hey y'all, sorry about the wait for this but tbh things are getting a lot heavier now and i feel like it's better to take my time so i can put up something good instead of rushing to meet a frankly arbitrary deadline. there's a Lot in here so hopefully that makes up for it lol. also, just a heads up that the last section of this chapter deals with a lot of heavy stuff, a lot more forwardly than it's been mentioned before –bel

A Wolf Among Lilacs
Part Two: Hope/Fear
Chapter Twenty-Five: All The Places They Have Been

He found her alone in the morning, as Yennefer expected him to. After the events of the previous night, she hadn't even bothered trying to convince herself that she would be able to avoid him for the remainder of the conference, especially considering that the Chapter and Council were expected to remain a group for the vast majority of it. That afternoon, they'd attend the commencement ceremony for adepts from Aretuza and Ban Ard who had completed their final projects and passed all the other required exams. It was the only thing required of them for the day, besides the setting up that needed to be done by those who were presenting their research the next morning. Every year past, she had been grateful for the reprieve, for the excuse to stay across the bridge in Gors Velen all day and not have to bother with any of it. Now, that blessing had become a curse.

She remembered her own commencement in far more detail than she wanted to—being stared at by hundreds of curious people, trying to keep a straight face, in a black dress with long sleeves because she couldn't show even the slightest sign of what had happened to her. What she'd done. Anyone there would pounce on it if they knew; it had been bad enough that Tissaia had stepped down at the end of the year and left the rectoress position open. There had been speculation surrounding that; she hadn't wanted to make it worse. So she'd gone through the ceremony and all the attention that came with it with as much of a neutral expression as she could muster. Afterwards, later that night, things had gotten worse. But if she had made it through that, she reasoned, surely she could survive this.

They were on one of Loxia's many balconies, where most of the conference's attendants who had stayed overnight had gathered for breakfast, though most had dispersed by the time he showed up. Val had wanted to spend as little time around the others as possible, so she went alone, trying for all the world to look like she wanted to be there. That in itself wasn't difficult; she'd been doing it for years, and by now it had become second nature. No, it was the particular circumstances of the conference that lingered at the back of her mind now—the knowledge that he was here somewhere, waiting for a moment where he could get her alone, and that Geralt was there too, likely confused by her sudden refusal the night before—

She pushed the idea away. She would not think about Geralt now.

"I thought I'd find you here," said an all-too-familiar voice from behind her, and then Vilgefortz entered her field of vision, sitting down at the empty chair across from her. Most of the others who had greeted her on their way into the room had apparently realized that she wanted to be left alone, but he had never particularly had any respect for her personal space. He had done this every year since he graduated from Ban Ard, since he'd quickly risen through the ranks to be appointed to a recently-vacated Chapter position. This year was no different.

(She remembered the first time it happened with painful clarity—how she had slipped out immediately after the ceremony, ignoring all of Val's questions and protests, and barred herself in Triss's hotel room for the rest of the night. She had thought, despite all the pain that had come from the whole situation, she could find a small blessing in that she would never have to see him again. It stung to be wrong.)

"You know, it's been eleven years since I had even the slightest interest in talking to you," she said, looking not at him but down at her own hands, proud, at least, that they did not shake. "You really should find a new hobby."

When she looked back up at him he was raising an eyebrow, his own hands folded neatly in front of him, the picture of decorum. "Not at all?" he asked, not even waiting for a response. "You don't even want to thank me for securing you a Council position?"

"I would thank you if I'd actually wanted it." As it was, her newfound power had caused more problems than it was worth to her, especially considering that—though she'd been told she had a knack for negotiating—her interest in politics was slim to none. That realm of magic was best left to Philippa, if anyone, and now the blame was going to fall squarely on her and Tissaia for putting Yennefer in this position. A role she hadn't even wanted. No one would believe that Vilgefortz was the one who had wanted to see her in it so badly; by most accounts, they barely even knew each other. Only a select few were privy to the truth.

He frowned, pressed his lips together. Secretly, she enjoyed it—forcing him to realize that he didn't know her quite as well as he thought, that she wasn't the same girl she'd been at sixteen, not so easily swayed. He'd likely assumed that the sudden power he'd given her would make her think of him more favorably. He hadn't stopped to consider that she might not have any interest in it. "What do you want, then?"

