A/N: Got another long one for you guys! Not as long as the last one, but enough to get some stuff sorted out for the next one.
"The approval of men is not worth much. They just act confident enough to convince you it is."
Chapter Ten: Problem Solving
"Slide the planchette to 'Hello!' it's—"
"Yeah, yeah, I know who you are, Darcy," Teddy said, skipping ahead in the video, eyes focused to his laptop screen.
The apartment in which Teddy lived was not the shittiest apartment he had ever had. It still wasn't nice, but he had once lived in a basement apartment that had flooded with several inches of rain water, so any dry apartment was a victory.
Officially, Teddy and Quinn were the only ones on the lease.
Unofficially, Nicolette kept insisting that she was living in her brother's spare room despite the fact that she was sleeping at this shitty apartment every night and had started contributing to rent each month.
Most of the band's equipment was crammed into the apartment when the last tour ended. Teddy was currently seated on a secondhand sofa in the living room that was filled to the brim with said equipment and boxes of leftover merchandise. There was no way to properly walk across the room or look out the far window anymore.
That was fine. The view was of a brick wall anyway.
The door to one of the bedrooms opened, Teddy barely noticed.
"Are you still awake?" Nicolette yawned, rubbing her eyes.
It was so late that it was somewhat inaccurate to still call it "late," having crossed over into being more appropriately described as "early." The sun would be rising soon.
"No point in fixing my sleep schedule now when we're going on tour again in a week," Teddy replied.
"I guess," Nicolette said, walking off toward the bathroom. Teddy's eyes had not left the screen. By the time Nicolette had returned, he had turned the volume up significantly, brow furrowed.
"Still on the ghost videos?" Nicolette asked, leaning over to see his screen better. A number of videos had appeared online in the past week of different ghost hunters that had made the trip to Burgess, all showing footage of frost covering their lenses.
Many had insisted that alongside the frost had come an actual sighting of the ghost of Jack Overland.
No one had managed to get proper footage or pictures of this.
Some viewers claimed that they saw a shadowy figure moving past the frost. Others claimed to see no such shadow. There were debates about how "obvious" the shadow had been, online arguments about people lying about what they had and had not seen.
Videos had popped up analyzing the frost effects, theorizing that it was all special effects added in post-production. Other ghost enthusiasts insisted that you could never get a group that large to all apply frost patterns to their footage in post-production in such a short time without someone letting it slip that it was all an act.
Not to mention, the frost patterns on each camera lens were unique, which meant that someone, somewhere, would have had to create dozens of unique frost animations and also keep quiet about it.
There were photos and videos taken with other devices showing the ice on the cameras. The more scientific corner of the internet attempted to provide explanations that had nothing to do with the supernatural.
Teddy had been obsessively examining the original footage, obsessively combing through the evidence and discussions.
"Listen, do you hear this?" Teddy said, replaying the clip he had been listening to.
The audio that was playing was full of static, and Nicolette was about to ask what she was supposed to be listening for when a voice spoke softly, "Miss you, Sawyer. It's… been a long year."
"Miss you, Sawyer," Nicolette repeated, eyes wide.
"It's been a long year!" Teddy finished. "I don't know if I believe audio of ghosts as much as all the footage of all that ice, but if they were going to fake it, why would they call her 'Sawyer?' They'd just call her 'Rowan.'"
"I wish we could find out for sure if Jack would call her by her last name," Nicolette said with a frown. "Play it again?"
Teddy backed the video up and played the recording again.
"Miss you, Sawyer. It's… been a long year."
"I mean, it's a bit fuzzy," Nicolette said, brow furrowed. "He could be saying something else, I suppose."
"I hear it really clearly," Teddy said, brow furrowed as he paused the video. He scrolled down to the comment section. "But everyone is arguing about that, too. A ton of people say that it's clear as day what he's saying, a ton of people say that there's no words at all, then there's people saying they can only kind of hear something."
"Download it, we'll have Quinn fuck with the audio when he wakes up," Nicolette said.
"That's the thing, a bunch of people have already done that. There's definitely something there, the waveform shows it, but for some reason there's people that can't hear it at all," said Teddy.
"Huh," Nicolette said, brow furrowed. "Download it anyway, we'll see what Quinn comes up with."
The sky was shades of pink and orange when Rowan cracked open her eyes, her head throbbing in an unmistakably "spent yesterday crying" way.
Her hand was still firmly in Jack's grasp, the boy still deep in sleep. She rubbed her eyes with her free hand, sighing heavily. When she opened her eyes again, she was disappointed, but not surprised, to find that she was still in Jack's cabin. Yet another in a series of confirmations that she had not dreamed up the events of the previous day.
For a moment she didn't move, simply watching Jack, his face cast in shadow.
Jack usually woke up before she did, often after falling asleep after her, even before the incident with the Shadow People left her weak and ill. She had assumed it was because he was immortal, magical, and needed less sleep each night than she did.
