Evey breathed out slowly as she turned the key in the lock. It clicked. Then she froze in place until Ted impatiently stepped forward to open the door.

Evey stared at the interior. The familiar furniture. Piles of books and vinyl records and video tapes. Clothes. Kitchen utensils. Her mum's jewellery box, made by Evey for Mother's Day some fifteen years ago. Matt's Genesis game station. Her dad's stamp collection.

She hugged herself tightly. "You alright, doll?" Ted asked.

Evey nodded weakly. "Fine. It's just…" She choked up. "All the memories rushing up, you know."

Matt's bat stood abandoned in a corner. There was a bit of dried blood on it. "Not all good memories," she murmured.

"We can always come back later," Ted said. "Or I could just leave you alone for a moment, if you want. Close enough to keep an eye on you, but far enough that you'll forget I'm even here."

"No. I mean, you don't have to stay if you don't want to, but I'd rather have you nearby."

If anything happened to her, Walden would curse her name forever. She'd slipped out of the house while he was still asleep. Tony wasn't at home; today was his first date with Morgana. He'd been so adorably nervous before leaving to meet up with her.

"You already have an idea what you want to leave here and what you want to bring home?"

Preferably things that Walden wouldn't notice. "The furniture can stay," Evey said. "I think I'll just browse my old clothes, maybe pack up my CDs and my Walkman. My books, too. And the rest of the photo albums." She longed to take everything, to recreate her childhood home at her new home. But it all belonged in the past. This was a chance to say goodbye, to pick up a few memorabilia and then move on for good.

"What about the jewels?"

"I almost never wear anything." She had her engagement ring on one hand, the goblin-crafted wedding band on the other, and two bracelets around her left wrist – costume jewellery, but her brother had given them to her on her eighteenth birthday. She would keep them on her arm until they rotted and detached themselves. "But you can take them and keep them in a miniature treasure chest, if you want," she added with a grin.

Ted chuckled. "Then bury the chest on a desert island, mark the spot with a cross and booby-trap the location?"

"Then draw a wildly inaccurate map, put it in an empty bottle of rum and throw it in the ocean," Evey concluded.

They high-fived. Pirate jokes never got old.

"Mind if I have a look at the video games?" Ted asked more seriously.

"You can have anything you want, as long as Walden doesn't find out we've been here."

"I'm not really comfortable with all the secrecy," Ted admitted.

"Yeah, you've said that a hundred times already." Evey sighed. "Walden's just so…stubborn. There's no way Greyback would dare make a move now. I'm just trying to prevent yet another pointless argument, that's all. I'll tell Wal in a few months, when it's way too late for him to get mad at me for it."

"You two have a complicated relationship," Ted muttered.

There was nothing complicated about it. She loved Walden unconditionally. She just hated to argue with him, especially for such futile reasons. Beyond that, their marriage was very nearly flawless.

Ted and Evey both inspected the room in silence for several minutes. She carefully placed her books in a bag she'd brought while Ted perused Matt's things. She'd been afraid that she would feel uneasy, having a man her family didn't know go through their personal belongings, but this was Ted. He was family, too.

Gods, her brother would have loved the Wolf.

And there it was. She was crying again. It'd been two years, but thinking about Matt still felt like burying a dull blade into her own heart.

It was all your fault. You were his big sister; you should have protected him. Greyback was after you, not him. Not them.

Next thing she knew, she was half-suffocating, Ted squeezing her against him. He had a bad habit of doing that, even to people who didn't particularly appreciate being hugged. Alice had threatened to murder him several times already in the three weeks since Jeanne had died.

And yet it was comforting, Evey had to admit. Walden would certainly have a stroke if he walked in on them at that moment, though.

The thought made her laugh, so Ted released her, frowning. "Are you sure you're alright, love?"

Evey snorted inelegantly, laughing and crying at the same time. "I'm fine." There was snot all over her face, she could feel it. She dug through her pockets to find a tissue and blew her nose loudly. "I'm fine," she repeated more convincingly. "Let's gather everything we need and get out of here before my husband wakes up."

Ted was right, though. She shouldn't keep secrets from Walden – he was more likely to be mad at her for not letting him know where they were going than for visiting the storage place.