Yennefer was looking, not directly into his eyes, but somewhere over his ear. She didn't think she could bear what would happen if she met him head-on, especially considering what had happened the night before. "I already told you. To be left alone."

"Alone?" She nodded, and for a blessed moment he was quiet. Even though he wasn't speaking, she knew he had to have some kind of backup plan, something else to try and bribe her with in the event that the Council position wasn't enough. All she had to do was wait for him to present it to her.

"I spoke to your witcher last night."

Well. That was certainly not what she'd been expecting.

"If you think that Geralt is anyone's witcher, much less mine, you're sorely mistaken." She tried to keep her tone dry, her voice steady, but under the table, her hands splayed on her thighs, fingers digging into her skin. It came to her, then—he had seen the two of them together at the Yule party and drawn his own conclusions from there. Incorrect conclusions, as far as he was aware, and she needed to keep it that way, for both their sakes. Gods forbid he find out about Ciri somehow, connecting dots that most people didn't even know were there.

"What was he doing with your friends, then?"

She forced a laugh. The only way she could get by was by acting like she found the whole thing ridiculous. If she was lucky, he wouldn't realize how close to right he was. "We have several mutual friends. We share a workplace. That's all there is to it."

"Then why were you both absent from the banquet at the same time?" He was getting frustrated, she could tell; no one else would have noticed it, but the tense set of his jaw gave him away. Perhaps she was closer to getting him to leave than she thought—or, a voice in the back of her head whispered, making her stomach lurch, he's still got one more ace up his sleeve.

"Really, you jump to the most ridiculous conclusions. I wasn't aware he had left. I left because I didn't want to talk to you. Which I still don't."

She was just beginning to wonder how many times she would have to say it before he took the hint and left (though by this point it was less a hint and more her throwing the words in his face) when he stood, rounding the table so he could linger next to her chair. She lifted her arms and crossed them so he wouldn't see how anxious his questions had made her. She could affect indifference. She'd done it every year before this.

"You say that," he murmured, bending down so he was uncomfortably close to her ear. "I know better than to believe you."

Another few seconds and he was gone, leaving her alone on the balcony and taking a great deal of her tension with him. She let herself slump slightly, let one arm drop back to her side while the other went to the star at her neck, more an automatic reflex than anything else. As she moved, she was startled by the cold slide of metal against her wrist. The damned bracelet. She'd almost forgotten she was still wearing it. She'd been trying quite hard to forget, or at least not to think too long on what it meant, what the implications were.

She had meant what she said to him the night before. If all he had wanted was to get her into his bed, she would've agreed without a second thought. Sex without emotional strings attached was one thing—but there had been strings before they even met, and now they were hopelessly tangled. It was hard to tell, when he was around her (and he projected his emotions so strongly, even if he didn't realize it), where his longing ended and her own began. She only knew that it was too much. He wasn't supposed to do this to her.

The last time she had felt like this, she'd made the biggest mistake of her life. She didn't intend on making it twice.

~oOo~

After listening to several minutes of Triss's insistent begging, Geralt finally agreed to accompany her to the commencement ceremony, the only thing he would stay for before he made her open a portal back to Oxenfurt. He hadn't been planning on it—some part of him knew she would ask him to stay, and he'd been ready to refuse her—and then she said "If you're not here it'll just be me and Val and Regis, and they hate each other," and the despairing tone that came out of her when she even talked about the possibility had been enough to convince him. Not to mention (and this was more of a deciding factor than he wanted to admit) he might get the chance to talk to Yennefer again. Try and figure out what, exactly, this thing between them was.

"I wouldn't get your hopes up," Regis had said when Geralt asked him about it, trying to sound as casual as possible. "She'll have to sit with the rest of the Council up front, and there will be so many people trying to talk to her after that I doubt she'll have a moment to herself. Leaving the banquet so early only made people more insistent to get a minute with her now."

He couldn't help but wonder, as they sat down in a row of chairs near the back of the banquet hall, which had been filled with them to accommodate the crowd, whether or not Regis knew anything about all of this. He and Yennefer were close, though Geralt still wasn't sure what their history was, and it seemed likely that if she were to say anything to anyone, it would be him. Regis liked to talk, but he could hold his tongue when it mattered. Would he say anything to Geralt himself, though, if he got the notion he was involved?