Watching him sleep was a rarity.
She had drawn his face so many times in a handful of weeks, first trying to remember it from a dream about pirates, and later spying it from the corner of her eye, until he turned up in her apartment and she could really, really look.
His jaw had such a nice angle to it, his nose a graceful curve. When his hair had turned white as an immortal, his thick eyelashes (why did boys always end up with such nice eyelashes?) had been left dark, and the contrast left his blue eyes all the more frustrating to view when Rowan was trying to think straight. His eyebrows appeared dark as well, but she knew there was gray and white mixed in too.
He had the faintest hints of freckles, easy to miss unless you really looked. It would be so easy to just call him "pale," but his undertones of blues and purples, even some pink in the right light, were so much more interesting than that. She loved trying to replicate the colors, loved the darkness around his eyes that showed the centuries he had seen.
Rowan hadn't done any drawing in her time at the pole. It was jarring to remember that she had to add a year to that time. She wondered if that sketchbook that Jack had brought for her was around somewhere. She could always draw in her notebook, but part of her wanted to leave it as it was, a preservation of her last musings before…
She tried to shy away from the idea of death as soon her thoughts approached it. How strange to spend night after night terrified of the notion, asking immortals that had experienced it what to expect, only to come out the other side having actually experienced it.
Much like Jack, much like Erato, Rowan did not remember what happened between dying and being brought back to life. She only vaguely remembered seeing a light before appearing on Mount Parnassus. She did not know where she was or what she had been doing before that light appeared, and the memory of it was becoming harder and harder to hang onto, like a strange dream.
She had definitely been somewhere. Jack had asked Baron Samedi, who had said she was happy, wherever she was. Baron Samedi didn't seem the type to lie about that.
But there was nothing, no memory to speak of, just a feeling that she had been somewhere.
And now she was here, lying in bed, watching her boyfriend sleep and holding his hand because it was all the contact that felt all right in this strange new body. Having been dead for a year just didn't make sense, even after all of Jack's explanations of the time she had missed.
Perhaps she should look at her obituary, at the funeral program. It would be tangible proof that this insane thing had truly happened.
Rowan carefully moved her hand from Jack's, unwilling to wake the boy who had done nothing but show her more patience and grace than anyone ever had. The least she could do was let him get some more sleep.
She leaned over, lightly pecking his cheek, and was disappointed to discover that even this came with a strange feeling of disconnect, as though she had to feel someone else showing him affection.
Her mind flashed to the image of Melpomene, creeping around her apartment and disguising herself so that she might taunt Jack's mind and kiss him gently on the cheek like it was nothing.
But that's what this body was, wasn't it? An imitation of the old one? Magical trickery? What made this body any more Rowan Sawyer than one that Melpomene could put on as a disguise? Was she really Rowan Sawyer without the body that had been Rowan Sawyer for twenty years?
Jack barely stirred at the small kiss, still sleeping soundly. Rowan carefully pulled herself out of bed, glad to find that the mattress was of nice enough quality that the shifting of her weight did not disturb him. She stepped lightly, glad that none of the boards beneath her feet creaked either.
It was odd to be able to walk, to move, easily now. She supposed she should be grateful for that. But it was hard to feel grateful about anything in regards to this body.
Down the ladder, across the room. She fiddled with the light switches until the lamp in the kitchen and the one set atop the chest of drawers turned on. She opened the top drawer, eyes immediately landing on the small sketchbook Jack had brought her at the pole, as well as the small pencil case.
She picked these up at once before grabbing the pile of papers, stacking these on top. Closing the drawer, she approached the small table in the small kitchen and set everything down, taking a seat.
At the top of the stack of papers was a funeral program with one of her paintings for class on the front, a mermaid. Above the painting was the text, "In Loving Memory of Rowan Jean Sawyer."
Even just seeing it written so plainly left her heart dropping into her stomach. Her date of birth, as well as her date of death, were listed below the painting.
Twenty years. How painfully short.
Beneath the program was a section of a newspaper with her obituary. Rowan did not read the words yet, but stared at her own face as well as some more of her artwork on the page. She shook her head, flipping to the last item in the stack of papers.
It was an envelope, still sealed, with Jack's name written in neat scrawl across the front.
"Hmm," Rowan said, setting the envelope, her sketchbook, and the pencil case on the far end of the table.
She returned her attention to the funeral program and with shaking hands unfolded it, unsure how far she would be able to read.
"I could have delivered these myself," Arachne said, setting two boxes down on the kitchen table in Mount Parnassus, Euterpe and Terpsichore seated there with some pastries that Polyhymnia had stayed up late stressfully making.
"Mm, we're putting together a few more things to take to her anyway," Terpsichore said. Thalia leaned past the boxes Arachne had just set down, reaching to grab for an éclair. "Euterpe will take it later."