She would tell him tonight, and she would bring back some movies on VHS to make it up to him. She had a copy of The Princess Bride somewhere, one of the few classics Walden didn't own. He'd never even seen the movie.

That was just wrong. Evey had to rectify that situation.

Tony walked into the living room just in time for tea, which was rather inconvenient, since he couldn't actually drink tea or eat the biscuits Evey had decided to bake to try to distract herself.

Well, she wasn't Mrs Weasley. The biscuits were eatable, but Ted had only had two. That wasn't a good sign. He usually ate everything that was presented to him.

She'd been worried about Tony. He'd been gone for over five hours. Her brain had already come up with half a dozen scenarios, each worse than the previous one.

"Hey," she said with faked cheerfulness. "There you are. Did Morgana leave you in handcuffs, that you're only coming home now?"

Tony's expression was unreadable, which was odd. He didn't even grace Evey with a smile. In fact, he was careful not to look at her at all. "Yeah, um, sorry. Didn't mean to worry you. I…lost track of time." He leaned forward to inspect the biscuits. "What are those supposed to be?"

Evey grunted. First he didn't laugh at her joke, and now he criticised her biscuits? "They're madeleines. You know…little French sponge cakes." Alright, so they didn't exactly look like madeleines. But they kind of tasted like them, or so Ted claimed.

"Since when do you bake?" Tony asked with a puzzled frown. "We have a house elf, you know. Caraid makes great madeleines."

"I started baking this afternoon, because I find it distracting enough that I don't imagine you torn apart by Greyback and lying in a ditch somewhere," she retorted. Merlin, why was he in such a bad mood? Again. "What happened? Did something go wrong on your date? Morgana didn't stand you up, did she?" If she had, Evey would have a few words with her. Before she killed her.

"She was there," Tony muttered. "And it went…well. I'm just… I'm tired. I'll go lie down for a while." He exited the room without another word.

"That's a blatant lie! He can't get tired. Why is he lying?" Evey complained.

She looked at Ted, who shrugged. "Maybe he just needs some alone time," the Wolf suggested.

"I wish he'd talk to me," Evey said. "We used to talk all the time, and now I barely ever see him. He clearly doesn't want me in his workshop. He never laughs anymore. I'm really worried about him, Ted."

The Wolf sighed and seemed to take the hint. "I'll talk to him."

"Yes, please do." She hesitated. "Maybe it's a…guy problem."

Ted snorted. "More like a Tony problem, I'll wager."

Tony scowled at the ceiling. He was lying in his former bed, the one he used to sleep in when he was younger. When he was alive and actually capable of sleeping.

He hadn't lied. He did feel tired. Not physically, perhaps, but tired all the same.

There was a knock on the door. He hoped it wasn't Evey. He couldn't deal with her right now. "Yeah?"

Ted opened the door a fraction. "Are you decent?"

"Of course I am," Tony said. "Why wouldn't I be?"

The Wolf opened the door the rest of the way and stepped inside. "I sleep naked, so I prefer to ask."

"Thanks for that image."

"You're welcome," Ted said with a grin. Without asking, he sat down at the end of the bed. "Alright. What happened?"

Tony shrugged. "Nothing." Mm. Well, not exactly nothing. "I mean," he amended, "nothing important. We had coffee, as planned, then…we went to Mo's apartment. And…then I realised how late it was and I came home."

"So you had sex with the pretty girl," Ted summed up.

"I think that was heavily implied, yes," Tony said. He frowned again. "How do you know she's pretty?"

"Evey told me all about her. Said you had a mad crush on her, which, admittedly, I didn't entirely believe." There was a short pause. "I still don't."

"It's not a crush," Tony grumbled. "I was just surprised to see Morgana at the funeral, that's all. Hadn't seen her or even thought about her in over a decade… I never thought I'd ever see her again. I wasn't staring because she's pretty." She wasn't. Well, she was far from ugly, but…she wasn't Evey.

"Alright, alright," Ted said in a conciliatory tone. "But you spent most of the afternoon having sex with her. So why are you grumpy, mate?"

