My mother's wracking sobs were trying to graduate into an actual howl.

I just stood in front of the door, not sure what to do. Did I touch her? Would that make it worse? I had to do something, right? But after so long away, it felt a little foreign. I hadn't touched anyone platonically or for comfort since...God, had it been since Anna's death? Yes, it had to be. And it had been months before that point, too. So I hadn't had a friendly embrace from anyone but Lasciel in a while. I didn't count the touch from Nicodemus as friendly. That was more like the pat that the Grinch gave Cindy Lou. A sort of 'what-a-nicely-tractable-tool-you-are' sort of gesture.

I had to do something, didn't I?

"Mom..." I began, starting to panic a little when more faces appeared in the interior, drawn in by the siren-like nature of her cries.

I had no clue what to say or do. But whatever was going to happen next, I didn't want a crowd of Jawas to bear witness. I was pretty sure that the moment my father or mother got a good look at me, the game would be up. The Molly who'd left this yard two years ago was dead, the life crushed out of her by the weight of a million tragedies and bad choices. Forged from her remains was this...thing that I'd become. The hard-edged, ruthless soldier, and soon-to-be double agent.

A large, male body filled the doorway, edging around mom, and my heart went double-time, slamming painfully into my ribs. My eyes dragged upward without my conscious permission. I didn't want to look him in the face. I didn't want to see judgment or sorrow on my father's face.

The man standing behind my mother...was not my father, though he sure as hell looked like him. He was built of lean, sinewy muscle, though he didn't move with much grace for one so athletic. The shoulders were just as broad as dad's, but also seemed mismatched, making him look sort of like a puppy that didn't know its strength or speed yet.

Dark hair, somber gray eyes, a little scruffy, like he hadn't had the opportunity to shave this morning.

"Daniel?" I asked, not quite able to believe my eyes.

God, he'd gotten so tall! I could almost touch six feet with the tips of my fingers, and he was easily as tall as me. Perhaps taller. The only thing that kept him from looking like a dead ringer for dad was the expression on his face. I'd never seen my father look so cynical or angry.

Daniel pushed the rest of the way past mom, not stopping to pick her up either, which made me feel a little better for not scooping her up in the first place. He jumped off the threshold and landed not far away from me, taking a ready, defensive posture in front of mom.

"What are you?"

I shied away from him, just a little. Not because I didn't think I couldn't handle him, but because the wording confirmed all my worst nightmares. They knew or suspected. He'd said what, not who. I wasn't even a person any longer.

"It's me," I said, voice coming out barely above a whisper. "It's Molly."

"That's bullcrap," he said shortly, arms crossing over his chest. He had to be working out with dad these days because the amount of muscle on him was impressive. "Molly is dead."

Nonsensical hurt flashed through me. I'd been declared dead? After just two years? Didn't that take a long time?

"Typically, seven years in the state of Illinois," Lasciel informed me mildly. "Though exceptions can be made on a case to case basis."

Maybe I should have been grateful for that. Maybe putting my memory to rest had given them some catharsis. Still, it rankled. My own brother was standing on the step, ignoring our weeping mother so that he could glare at me and make unfounded accusations. There were plenty of founded accusations to be thrown, so I didn't appreciate the really off ones being chucked at me too.

"Some people call me the space cowboy," I quipped. "Though I'll also accept gangster of love."

Confusion flickered across his face and then, as the joke registered outrage spasmed across it instead. He reached very deliberately toward one of the flower hooks near the front door. In spring, it would be used to hold a hanging basket of perennials, but with winter clinging to Chicago, the baskets were gone. What was left was a very handy weapon with a stake stuck on the end of it. The fact he went for iron probably meant he probably thought I was fae.

I wished I was. I wished that was the extent of the nightmare I was about to inflict on them.

"How dare you?" he snapped, jerking it up from the ground. "How dare you come to our door and mock us?"

"Daniel-"

He jabbed the end at me, chivving me back another step. "Go."

I scowled. Alright, I'd had enough of this. I wasn't going to let my brother try to stick me with the sharp end of a poker. I wasn't leaving. I wasn't going to fail my mission. The best way to keep everyone safe was to keep them in one place, and in order to do that, they had to believe it was me.

WhenDaniel jabbed the end at me again, I was ready. The many months with the Fellowship (and still more with Nicodemus) had equipped me to handle violence. Daniel wasn't even all that good at it. This attack was half-hearted at best. I caught the blunted spike at the end and wrenched the whole thing from Daniel's hands, tossing it to the side to spear through the Molly-snowperson as it went.

Daniel staggered, staring down in shock at his empty hands. He sort of lurched toward me, and it was fairly effortless to get him in a hyperflexion wristlock, stopping the attack dead in its tracks. He could try to come after me, but it would hurt like a mother to do it.

He did turn, though I thought he was about to snap his wrist to do it. He got a fistful of my hair, dragged our faces close, and locked eyes with me. I realized a second too late, and the soulgaze began.

I sank into the deep gray of his eyes and found myself beneath a sky much the same color. Grass stretched out on every side of me, the landscape dotted with granite and marble structures everywhere. Mausoleums, statues, headstones. We were in a graveyard, and every single grave was open with...things crawling from them. Black, veiny shapes that I didn't want to peer too closely at.

Daniel stood at the center of it all. But he looked...wrong. The shadows slanted in such a way that he looked almost skeletal. If someone stuck a scythe in his hand, he might have looked like an omen of death.

It clung to him. Death hung like a pall all over Daniel's mental landscape. He saw it in everything. Somebody needed to call Ghostbusters quick because his headspace was filled with shades, and one, in particular, had been haunting him for years.

Me. He'd just shoveled dirt on that grave, and now here I was, unearthing it again.