"That's not going to be uncomfortable for you?" Arachne said, tilting her head as she gazed at the formerly-youngest Muse.
"No," Euterpe said, perhaps a bit too quickly.
Thalia and Terpsichore exchanged glances.
"So, are you over your crush, then?" Thalia asked.
"It's not a crush, it's… a coping mechanism, a distraction, a curiosity," Euterpe said. The others exchanged glances again.
Euterpe supposed she understood why, but wasn't looking forward to the conversation that was about to ensue regardless.
"Sounds like you're making it too complicated," Arachne observed.
"It's okay if it's a crush," Terpsichore said. Euterpe sighed heavily.
"All of my feelings about men in general are too complicated," Euterpe said. "Jack is my friend, I like him being my friend. I wanted to be his friend when Rowan was gone, I want to be his friend now."
"I'm just saying, if you're a little disappointed that Rowan's back now and he's officially-officially off the market, that's okay," Terpsichore said with a shrug, grabbing for another strudel from one of the platers. "I mean I wouldn't say as much to either of them, but it would make sense if you felt that way."
Euterpe frowned.
Did she feel that way?
Maybe, if she really, truly was honest with herself, she felt that way just a little. Maybe it had been nice to be able to think about being more than friends with Jack without Rowan in the picture.
But if Rowan had not returned, then Jack would be, well, available. There would be more mourning, certainly, but there would be no more possibility of her return looming over them all.
Euterpe was not sure Jack would feel as safe to be around if that was the case. She was self-aware enough to know that he felt safe and appealing because he had no romantic interest in her and was so focused on someone else.
He wasn't the first she had felt this way about.
Besides, she was so used to Jack mourning. He had spent the past year carrying around a vague sadness that was always present. Now the girl he had been mourning was back, and Euterpe was happy for him. She was looking forward to her friend's vague sadness being relieved, even just a little.
"More than anything else, I'm glad that Rowan's back. I'm glad I'm not the youngest anymore, I'm glad that Jack has her back in his life, I'm excited that we have a new sister," Euterpe said, hoping that she sounded sincere. She didn't want to keep pushing back on skepticism from the others. "Any other weird feelings I have are small compared to that. Plus, the idea of actually being romantically involved with a man is still terrifying."
"I'm gonna suggest what I always suggest," Thalia said.
"Date a woman?" Euterpe sighed, having been on the receiving end of this advice from Thalia multiple times.
"Date a woman," Thalia nodded. "I mean, you're bisexual."
"I know, I just get fixated on men more often and I don't know why," Euterpe said.
"You crave their approval, perhaps," Arachne said.
Euterpe frowned. "Maybe."
Her father. The impressive men that would come to hear her sing. The man that ended her life. The sun god that restarted it. The other immortal men that lurked about at any given moment.
Had she really spent all these centuries cowering and timidly doing what she could to gain acceptance, approval, from all of them?
How could Arachne figure it out so casually, as though glancing at the sky and remarking that it looked like it might rain?
But Euterpe supposed that all of Arachne's observations were somewhat casual, detached, never meant to be a comfort or an attack, just a fact.
"The approval of men is not worth much," Arachne shrugged. "They just act confident enough to convince you it is."
"Sounds right," Terpsichore nodded. "But really, you don't have to be the one that checks in on them if you don't want to."
"I'll be fine," Euterpe insisted.
She wanted to be, anyway. She had to be.
Euterpe had started her time as a Muse with Melpomene letting her bitterness overshadow any sisterhood that they were supposed to have. Euterpe had been on the receiving end of disdain, of jealousy, that ultimately isolated her for a time due to the others being unwilling to deal with Melpomene's tantrums.
She couldn't let that happen again. Euterpe had no intention of holding her own confused feelings about men that had just so happened to land on Jack against Rowan. That would not be fair.
At the end of the day, it didn't matter if Euterpe had a crush or didn't have a crush or if it was all just a strange fascination.
At the end of the day, Jack was in love with Rowan, and Rowan was in love with Jack, and they deserved to have that.
At the end of the day, Euterpe was determined to do better than what had been done to her.
Jack had been sure that if anything could stop his odd dreams about Rowan Sawyer, it would be a physically present Rowan Sawyer.
But she was still there, in a dream in which he was flying and suddenly didn't have his staff anymore, leaving him to fall a great distance and crash to the ground. Rowan appeared to help him upright and take him to bed to lie down and recover from the fall, asking him repeatedly if he had broken any bones, which he had not.
She had spoken mostly in dreamy riddles after that, climbing into bed next to him, holding his hand, before remarking that the others would soon realize that they had been sharing a bed, which Jack thought was a strange thing for her to bring up. Who were "the others?" The other Guardians? The Muses? This wouldn't be news to any of them, nothing to get up in arms over.
And if it was, it would be a bit hypocritical, as Jack knew that Erato had moved her things into North's sleeping quarters recently.