"I'm not…" Grumpy, seriously? The word had been invented to describe Walden, not him. "I'm just tired, like I said. It's nothing physical. I just want to lie in bed for a few minutes, okay? In peace. Quietly. Is that too much to ask?"

"Did you sleep with the girl because you hoped it would make you forget that Evey existed? But let Evey believe that it was to distract yourself from Jeanne's death?"

Ugh. The Wolf was much more insightful than the others gave him credit for.

"I'll take your silence as an admission of guilt," Ted went on.

"Guilt? Hey, it's not a crime!"

"Well, did you actually think it would work?"

"I was distracted," Tony said. "For a while." Morgana had made it impossible for him to think about anything else. They'd spent maybe twenty minutes at the coffee place before Mo had suggested going back to her apartment. Even to Tony, that was incredibly forward, but of course he'd accepted. The next few hours were a blur. Merlin, the girl was insane.

There was kinky, and then, on a completely different level, there was Morgana. Evey's joke about handcuffs? Yeah, Morgana would likely consider that mellow foreplay. She definitely wasn't the shy little girl they'd helped escape years ago, not anymore. If Morgana hadn't had to go to work, Tony might have spent the night there. Or the week.

"It won't solve any of your problems in the long run, Tony."

Did he have to be so annoyingly reasonable? He was a bloody pirate! As if Tony didn't know that. "I'm aware of that," he said through gritted teeth. "But what am I supposed to do, Ted? If I'd refused to date Morgana, Evey would have been suspicious. Walden, too. They expect me to have senseless sex with women I barely know."

"Well, that's kind of your thing, isn't it?"

"It was my thing. And you can talk."

"What, me? I don't do that!" Ted protested. "I stayed five years with the last woman I dated. Seven years with the one before. Almost a decade with Vivian." He shrugged at the incredulous look on Tony's face. "Dating mortals isn't easy. But it's all we have. One-night-stands are fine when you're a newly-turned cub, but after a while you start craving more than that. Leaving them is always hard, but that's just how it has to be. Fixating on a woman you can never have, though, that's just torture, mate. If you like this Morgana girl even a little bit, you will either forget Evey and commit to a relationship or break it up with her before she starts having feelings for you. You don't want to break her heart, do you? From what Evey's told me, she's had a hard enough life." He sighed. "Either way, you have to get past this silly thing you have for Evey. You know that, yes?"

Tony gave him a flat look. "Why, no, it never occurred to me. I actually enjoy torturing myself like that, and jeopardising my friendship with Evey and with my brother." He punched a cushion in a vain attempt at releasing his bottled-up frustration. "I just can't, okay? Believe me, I would love nothing more than to move past this…silly thing, as you call it, but I just bloody can't. She's all I can think about, day and night. Doesn't help that I can't sleep, but I bet that if I did, I'd dream of her."

"Maybe if you talked to her…" Ted began slowly.

"Then what? I would have to leave. Walden would despise me, the gods would curse me, demons would be disgusted by me and, worst of all, I'd never see Evey again."

"Well…perhaps that's for the best." Ted raised his hands quickly to prevent Tony from arguing. "You don't have to tell her the truth, but wouldn't it be best for you to be away from her? Seeing her every day is certainly not helping. Especially with that playful banter of hers. She has no clue, has she?" he said with a half-laugh. "Walden and she, they're adorably oblivious."

"Yeah, it's fucking adorable," Tony said bitterly. "Look, I know I'll have to leave at some point. That's pretty obvious. We can't have this sort of living arrangement forever, now can we? I just can't abandon them when Greyback is still out there, especially after…" He cleared his throat. "I know I'm not much in the way of protection, but if anything happened while I was gone… I'd never forgive myself, Ted. I mean, it's bad enough that I killed Jeanne…"

"You did what now?" Ted interrupted him, frowning. "The cub…"

"Greyback delivered the killing blow, sure. But I distracted her. Jeanne had him. She could have finished him off. But all I could think about was Evey. So I cried out. Jeanne looked up. Greyback took advantage, of course. It's my fault."

