face. Jack felt himself growing warm with embarrassment. Annie pushed herself up on one elbow and looked at him for a moment.
"Jack," she said with amusement in her voice, "You're blushing!" She giggled softly before settling back down. "I bet I could make you blush redder if I tried," she said. "I mean, here I am, at your mercy..."
"Annie!"
"Oh, stop being such a gentleman," she chided him, yawning. "You're always like that. Makes me feel like I'd be..." she yawned again, "...taking advantage of you. If I did anything..."
She fell silent, then, and presently Jack realized that she was asleep - in his lap, quite immovable. He stared down at her slumbering form, frozen with surprise. Had she just said what he thought she'd just said?
After a while his discomfort ebbed, as exhaustion finally overtook him. He fell asleep just as the light of sunrise began to creep across the sky.
Molly could remember liking sunrises.
She couldn't remember exactly when that had changed - though she suspected that her chronic insomnia over the past decade hadn't helped. Sunrise had once been a rare, beautiful thing. Now it was only a reminder of the things keeping her awake.
She hadn't expected to be able to sleep, and in fact she'd spent most of the last hour on the balcony, watching the sea. Not that there was much to watch - the only change in the sea had been the tide - but she'd been restless. She couldn't bear the thought of doing nothing for the two hours Katia had ordained.
For a moment, Molly smiled - she remembered Katia as a child. The girl had been no less impetuous at fifteen than she was now. By the time she'd been introduced to Molly she was well on her way to becoming a doctor, and if anything she'd become more formidable with age - she'd have to have done, to be able to overrule Arrah, medical precedent or not. Since then...
...a great deal had changed. It had been such a very long time... she hadn't realized just how much until she'd sat down in Assembly. Their numbers in Molly's time had never been staggering, but they seemed less than two-thirds of what they had once been. And why? Because of the danger? The not-infrequent sense of futility? Doubtful. Delegates were born and raised breathing Circle mythos and duties. It wasn't something most of them let go lightly. So why?
Molly bit her lip. The most likely reason was that they had been removed from the Assembly's ranks by forceful, outside means. Not much else could cause them to abandon their callings - death was often the only way they went, at all. What was it Andra Kurk had told her? "Precious few of us live to gripe about old age." She'd said it without regret, only... wistfulness? No. Not exactly. Andra was one of the oldest people Molly had ever met - the oldest Delegate then living, in fact, over one hundred years old. But her son and daughter-in-law, Terren's mother and father, had died when Terren was very young - leaving him in the care of his grandparents. Andra's husband, Edmund, had followed them, not much later. All in the service of the Circle.
When Molly had left them, Andra had been there, and had watched her, silently, with no expression. At the time it had made Molly angry - as if the calm face was the front for the old woman's accusation. Molly knew now that she'd been wrong; the sense of bitter betrayal she'd felt hadn't been Andra's, but her own. She'd been selfish - she hadn't been the only one to lose loved ones to duty.
Down the beach, she could see what looked like a silhouette, standing erect and proud against the sunrise. That was Delegate Rock - a monument to all those who had died serving the Circle. Rick's name was down there, somewhere. She'd never gone to look. After his death she'd been far too angry to accept any gesture from them - too angry to believe that anything they said was anything but pity, or mockery, or contempt.
She pushed away from the balcony railing. She still had almost an hour. Maybe now was the time.
Fiona rose only an hour after sunrise, and stood in her doorway for several long moments looking out the window at the sight of pale sunlight on the water. Finally she stretched, yawned, and moved out into the main room. She paused behind the futon, registering first surprise, then amusement. Her brother was asleep there, his head lolling to one side. Annie was slumbering contentedly in his lap. She turned away then, smiling to herself, and headed out the door.
She still had nearly an hour before the others arrived - the corridors were still quiet, enough to hear the surf below. All along this corridor's Eastern side were arched windows, facing East. Glancing down as she passed she saw someone stepping out onto the stairs that led down to the beach. She paused at the window as she recognized the figure. Then she made her way back down the hall to join her.
Molly was only halfway down the stairs when someone touched her shoulder - she jumped, startled, and almost lost her footing, but caught herself in time. Fiona looked down at her with equal startlement, then amusement when she was steady.
"Here I was, all impressed," she mused, as if to herself, "and then you almost take a dive down a perfectly navigable flight of stairs. I tell you, Mom, I don't know what to think."
Molly raised an eyebrow at her daughter, and turning, continued down the stairs, Fiona at her side. The steps were carved directly into the cliff-face, with no railing, but were cut deeply enough that that shouldn't have been a problem. Still, a fall from this height would have had dire consequences.
"Should I ask what you're talking about, or do I want to know?" Molly asked.
Fiona grinned at her. "We had training with Tilia a few days ago. She told us... she told us you knew weaponswork."