He tried telling Rowan this, but she had already fallen asleep.
This was around when Jack actually woke up.
He sleepily opened his eyes, and if his blood could go cold, it would have.
He was alone.
Suddenly fully awake, he bolted into a seated position, eyes wide as he looked around wildly for any sign of life. His hands were trembling, he could hear his heart beating in his ears. Breathing seemed suddenly difficult.
No, no, no, this couldn't be happening. Had he dreamed the entire thing? The nervous waiting at Mount Parnassus, the burst of light, the living, breathing Rowan Sawyer?
He fumbled for his staff and practically fell off the loft, still scanning the area around him frantically.
"Jack?"
He spun around to face the small kitchen, finding Rowan sitting at the small table, watching him with confusion at his awkward entrance.
Jack unclenched his jaw, a shaking sigh passing his lips as he did so. He clumsily set his staff against the wall before nervously gripping at his hair.
"Are… are you okay?" Rowan asked, pulling herself to her feet and approaching him. She had that look on her face again, that look of concern that everyone had been giving him lately.
He wanted to pull her into his arms, to hold her so close that he could not see that look of concern. He wanted to hold her so close that he could not question whether she was truly there or not.
Instead, he reached one trembling hand to her. She took it, still watching him with furrowed brow.
He reached his other hand forward, feeling her wrist for her pulse, and sighed again when he felt it.
"I—I just—I—" Jack attempted.
"Jack," Rowan said, stepping closer, hand still in his.
"Sorry… sorry," Jack said, swallowing and shaking his head. "Just—just a bit shaken up."
"Are you okay?" she asked again. "What happened?"
"It's nothing," he said, squeezing her hand. His breathing was still labored, his heart still too fast. "Don't worry about it, Sawyer."
"No," Rowan said at once. "What happened?"
She wasn't going to let it go.
He supposed that if the roles had been reversed, he wouldn't either.
"It's just—just this past year, sometimes I would dream that you were here, and I would wake up and lose you all over again," Jack said softly. "And—and for a second, I thought—"
"Oh," Rowan said, eye contact faltering. "I'm sorry. I thought I'd try to look at my obituary and let you get a bit more sleep."
"I'm just glad you're here," Jack said, his breathing finally starting to calm. Her eyes, so big and brown, met his again. He found himself thankful that Apollo hadn't made any "design changes" there.
Holding her hand, taking note of how big and brown and warm her gaze was, brought him back to his first (unsuccessful) attempt to kiss her.
It would be nice to kiss her now. Actions could be so much more articulate than words.
But for now, that was not an option. Words would have to do.
"I love you," he said.
"I love you, too," she said.
He hesitated a moment before finally releasing her hand. "How, uh, how did everything go with the obituary and everything?"
Rowan sighed, fiddling with her necklace. "It still doesn't feel real. Nothing about this makes any sense, and I—I keep thinking, what if I'm not even Rowan Sawyer at all?"
"What do you mean?" Jack said, taking his turn to eye her in confusion.
"What if Apollo just built me like—like some kind of Frankenstein's monster and just gave me all of Rowan Sawyer's memories so I just think that I'm her?" Rowan said, walking back to the table. "What if this is all an elaborate trick and I'm just some kind of illusion that doesn't know better?"
It was an interesting theory, certainly.
But if it was true, how would Apollo replicate her mannerisms? How would he know to replicate the way she bit her lip when she was unsure what to say? How would he know to give her gaze the right warmth, her roll of the eye the right amount of playfulness?
How would he know to make her worry the way she was now?
No, Apollo didn't know Rowan well enough for this to be an illusion.
Jack approached her where she stood, her gaze now set to the newspaper.
"Okay, the fact that you're worried about that has only confirmed to me that you're Rowan Sawyer," Jack said.
She spared a slight smile, facing him again. "I wish I felt like it."
Jack nodded, glancing down at the table's surface, pausing as his eyes landed on the envelope lying there. Before he could stop himself, he sighed heavily at the sight of it.
Rowan followed his gaze. "Oh," she said. "That was with everything else, so I just set it there, I didn't know what it was."
"Mm," Jack said. "Melpomene is apparently on an apology tour and everyone is getting a letter."
Rowan raised a brow. "And you haven't read it?"
"It's not going to make anything better," Jack said. "I was going to throw it in the fire."
It was frustrating that he couldn't bring himself to get rid of that stupid envelope. It seemed to still have some kind of hold on him, some part of him still sickeningly curious about what she had to say, but a much larger part not wanting to actually see the words, scared of what they might be.
"Well, I mean, it's not like you don't deserve several apologies from her," Rowan said. She stacked the envelope atop her funeral program, and then stacked these atop the newspaper. Taking the stack in her hands, she walked back to the chest of drawers, setting it back where it had been. She closed the drawer. "There, we can… deal with all that another day."