"I swear, you and Evey really are well-matched," Ted muttered. "She blames herself for not dying. You blame yourself for protecting her, a.k.a. the woman you love. Where does it stop? Should I blame myself for not being there? For turning Grigori, who then turned Greyback?" He shook his head ruefully. "I regret it, I do, but you try living a few decades with that sort of weight on your conscience, lad. You won't make it a full year before it crushes you. And Evey…blimey. First she blames herself for not saving her brother, now for this… She's only one person. She can't save everyone, and neither can you, fledgling. You wanna know who's to blame for her brother's death? For Jeanne's death? It's Greyback. Not you, not Evey, not me. Not Jeanne, though Poseidon knows she's made her share of stupid decisions. It's Greyback's fault, you understand?" Tony nodded hesitantly. "And you know what? I'll wager he's sitting comfortably in a chair right now, sipping coffee dark and bitter as his soul, and not sparing poor Jeanne a second thought. That's the key difference between a good person and a bad one, you know. Remorse. Guilt, even for things you didn't do, things over which you had no control. For things that hurt the people you care about."

He stood up and put his hands in his pockets. "You think Jeanne would have wanted you to wallow in unwarranted culpability and despair? She didn't sacrifice her life – her immortal life – so that you could be unhappy, Tony. She did some questionable things, but she always did them with you in mind. She wanted the best for you. She could see that being here around Evey all day hurt you. That's why she considered killing the girl – not because of Greyback, not because Evey is what she is, but because she was hurting you. Unwittingly so, but Jeanne didn't care about that sort of details."

Tony stared at the bed sheets as Ted spoke. Everything he said was sensible, but somehow that only made the speech all the more irksome. If he was honest, Tony had to admit that blaming himself for his maker's death was only a way to focus on something that had (almost) nothing to do with Evey. He didn't even miss Jeanne, certainly not the way Alice did. He'd tried to talk with her, in the hope that talking would make her feel better, but he had a hard time relating to what she was saying. The only hole in his chest cavity was there because of Evey, not because Jeanne was gone.

And of course the fact that he wasn't grieving as he was supposed to only made him feel a thousand times worse. He felt callow, heartless.

So yeah, Morgana. Kinky sex. Best way to keep himself distracted, unless Ted had a better solution. Tony asked him that very question, but the Wolf merely shrugged. "If you think it's a good idea…" It wasn't a good idea at all. There simply was nothing else to do. "But be careful with the pillow talk, eh?" Morgana had not yet been cleared by the Order; it might take weeks, Tonks had warned them. They were too busy planning Harry's rescue from his abusive aunt's house to run background checks on potential recruits at the moment.

"I wouldn't worry about that," Tony said. They had talked for twenty minutes that day…while they were at the coffee shop. Then Morgana had said 'Let's go back to my place', and that had been about it, discussion-wise. "And in any case… I mean, Morgana was Voldemort's captive. Her brother was murdered by a Death Eater. There's no way she's a spy."

"Not a willing one, perhaps. But you wizards have magic spells to enslave people's minds, don't you?"

"Well, yeah, but… Look. Worst case scenario, Morgana is being manipulated into spying on us and I accidentally reveal more than I should. So what? Snape must have told Voldemort everything he knew already. And Snape knows everything. About the Wolves, the Ancients, even about Evey."

Fucking greasy twat. Someone should have killed him when they had the chance – someone from either side. Double agents could never be trusted. If it looked like Voldemort was losing, Tony bet that Snape would try to worm his way back into the Order.

Without Dumbledore to protect him, though, there was a good chance that the coward would be adequately punished, this time.

Ted was looking at him oddly. "You…told that Snape character about us?"

Shit.

You fucking idiot!

They hadn't told Snape alone; they'd revealed the information to the entire Order. And they'd been careful not to let Ancients and Wolves know about it.

He couldn't seem to do anything right, could he? "Um… That is… I only meant…"

"You better pray that Alice never finds out, fledgling," Ted said flatly as he headed for the door. "Or anyone else, for that matter."

Tony lay there immobile for several seconds, until he heard the Wolf going down the stairs. Then he grabbed a pillow, placed it over his mouth, and screamed into it.