"Is she..?" He paused, cleared his throat. "I mean, did you see her last night after she left?"

"No. I saw her this morning." Just like the banquet, Regis fit in effortlessly here, to the point where a few people had even greeted him as he came in. By contrast, Geralt felt ridiculously out of place. Triss had assured him that nobody would think twice about it, but he knew better. Witchers were an oddity anywhere else, why not in a room full of mages? "She didn't look well."

On Geralt's other side, Triss sighed, twisting her hands nervously around each other in her lap. "She'll get over it eventually, I think," she said quietly, glancing around at the people filing in as if to make sure they couldn't hear, though he doubted anyone would be trying to eavesdrop. "But she hates the attention. She always has."

He didn't need her to tell him that—it had been plain enough to see the night before—but before he could say anything about it Istredd was there, stepping past all of them to take a seat on Triss's other side. He didn't look happy about it, and Geralt had to wonder what it was that made him look at the three of them and decide that was the seat that would bother him the least. As he passed Geralt, he didn't spare a glance for him, but Geralt imagined he could feel the suspicion rolling off him in waves. If he had even the slightest indication of what happened…

"He sits here because, according to most, it's the place he should be," Regis said to Geralt, soft enough that no one else would be able to hear. "With Yenna's friends. Any time he showed up before, she would be with him and no one would even notice. But now there's a spotlight on him too."

It was no secret to Geralt that what Yennefer and Istredd had—whatever it was at this point—was considered highly unusual to most mages, who tended not to engage in anything more than casual partnerships, especially as they aged. To have publicly committed to each other so early, in Yennefer's case particularly, had drawn a fair amount of unwanted and negative attention. He couldn't be sure whether or not that was the reason she stayed, or if it was something else. Try as he might not to pry, he could tell she wasn't happy there.

He must have given off the impression that he wasn't in the mood for talking, because Regis didn't speak again, and Triss didn't either, though that was probably because Istredd was sitting next to her; in most cases, it was hard to get her to stop talking if she was nervous. They stayed like that until the ceremony started, when most of the crowd stood to get a good look at the students as they processed down two at a time, sizing them up. Geralt didn't care about that—he was more interested in the people who came first. The Chapter and Council, paired one from each group, leading the students.

She was there, the last Council member to enter, and something in him burned to see that not only was she walking next to Vilgefortz, but she'd slipped her hand into the crook of his elbow. She gave no indication that she was uncomfortable, but knowing what he knew now, she had to be. Vilgefortz, for his part, just looked smug. Not for the first time in the past day, Geralt had the sudden urge to break his nose.

"That's smart," Regis whispered, and Geralt looked at him in confusion and dismay. What about this picture could possibly be considered smart? "By physically associating herself with him, she throws suspicion off of Philippa and Tissaia and puts it on him. No one thinks she got this position based on her academic merit alone, Geralt."

Right. Even with a perfectly reasonable answer right in front of him, he still couldn't comprehend it. She had done plenty of things she wasn't comfortable with, but this…this was on another level, and publicly besides. He watched her separate from him and sit down on one of the chairs set up for the Chapter and Council at the back of the small stage. She didn't once give the slightest indication of any discomfort.

The ceremony seemed to drag on for hours, though in reality it couldn't have been more than two, and he spent most of it staring at her, trying to get her to catch his eye. It seemed she was deliberately looking anywhere but at him. It was frustrating, the way she pulled back so insistently after she felt like they'd gotten too close—it wasn't the first time she'd done it, after all, but at least the first time she hadn't been so harsh about it.

It would be best, he decided as the newly graduated students began to file back out of the hall to a smattering of applause, to put it out of his mind. She clearly had, at least if the way she avoided his gaze was any indication. There would be no point in dwelling any longer on something that was no longer a possibility.

~oOo~

By some miracle, she managed to get through nearly the whole day avoiding Val completely. Yennefer had woken up earlier than him in order to slip out of their room unnoticed, and his general dislike of crowds had apparently been enough to stop him from trying to find her sooner. But she knew it would only last for so long, and if they had to have this conversation (because she knew he wouldn't have forgotten about what she promised), they would, at least, have it on her terms.