"I know it's stupid, I should just read it or burn it or whatever I'm going to do and get it over-with," Jack said, feeling more relieved than he would care to admit that Rowan had taken the envelope out of sight.
"So, what, she gets to wait over two hundred years to apologize to you at all and you have to read it as soon as she bothers?" Rowan said, cocking a brow. "You don't owe her a timely response. Or a response at all."
"Yeah, I'm sure I won't be responding either way," Jack said. "I'm just sorry you had to find it. I should have taken care of it before your anniversary."
"Like I said, you don't have a deadline, she—"
There was a swift knocking at the door, drawing both of their attention at once.
It was only a matter of time before someone showed up. With any luck it was just one of the Guardians. Jack wondered if word had gotten around to the mythical community at large that Rowan had been resurrected.
He wondered what Apollo's strategy would be in regards to Jack now that she was back. Surely he would double down on threats to tell the Guardians (and now Rowan) about Melpomene.
But it couldn't be Apollo. He wasn't one for polite knocking. Artemis, well, she had never visited Jack before, so he doubted it was her either.
Regardless, it was with careful steps that Jack approached the window, pulling at the drapes only slightly to glance outside.
"Who is it?" Rowan asked him, her voice low.
"Euterpe," Jack said, relieved, approaching the door and pulling it open.
Truthfully it was not immediately apparent that it was Euterpe, for she had three boxes in her arms and a drink carrier balanced carefully on top of that, obscuring the view of her face. It was mostly her hair that Jack had seen and recognized.
"Get the coffee so I don't spill it!" was the small Muse's greeting and Jack complied, careful not to touch the to-go cups and accidentally leave them cold. He stepped back and Euterpe entered, scuttling over to the sofa and setting the boxes down there.
Jack closed the door and set the drink carrier down on the table, three drinks settled there. One had lipstick on the lid, a sure sign that it was Euterpe's.
"Okay, so, Arachne took the clothes that Thalia and Melpomene wore to disguise themselves as you and modified them to your not-on-the-edge-of-death measurements, so those and the boots they wore are in the bottom two boxes. Everything's been washed and pressed and all that," Euterpe was saying to Rowan, pointing to the boxes in question. "And the top one is just some miscellaneous care package things. We would have gotten you some hair dye, but I don't know what brand or exact color you use."
"Oh," Rowan said, brow furrowed, clearly taken back at all of this. "Um. Thank you?"
"I also didn't know how you took your coffee, so I got both of you black," Euterpe said, approaching the table. She began emptying her pockets of fistfuls of small containers of creamer and sugar packets, all of different varieties. She even had a few packets of honey in the mix. "And I just—I kinda grabbed some of everything."
"Mm, you might almost have enough sugar there," Jack said, taking one of the lipstick-free coffees. Rowan rolled her eyes at the comment before glancing back Euterpe's way.
"Um, thank you. This is, uh, a lot all at once," Rowan said. She took a seat at the table and took the other lipstick-free coffee, gently prying off the lid. Jack stepped aside, allowing Euterpe to take the other seat at the table.
"I know," Euterpe said, taking her drink from the holder.
Rowan cautiously took a drink of the black coffee to make room for all of the cream and sugar she was about to add, making a face at the bitterness.
"Everything else go okay yesterday?" Jack asked Euterpe as Rowan started tearing open sugar packets.
"As far as we've heard," Euterpe said. "Some of the yetis saw some quick moving shadows in the Warren and around here, but it wasn't enough to really sound any alarms. No trouble here?"
"Not yet," Jack said, leaning against the counter.
"Good," Euterpe said.
"Backtracking a bit," Rowan said, the black of her coffee now a pale brown as she stirred it. "I know this isn't like a top priority, but you mentioned hair dye. Where do you get yours?"
Euterpe quite obviously dyed her hair. The short side sections were a bright red to contrast with the dark brown of the rest of her fauxhawk.
"We just go to a beauty supply store," Euterpe said. "Cori and I can get some money from Clio and take you, if you want. I would just give you the money, but, uh, our natural state is not to be seen by mortals and you haven't learned to become visible yet."
"People… can't see me?" Rowan said, eyes wide, seeming to be trying to wrap her mind around this.
"I'm afraid not," Euterpe said, her tone gentle. For a moment no one spoke, letting this information sink in as well as it could.
After a beat, Rowan shook her head and said, "Visible or not, I don't want to take your money."
Jack supposed he understood the impulse. Rowan was not particularly fond of the Muses, and feeling like she owed them something would be uncomfortable at the very least.
On the other hand, it wasn't as though Rowan had any other source of income at the moment, or even access to any savings she had previously been in possession of.
"It's your money, too," Euterpe said. "People leave tribute for the Muses and Clio invests and saves it for all of us."
"I'm not—" Rowan started, stopping short and wincing as she set her lid back on top of her coffee cup.