"I just… Why?" Walden said, a hurt look on his face. He was pacing the living room. At some point, he walked right through the ghost of his great-granduncle, who had just crossed a wall. Walden didn't appear to notice, and Finlay Macnair floated away after throwing his relative an indignant look.

"I could have gone with you," Walden went on. "I know what I said before, but things have changed, V. I don't entirely believe that Greyback won't resurface soon, but I agree that he'd be foolish to do so. I agree that you're relatively safer now than you were a few weeks ago. I also agree that it's good to be out of the house. But please, don't go behind my back like that. When you do that, I feel like you don't trust me."

"Of course I trust you!" Evey exclaimed. "I was just worried that you'd say no. Again. I had to go, Wal. I've wanted to go for months. But you're right. I should have told you. Should have asked you to come with me. I'm sorry," she said dejectedly.

Walden sat down on the couch and put his right arm around her. As usual, his flesh was cold; she could feel it even through the material of her t-shirt. It was still comforting, though. "I get it. I know I've been… I feel like I've gone full-on Molly on you these past few months." He chuckled softly. "I'm just so worried about you, V. You understand that, yes? I'd rather know you're safe and hate me than have you out there, risking your life. I know this is important to you, but to me, you're the most important thing in the world. I don't know what I would do if anything happened to you. When you were gone, I was…" He cut off abruptly. Merlin, he was very nearly choking up just thinking about it.

Evey hugged him tightly. "I know. Believe me, I know." At least Walden had had a vague hope that she was still alive. Greyback had told her that Walden was dead, and she'd had to endure her captivity almost convinced that it was the truth.

Well, technically, it wasn't a lie. But she couldn't have known that.

"It won't happen again," she promised him. "In fact…well, I didn't want to linger, so we might have to return there. There's some stuff I'd like to…" She trailed off. That damned bat. She had to wash off the blood, or she would never get rid of the image, she just knew it.

"We can go. Anytime. And you can bring back anything you want. All of it, even. Merlin knows, there's enough space to store everything here."

"I was thinking…" Evey bit her lip. "I'd like to go through their clothes and donate what's in good condition. My mum would have liked that. And…well, some pieces of furniture are antiques – my mum inherited them from her aunt – so they wouldn't clash with our stuff here."

Walden smiled, and her heart throbbed harder, as it always did. "Sounds good to me." There was a sudden noise outside, coming from the garage. "What's he working on now?"

Evey shrugged. "No idea. I don't feel welcome in there, and when I ask him he just replies 'nothing important'."

"Did he go meet Morgana today? Or did he bail?"

"Oh, he went alright. Stayed out so long I actually began to worry, and when he finally returned I barely got two sentences from him." She frowned. "Am I being a pain in the butt here? Should I just give him some space until he… I don't know, until he's himself again? Because he's definitely not himself right now."

"I know, love. And…well, I wouldn't say you're a pain in the butt, because I'm your husband and I love you," - Evey narrowed her eyes at him - "but maybe you should cut him some slack? I know it's weird that he's so quiet all the time, but… He has a lot to process. When my father died, Tony practically didn't speak to me for a whole month. Not because he thought I was responsible in any way; I guess that's just how he deals with grief. Hopefully being around Morgana and out of the house will help." He hesitated. " I mean…the date did go well, right?"

"Ted said it did. Apparently Tony was willing to talk to him." She was oddly jealous about it. She used to be the one Tony confided in. Sometimes she felt like he was mad at her for some obscure reason Evey wasn't aware of. And dating Morgana had been Evey's idea!

"Give him some time," Walden said, stroking her back. "He'll come around. Maybe the wedding will cheer him up a bit," he added.

They were all looking forward to the big event, in truth. There weren't that many happy things to look forward to, these days.

Evey was grateful to Bill and Fleur for inviting them, even though it had been a last minute decision, but they believed that Tony had saved Bill's life, so it made sense. And, in a way, he had. Greyback might have killed Bill before Jeanne got there, if Tony hadn't intervened, at great risk to himself.

"Provided that Harry makes it out of his aunt's house safely," Evey murmured. "If anything dire happens…"

"It'll be fine," Walden said reassuringly. "The Order's been planning this for a month, V. Everything will be fine."