Molly shrugged, giving her daughter a sidelong glance. "It's required, Fiona. You know that."
"She told us you were good."
Molly gave Fiona another glance, and shrugged. "I used to be."
Fiona laughed. It began as a giggle and gradually became a snicker, then she had to stop, leaning against the cliff-face. Molly stared at her. "I think I'm insulted," she said, with mock-hurt.
Fiona took deep breaths, shook her head, and faced her mother with less amusement, though not none. "Sorry. It's just... it was such a strange image. And you just sort of..." They started walking again. "If I'd asked you that a few months ago..."
"I'd have flatly denied it and told you to stop asking," Molly said, with certainty. She sighed. "I'm sorry, Fi."
"I know," Fiona answered, without a trace of bitterness or regret. Molly turned, blinked at her in surprise.
"But I thought..."
They stepped from the bottom step onto the sand. Fiona shrugged. "I know why you did what you did. Why you acted that way. I don't agree, but I understand."
Molly stared at her feet. "Jack doesn't seem to agree with you."
"Jack doesn't understand. Jenaya says that sort of sentiment comes more readily to the female conscience than the male. It'll take him longer. 'Course..." she looked at her mother, who didn't return her gaze. "...it might be easier if you explained it to him."
Molly took a deep breath of the ocean air. "I don't think it's as simple as all that, Fiona. And while we're on the subject," she looked at her daughter with curiosity, "when did you get to be so wise?"
Fi chuckled. "This is what I've been doing with my weekends for the past two years, remember?" She looked ahead, away, her smile fading. "People talk about Dad a lot. About you, too. I figured things out."
"I suppose Areahannah helped, too."
"A little." Fiona looked at her, eyes carefully expressionless. "She really misses Dad, you know."
Molly sighed, but said nothing.
"She said - she didn't exactly say. Matt did. He said that - none of them ever knew their parents. Is that true?"
"Your dad told me," Molly said slowly, "that the last Eight died when they were quite young."
"How young?"
Molly pressed her lips together. "They would have been six."
"Oh." Fiona was silent a moment, then, "Is that why Presskin is like that?"
"Like..." Molly considered. "Well. You know how he is with Areahannah."
"He worries about her. Like, all the time. I think it kind of ticks her off, sometimes."
"Rather like Jack worries about you."
"An awful lot," Fiona agreed, with rancor. Then her eyes widened. "Oh."
Molly nodded. "I think... Presskin tries to make up for lost time. I think it makes him feel guilty. It shouldn't, but it does. I know it makes him angry."
"I guess that's what Tilia meant when she said Jack was like Presskin."
Molly looked thoughtful. "I never really thought of that." She was very quiet for a few minutes. Then the proud figure of Delegate Rock was ahead of them. Molly stopped, stared.
"Haven't you ever been down here before?" Fiona asked, her voice quiet.
"Not since your dad died," Molly told her. She took a deep breath, then started walking again.
At the base of the statue, she stopped, looking up. She felt, more than saw, Fiona standing beside her. "You know, your grandfather's name is here."
"It is?" Fiona looked down at the plaque. "I guess it would have to be."
Molly nodded. "Your dad's family have been Delegates for longer than I think even anyone knows."
"I know." Fi smiled, almost proudly. "Makes me feel right at home."
Molly started, looked at her, sighed when she saw the look in her daughter's eyes. "Duty," she muttered, almost to herself, but Fiona raised an eyebrow quizzically.
"You'll never know how much like your dad you really are, Fi," Molly said, slipping an arm around her and hugging her close. "He tried to explain it to me, over and over, what it meant - duty, he said. That's all he ever said, as if it explained everything. But until I met her - I couldn't have had any idea. It seemed impossible."
She sighed. "But you're just like him. You understand it without even trying. When I think about it now, I almost envy you." She looked down at Fi, who smiled and hugged her back.
"They were so young, Fiona. Your age, almost exactly. I thought they'd break under the weight. But they never did. And your dad had a lot to do with that."
"That wasn't all, though. They were friends."
They were both quiet a moment, then Molly said: "They're all friends, Fi. They're family. That's what it means. That's what he told me."
"Hey, Mom--" Now Fiona was kneeling down, peering at the plaque, at a spot halfway up. The lettering was so tiny Molly wasn't sure how she could read it, but presently Fiona was pointing. "Look! Is that Grandpa?"
Molly crouched down next to her daughter, looking where Fiona indicated. "No - can't be. That's got to be from four hundred years ago." The plaque was immense, the base wider than the reach of her arms. The name "Elias O'Siannon" was crowded in between two Molly couldn't pronounce, but certainly, she decided, eyes running from top to bottom, further back than a few scant generations.