Jack was sure she was about to say, I'm not a Muse. She had said it a number of times since learning of her association with the group.
"I don't know," Rowan mumbled after a few moments of silence, taking a drink of her now-sweetened coffee.
"It's no trouble. Cori and I can take you and you can just point out the things you need and we'll make the purchase," Euterpe said. "I mean. I know I felt a bit better about the whole 'new body' thing when I cut my hair."
"It's not just the hair that's wrong," Rowan sighed, glancing at her left wrist.
"I mean, getting tattooed all over again doesn't sound fun, but you could do it," Jack said, wincing slightly at the idea of getting tattooed one time.
"If people can't see me, how am I supposed to get tattooed again?" Rowan frowned.
"One of North's yetis does tattoos," Jack said. "He could probably copy your old ones."
"Moe is very talented," Euterpe nodded.
"But I don't even have pictures of the old ones to reference," Rowan said. "If I could go online and print something out, that would be one thing. I mean, the artists I went to in the first place probably have pictures posted online at least."
Jack barely had a moment to consider this before Euterpe was diving in with a solution.
"North gave us a computer for Christmas, and Clio has it hooked up to a printer somehow without using wires," Euterpe said. "How about tomorrow Jack brings you by the mountain? We'll show you the room set aside for you there, take you to get hair dye and anything else you might need, and you can dye your hair and get the pictures for your tattoos."
"A room?" Rowan said, brow furrowed.
"Everyone has one now," Euterpe said. "You get a bedroom, your own bathroom, and a second room to make into a studio. But, uh, you don't have to move in yet if you don't want to, you're probably more comfortable here."
"This is a lot," Rowan said, shaking her head. "I—Are all of you at the mountain? All the time?"
"No," Euterpe said, shaking her head. "Urania mostly drops by when she finally gets tired. Cori is in and out. Erato is still living at the pole, she's barely moved into her room at the base."
"I'm not worried about them," Rowan said, eyes fixed to her coffee, her frown clear in her tone.
"Ah," Euterpe said awkwardly. "Well, Melpomene usually stays in her room, if she's around."
"And Calliope?" Rowan said.
"She's been around more lately because of preparations for the coup—did Jack tell you about the coup?" Euterpe said.
"The whole Apollo and Artemis thing?" Rowan said. "Yeah."
"Right, so Calliope is working on that a lot so she's been at the base more," Euterpe explained. "But if you're not feeling up to talking to her, she'll back off. We all know it's overwhelming this soon after coming back."
"Yeah, Calliope has almost never given a shit what I find overwhelming is the thing," Rowan said.
Jack almost said that Calliope did seem to feel badly about that, but the sentiment would not mean much coming secondhand. After all, the only reason he was on better terms with the eldest Muse was because she had spoken to him in person and admitted to being wrong first.
"We can keep the interactions at the base to a minimum," Euterpe said. "Which of us do you feel the most comfortable around?"
"Honestly?" Rowan said. "I don't feel particularly comfortable around any of you."
Jack and Euterpe each winced slightly at this response.
Jack knew he shouldn't be surprised.
His relationship with the Muses had improved. Rowan's had simply been paused.
"You and Terpsichore at least tried to treat me like a person, and I appreciate that. And Erato has no concept of boundaries, but she has been kind and she has tried to be helpful, so I can do my best around the three of you. You were willing to try with me, so I will try with you," Rowan said evenly. "But Calliope has been nothing short of a colossal bitch every time I've interacted with her. Clio couldn't stand to be around me more than a few seconds at a time. I'm pretty sure Thalia only talked to me as much as she did at the ball because she was drunk. And Melpomene? Where the hell do I even start?"
"That's fair," Euterpe said. "For what it's worth, I'm sorry your experience with us has been so poor."
"Yeah, I am too," Rowan said.
"I do want to help you. And I know it feels weird to take resources from someone you don't trust entirely, but I would like to help you get your hair dye and products and anything else that would help," Euterpe said.
Rowan sighed, taking a strand of her hair between her thumb and forefinger, eying it critically. Jack took a drink of coffee, having not expected a tense conversation about hair dye, but he supposed he would take any conversation that Rowan was a part of right now.
"I know hair is a really important part of identity," Euterpe said. "Like I said, I cut all mine off when I came back. It was some kind of control I had over the whole situation."
"Did it make it feel like it was your body?" Rowan asked.
"It felt better," Euterpe said.
"I mean, dying your hair can't make it worse, right?" Jack said, not sure about this statement at all. He wasn't sure he had ever given his hair all that much thought. He certainly hadn't given the color much thought before finding out about Nightlight.
"If I go with you, where are we going?" Rowan asked.
"We'll pick somewhere not too crowded, somewhere far from here so you don't have to accidentally run into someone you know. Clio figured out how to get the portals to work, so we have a lot of options," Euterpe said. "And, I mean, we'll get whatever you need, gloves, scissors, bleach, whatever. And I know Erato put some makeup in the care package but if you're real particular about like, mascara or something, we can pick something up."