The soulgaze didn't last for more than a few seconds, but it felt like hell every second I was in that dark, stained headspace. I blinked at him in shock when we broke away from each other. What had happened to make my baby brother's head look like something from The Exorcist? Wasn't that sort of my schtick, what with the literal demon and all?

"Oh God," he breathed. "Molly."

He came at me again, this time with his arms outstretched, wrapping me in an enormous bear hug before I could protest or move away. Big strong arms crushed me against his chest, and the second they closed, I didn't feel like fighting to be free. My arms found their way around his waist, and I squeezed him as tight as I could manage. He didn't release me for a long time, just sort of spun me around in an awkward penguin waddle so that we faced the door. By the time he let me go, new arms wrapped around me.

Mom's arms. I'd recognize them anywhere, had longed to be inside of them often during the long absence. No one I'd embraced before or since felt the same. Her arms were sure and strong, steel wrapped in velvet. No matter how much training or blacksmithing she'd done, she never lost an edge of feminine softness. I'd wanted to be like her, too

Instead, I'd become wiry in the extreme. Caffeine, combat, and constant stress had sanded off any traces of softness I might have once possessed. Mom noticed too. Even through the still heaving sobs, she was patting me down, exploring every inch of me she could reach to be sure I was whole. She drew back from me just an inch or two so she could examine me from head to toe, completing the inspection with a shuddering breath and another sound of choked relief.

Then she was clasping my cheeks in her hands, peppering my face with wet, salty kisses. Nose, cheeks, forehead, and each eyelid, punctuating each with a choked recitation of my name.

"Oh, Molly, Molly, Molly. My baby, oh..."

"Mom," I said, throat constricting so tight I could barely breathe.

I tried to squeeze her back, the way I had with Daniel, but my body refused to cooperate. The second she'd touched me, it felt like my insides liquified, melting into a warm sugary mess. My skin tingled, just a thin layer of supporting tissue that kept my shape solid when it felt like I should be a puddle on the ground. I'd wanted this for so long. I hadn't even realized that my skin hunger, the bone-deep need for her gentle touch, had been so intense until I'd gotten another taste of it. It was like finally being anesthetized for a wound I hadn't known that I'd sustained.

My eyes burned with the effort not to cry.

Lasciel fed me awareness of him, and I craned my neck to see him over mom's shoulder. She finally released me, one hand sliding down to my shoulders so that she could turn us to face the door.

He stood just inside the doorway, one large calloused hand braced against the door jamb for support. He swayed, looking unsteady, as though he might sink to his knees right there. His expression tipped the scales, and tears began to pour silently down my cheeks. It was like watching the sunrise, spilling emotion over his lined face in increments. Naked vulnerability. Disbelief. Confusion. Hope.

He took one shaky step forward, then another, and by the third, he was there, standing only a few inches away. I was almost tall enough to look him in the eye now. But I didn't meet his gaze. I couldn't stand to look upon my father's soul and know I was entirely unworthy of the adoration that vibrated off of him.

I wasn't sure which of us moved first. Maybe I'd hurled myself into his arms. Maybe he'd captured me, one arm wrapping inexorably around my waist, the other coming to cup the base of my skull and press my face against his chest. I ended up cradled there, feeling like a small child being comforted after a nightmare, completely assured by the steady drumming of his heart.

"Thank God," he said, his rumbling voice a low and fervent.

His arms tightened around me, and I once again melted, this time almost losing my footing. I sagged in his arms, and he supported me, held me aloft as he always had, the steady strength in his arms reiterating the unspoken promise that he would always pick me up when I fell.

Then there were more bodies around us. Matthew, Alicia, Amanda, and Hope crowding around me, selecting a piece of me to cling to, until I was engulfed, held from all sides. Only little Harry stood separate from the rest of them, clinging uncertainly to mom's calves, eyeing me with as much wariness as his little self could muster. With a pang, I realized he was just four. Had only been two when I'd gone. He didn't remember me. I was a virtual stranger to him.

Another shape walked up the drive, stopping dead when he saw me, and the bags he'd been carrying tumbling out of his arms.

Mr. Dresden just stared at me. Then he looked to my father, eyes searching, filled with an echo of the hope I'd seen from the rest of them.

"Is she...?"

"Home," my father finished.

Something warm and wet dripped onto my cheek, and when I looked up, I found silent, happy tears sliding down his face. A hiccuping sob got caught in my throat.

In the periphery, I saw Harry stoop and pick up his backs, shuffling nearer to us, grimacing like it hurt to move quickly. I wanted to ask if he'd been hurt, but I just couldn't form words around the knot in my throat.

Harry was silent for about thirty seconds, letting everyone bask in the moment. And then he voiced the impossible-to-answer, million-dollar question.

"Where have you been, kid?"

I finally shrugged off the many arms that held me, shoulders hunching, bracing for the gauntlet of questions I was about to run through.

"That's a long story."

Harry nodded. "I think you ought to get inside. I think I speak for everyone when I say we want to hear it all."

My family streamed inside, leaving only my father touching me, hand braced between my shoulder blades as he led me inside. I hesitated on the threshold. I hadn't called this place home in two years. I had no place here. I should ask to come in.

Instead, I made an executive decision, stepping over the threshold without being issued an invitation, and left half of my magic at the door. Lasciel was positively mutinous, cold anger radiating in the back of my mind, though she said nothing. If I needed to draw on magic now, I'd need to lean on her. And we both knew I wouldn't. Not yet, anyway. Not until I was forced to act.

My family were as safe from my Fallen as I could make them at the moment.

I smiled just a tiny, triumphant smile, feeling like I'd finally gotten a little of my own back after her deception in Boston.

"Payback's a bitch, huh, Lash?"

Silence, mute fury. Not just a cold shoulder. It was a glacial rebuff.

Good. I could use a little peace and quiet.