"But he's got to be related to us. He's an O'Siannon." Fi stared, shrugged, and bounced to her feet. Molly leapt up and followed her, glancing back over her shoulder as she ran.
"Fi! What's the hurry?"
"If he is a relative, there's only one way to find out!"
The book was where Fiona had left it, tucked in where she supposed, now, it shouldn't be, on one of the bottom shelves that was actually within reach. She'd known they'd need it later and hadn't wanted to go looking again, and Matt had flatly refused permission to keep any of the records anywhere but the proofed and warded library.
Her mother stood at her shoulder as she manhandled the heavy book over to the round table in the centre of the room, set it down with a resounding thud and opened it. As she flipped through remarkably well-preserved pages, her mother made a questioning noise in the back of her throat.
"I told you, yesterday, Arrah had us looking for the Registry? We only found part of it. Nothing going further back than a few dozen generations seems to have survived the last general pillage. But what's here should be enough." She stopped flipping, ran her finger down the page.
Molly leaned over the table. The page was covered in branching lines - a family tree. Of course. Fiona's finger drifted, then stabbed. "Elias O'Siannon. Son of William and Monica, married to... uh... Mary McBride. Um... huh." Fiona was staring down at the page with a puzzled look on her face.
"What is it?"
"His name's got a special mark," Fiona said, in that same puzzled tone.
"What does that mean?"
"It means," she said, turning back to the shelf and pulling out a slightly less ponderous volume, and flipping through it in turn, "Usually, that something happened to him and his kids got adopted into another Delegate family. The mark's the make sure the line doesn't get muddled."
Molly nodded, watching her daughter with some amazement as she navigated the chronicles deftly. At least she knew what Fi was talking about. She remembered Helena Llwellyn's daughters being taken in by the Brodys right after Rick's death - Rick hadn't been the only one to die that night. She remembered that when Helena had been found, alive, she had greeted her daughters only after thanking the Brodys for taking care of them. At the time Molly had thought it thoughtless, cold - but now she realized, with a shudder of unpleasant familiarity, that she'd have probably done the same. It was custom, if nothing else. Life was dangerous for Delegate families and all too often, at least since the rise of bureaucratic governments, children were snatched away from the Circle life by social workers before their sworn godparents could retrieve them.
Molly remembered riling against Katia, once, on this point - she'd thought the "real world" of the foster-care system safer. Katia had merely faced her with a cool stare and asked her how she'd feel to be a child and lose her parents, and then be forced to face the second hardship of being plucked from the midst of extended family and friends, her entire world. Molly had repented a moment later, remembering that six of the current Eight had been at the tender mercies of the Canadian foster care system for nearly four years, and two had not been even so lucky as that.
Circle life was not safe, perhaps, but at least it was home. Godparents - called Second Families - were designated before the birth of a first child, and the position was taken very seriously. She'd once thought, uncharitably, that it was all a device to keep children in the line, to keep numbers up - and in a sense, she knew now, that was true. There had never been enough Delegates - "Many," she remembered Rick saying, "but not nearly enough," and many traditions pointed towards the great value placed on the devotion offered by the Delegates. Children, for instance, were not automatically given the father's name, or even the mother's. Typically children inherited the name from the family side with the fewest remaining members. That little tidbit had made Molly shudder, but she understood it.
"Mum," Fiona asked as she turned pages, "who were our Second Family? Or do you remember?"
The question was all-too-casually asked. Fiona was glancing up at her, attention only partly on the pages of her book.
"Of course I remember," Molly said, a bit irked, though she wasn't sure why. "You'd have gone to the Quades."
"Quade? Wasn't that Dad's partner?"
Molly looked up in surprise. "How did you know that?"
Fiona grinned at her before going back to her book. "I pay attention. And I know Mina. She works with the GHC."
"Mina--" Molly bit her tongue. The last time she'd seen Mina Quade, the girl had been a rambunctious four-year-old with a penchant for getting into rather impressive trouble. But working for the Good Humans Club? One of the most controversial mutant rights organizations in the Union? At Jack's age--?
"How is her family?" Molly asked, then, almost afraid to hear the answer.
"Their mom died last year. Car accident. It's just Mina and Jason now."
Molly thought, suddenly, that she should look them up, and dismissed the notion. Eddie Quade had died only a few days after Rick. Molly hadn't sent condolences because she'd been...
...been...
She wondered if Rebecca Quade had died hating her. She hoped not. They'd been friends, once.
"Found it! Hey--"
Molly looked up. Fiona's voice had stopped in mid-sentence as if the words had been choked away. Indeed, her daughter was white as chalk.
"Fiona? What's wrong?"
When Fiona didn't answer, Molly made her way around the table and looked down at the page marked by Fi's thumb.
When she saw what was on the page, she wished she'd followed Katia's advice and just gone to bed.