"I mean, ideally, I'd like to get some pens and a new notebook. Or a few notebooks," Rowan said.
"That's easy enough," Euterpe nodded. "Since we're planning the coup, it's best to get all this before that point, we're gonna have to lie low after. Like I said, we can do it tomorrow if you'd like."
Rowan eyed her coffee cup for a moment, her fingertips tracing the stones on her necklace before glancing Jack's way.
"You probably have to check in with the Guardians at some point, don't you?" she asked.
Jack sighed, unsure why he felt somewhat overwhelmed at the idea.
Perhaps it was the expectation that he should be visibly happier now that Rowan was back, and the possibility that he might not be able to actually pull that off.
He was happy she was back. But that feeling collided so strangely with the mourning. Hell, he had woken up sure she was gone again.
It had taken a while for her death to really feel real. Perhaps it only made sense that it would take a while for her return to truly feel real as well.
"Probably," he said. "I mean, I'm sure eventually one of them will pop up anyway."
"Maybe tomorrow I can go with Euterpe and Terpsichore to get whatever essentials and you can touch base with the Guardians, make some blizzards," Rowan said.
There it was, another sure-fire indication that this was, in fact, Rowan Sawyer: Reminding him to go take care of his actual winter-related responsibilities.
"I mean, I'm sort of unofficially your guard again with how tense everything's been," Jack said.
"Cori and I will be with her, though. We know self-defense and if all else fails we can make a quick escape with the portals," Euterpe pointed out.
"Mm," Jack said, knowing Euterpe and Terpsichore could hold their own easily but apprehensive all the same.
"Unless you want to dye your hair, too," Euterpe said. "You have a perfect base for it."
"You really do," Rowan nodded.
"You could do any color," Euterpe said.
"Hard pass, I'm pretty sure the dye would just freeze," Jack said, shaking his head.
"What a waste," Euterpe sighed. "Anyway, hair stuff can take hours, you might as well go do Guardian stuff while we're busy with that."
"I… yeah, I guess," Jack sighed.
"Who did your piercings?" Rowan asked Euterpe.
"Oh, I do them myself!" said Euterpe brightly. "What did you want?"
"Well, I had three lobe piercings, a daith piercing, and a helix piercing. On both ears," Rowan said.
"The daith will be a bit tricky, but I have curved needles, I can do it," Euterpe nodded. "We'll pick up jewelry for them while we're out."
"Okay. And it's just you and Terpsichore that will be there for all this?" Rowan clarified.
"Yes, I'll let everyone else know that's all you're comfortable with," Euterpe said.
"Okay," Rowan said. "Okay, then I think we can do this."
"Great," Euterpe said. "I think you'll feel better for sure."
"I, uh, I'll ask North about your tattoos," Jack said, wishing he could do more than possibly set up a meeting with a yeti.
"Thank you. Both of you," Rowan said.
"De nada," Euterpe said, pulling herself to her feet. "We're sisters."
"Mm," Rowan said, non-committal.
"I should probably head out," Euterpe said. She gave Jack a quick hug, as though hoping that the speed would keep him from tensing up, but somehow he still managed for a second anyway. She turned to Rowan, "I'd hug you, but, with everything…"
"Thank you," Rowan nodded, seeming somewhat relieved.
"It will feel better," Euterpe insisted. She headed for the door, her coffee in hand. "See you both tomorrow."
"Thanks for stopping by," Jack said.
"Bye," said Rowan.
Euterpe let herself outside, and a flash of light outside the windows indicated that she had departed via portal.
Jack took the seat that Euterpe had vacated, eying Rowan as she traced her finger around the lid of her coffee, her gaze unfocused. The cabin was noticeably quiet now that Euterpe had departed.
Rather than break the silence, Jack cautiously reached forward again.
Rowan forced another smile before taking his hand.
"I, um, I hope the dye helps," Jack said finally.
"I hope so, too," Rowan said, smile fading. "I hate that I can't just go to the store and buy it on my own like I always do. I mean, I spent two weeks counting down to when my life was going to go back to normal and now all of a sudden it's a year later and I—I can't even buy a box of hair dye."
She was blinking back tears. Jack squeezed her hand.
"I know it's just hair, it's just hair dye, I—" she started.
"I don't think it is, or you wouldn't be so fixated on it," Jack said, brow furrowed.
Rowan took a deep breath. "When I was younger, I remember going online and seeing these pictures of beautiful girls with tattoos and bright hair and just—I think I admired that they had made themselves art, in a way. I wasn't old enough to get tattoos yet, but I thought the hair was something I could do, so when I was fourteen, I told my parents that I wanted to dye my hair pink. They just laughed at me and said, 'we're not paying for you to ruin your hair.' So, I looked up how to do it myself online, and I took the money I had from babysitting and birthdays and I walked to the store to get the bleach and the dye myself. I remember, it was Veteran's Day, so I had the day off from school, but they both went into the office anyway. I spent that whole day bleaching my hair so I could dye it pink. They were pissed when they got home and saw me."