She managed to find a quiet spot, this time not on a balcony but outside the palace walls completely, leaning against the railing that circled the island and staring out at the sea. It wasn't the best place to do things, in retrospect, but she knew they wouldn't be interrupted. Rumors had been flying around about what had happened here for years, though for the time being they were just that. No one had yet managed to connect them back to her, and she hoped it would stay that way.

"Do you come here often?" she heard him ask, coming up to stand beside her. He didn't try to touch her, not yet, and she was grateful for that small concession. She laid her hands on the railing. Wide enough to stand on, but sloped, brought to a dull point in the middle. Easy to lose one's balance. She had hoped that would be a good enough excuse.

"No. I did, once." She didn't look over at him. Part of her couldn't believe she was even doing this. She'd tried so hard to keep everything about her past from him, even the most inconsequential things, but he already knew. There would be no harm, she supposed, in giving him that much, though she wasn't sure what she would say if he tried to press further. "The view is…lovely."

"Yes, it is."

She had to bite her lip to keep from laughing. It was rare that he complimented her, rare that he said anything that could be interpreted as even vaguely romantic, but there he was, and she could feel him staring at her, waiting for a response. For her to acknowledge it, perhaps. She couldn't bring herself to. "More so from this angle, I suppose."

She couldn't help but lean forward the slightest bit, just enough to see the bottom of the cliffs, the slide down to the sea. The memory was visceral, full-body; she could feel every injury as if she'd just gotten it, though there was no physical evidence left of any of them, save the one, and that had already been there. It took him a moment to piece her words together, but when he did he stilled beside her. He put one of his own hands on the railing, next to hers, but not touching it. She could read too much into that if she let herself.

"Can—" This was new. In the ten years they'd known each other, she didn't think she'd ever once heard him at a complete loss for words. Quite the opposite—he usually had far too much to say for her liking. "Can I ask why?"

"You can." Her voice was softer than usual; some instinct had kicked in, one that screamed at her that she couldn't be overheard. She wondered if he felt it too, or if he was too shocked to even consider the possibility. "But I don't know if I'll answer."

It clearly wasn't what he wanted to hear, especially considering she'd told him they would talk about it, but surprisingly, he didn't press that particular statement. "I—how did you—how are you here?"

She did laugh at that, just the slightest bit, and the sound seemed to put them both at ease. Val could talk around whatever point he was trying to make for hours if someone let him; he had chosen a good time to be refreshingly blunt. "I got very lucky," she said, and this time it was her who slid her hand over to cover his. "And there was already a surgeon here."

Another point she hoped he wouldn't ask further about—there was no way for her to explain that the surgeon also happened to be a higher vampire, and if it hadn't been for that particular fact, he wouldn't have been able to save her. Val already disliked Regis enough for ridiculous reasons. She didn't need to give him a perfectly valid one.

When she finally looked over at him, he was staring out at the water with his lips pressed together tightly, an expression she usually only saw when he was working on some particularly difficult project. Though, she supposed, she had been difficult of late. Their relationship had never been easy, but the last few months had complicated it immeasurably. "Is…" he started, then trailed off for a moment, like he was afraid to ask, to hear what she might say in return. "Is that why you were staying with me in the first place?"

"Yes," she admitted, and though his expression didn't change, she could tell he wasn't happy with her answer. "But it's not the reason I'm here now."

She prayed he didn't ask what that reason was. He could fill in whatever blanks he wanted as long as she didn't have to tell him that she truly didn't know what that reason was anymore. A sense of misguided gratitude, perhaps, or the desire to finish what she had started by accepting his proposal two years ago. Whatever it was, she was grateful for it now. Val was no great romantic, and they fought more often than they got along, but he was comfortable. Safe. He'd only hurt her in ways that didn't matter, and he didn't make her heart feel as though it didn't belong in her chest. After all this time, he didn't make her feel much of anything.

When he moved his hand from under hers to wrap his arm around her shoulders, she let him, let herself be pulled into him. It was her own concession, her own small way of admitting she needed him—more now, perhaps, than he realized.

so since the date i originally set for the next chapter already passed, idk when it will be up, but i'm hoping really soon because i still have plans...