"I liked your pink hair. It, uh, it made me smile every time I saw the pictures," Jack said, the smile in question having crept onto his face as she spoke about the dye job.
"Yeah, because you were making fun of me," Rowan said, managing a smile as well.
"Of course I was, your hair was pink, and you had a fake lip ring, and you had so much black eye makeup on—"
"Yeah, I know, I looked like a neon raccoon," Rowan said. "I'm sure if photography had been properly invented yet there'd be some embarrassing pictures of you at fourteen and fifteen, too."
"Being fourteen isn't a good time for anyone, I don't think," Jack said, shaking his head.
"I don't think so, either. Anyway, I totally fried my hair, it didn't really feel like hair anymore until I grew it out again, you're not supposed to lighten it that much all in one go. But it meant so much to me, it was just… I had control over this. I was doing this for me. I was doing what I wanted, not what my parents wanted. They had a very clear idea of the kind of over-achiever I was supposed to be, and that over-achiever did not have pink hair and cut up clothes and a lip ring."
"I'm sure you were still on the honor roll and everything even with the pink hair, Little Miss Nice List," Jack said.
"You know it," Rowan said, her soft smile returning. "And then when I first dyed my hair burgundy, I was still dating Danny and I had offhand mentioned that I was thinking of dying my hair because I hadn't in years at that point. And he said he didn't want me to. And that just solidified it, I dyed it that night. I guess—I guess it's just always been a small way for me to be independent. I use my own money to do what I want with my hair."
Jack nodded. "Maybe it would feel better if you think of it less as the Muses paying for you and more that you're using the resources available to you?"
"Maybe," Rowan shrugged. "I hope I… I hope I recognize myself more by the end of it."
"Euterpe seemed pretty sure that it would help. She's been where you are," Jack said.
Rowan nodded, glancing past Jack toward the sofa. "I guess I should see what they could have possibly given me in that care package."
She released his hand, rising to her feet. She went to the sofa to retrieve the top box in the pile and brought it back to the table. Jack pushed the large pile of sugar packets and creamer aside to make room for Rowan to set the box down.
She sat down again, both of them eying the box curiously. She pulled the lid off the box and set it on the floor.
There was a cosmetics bag, as Euterpe had mentioned, along with face wash, moisturizer, a toothbrush, tooth paste, and a hair brush. A few of the items had post-it notes stuck to them, Jack's eye immediately catching the one on the tooth paste that said, "Welcome back! -Tooth."
There was a note on a bag of cookies that read, "North says Americans like the classic chocolate chip, hope you enjoy. – Polyhymnia."
There were bars of chocolate, bags of tea, and a strange wooden block with a note that said, "A brain teaser. I have plenty more. – Clio."
"Three guesses who left these," Rowan said, lifting a box of condoms from the package, the note on the far side from Jack.
Jack sighed. "Erato is always, uh, looking out for us, hm?"
"The note says 'For when you're feeling better! Xo, Erato,'" Rowan said, setting the box back where it had been. "I, um, don't know when that will be."
"No rush," Jack said, having not even considered the possibility of sex since Rowan's return. It was still surreal that she was physically present in the cabin at all, and holding hands was all the physical content that they had dared try since the awkward embrace the previous day left her in hysterics.
"Thanks," Rowan said. She furrowed her brow, moving aside the cosmetics bag to reveal an envelope that had been tucked behind it, her name written on it in neat scrawl.
Jack recognized the handwriting immediately and hated that he did. He didn't need the post-it note to clarify, "An apology letter from Melpomene."
"Wow, I got one a lot quicker than you did," Rowan said, taking the envelope in her hand. "I mean I guess you didn't have to die for yours, though."
"Are you going to read it?" Jack asked.
"Hell no, I already read about my tragically short life today, that's plenty," Rowan said, walking over to the chest of drawers to set the envelope with Jack's. "Maybe we'll make a night of it and read them both at some point."
"Sounds like a terrible date, I'd rather take you to a movie," Jack said.
"We'll see how I handle being invisible in public tomorrow," Rowan said with a frown, approaching the table again.
"Honestly, that's part of what I like about sneaking into movies," Jack said. He had been sneaking about to watch films as soon as they started catching on. "It's dark and everyone is watching the screen anyway, it felt a lot less like I was invisible and a lot more like I was just experiencing the film like everyone else was."
Rowan, having not returned to her seat yet, was giving him one of those concerned looks again, and Jack supposed he must have accidentally told an anecdote that he didn't realize was as sad as it actually was again. She reached forward and he took her hand in his.
"I see you," she said.
A gentle reminder, an assurance.
"I see you," he said.