Part II
Violet has never been one to wallow. She's never really had the time, especially in the last year when she was running for her life and her guardians were dropping left and right. It's not really something she knows how to do, or wants to learn, so she doesn't try now. She simply cries until the tears stop coming, wipes her face, and then gets up again.
That she does know how to do, and very well.
That's why when the knock on the door finally comes, Violet is bent under the industrial sink, wrench in hand to fix the steady, incessant dripping that's been plaguing her since she came in, dealing with her problems the only way she knows how - pretending she can fix them by fixing something else.
She has no idea how long she's been here, only that the rainbow colors cast through the stained-glass VFD eyes above the doors have slipped several feet across the floor since she arrived, and that she's ravenously hungry.
She peers out from under the sink to see a tall, broad shadow through the fogged glass at the front of the greenhouse - either Jacques or Lemony, she's not sure which as the brothers are indistinguishable from their general shape.
Before she can decide what kind of reception to give, the knock sounds again, accompanied this time by a dry, quiet voice. "May I come in, Violet?"
Lemony, then. She swallows. It would be rude to tell him no, but she doesn't want to say yes, either, so she turns back to the pipes without saying anything at all.
"I brought you something to eat - Olivia said you haven't had anything all day." He sounds quieter now, more hesitant, like he'll leave at the slightest signal that she wants him to.
She still doesn't reply, but she does put the wrench down, and instead leans back against the wall under the sink, feeling young and small and ridiculous. The polite thing to do would be to let him in, let him explain himself - certainly it's not in her nature to be as rude to anyone as she has been to him today.
She doesn't want to be polite. She wants to hide in here, and ignore him, and maybe cry a little more.
There's a sigh from the Lemony-shape, and then she watches his shadow shift strangely. It takes her a moment to understand that he's taking a seat outside, seemingly with his back resting against the glass beside the door.
Such a strange man, is Lemony Snicket. She thinks about the way he'd backed away from the door, when he'd had her cornered in his room - thinks about the way he would have been right to yell, to demand answers, to rip his stolen property from her hands. Thinks about the way he could have snarled in her face, threatened her, struck her. Olaf had done worse for less.
But Lemony hadn't, and that's the thing of it.
Slowly, she emerges from under the sink and quietly crosses the room to stand in front of the door. It would be a simple thing to open it. She stretches out a trembling hand to the doorknob, only to catch sight of the ink on her wrist at the last second, smudged and illegible by now but still present, still a reminder of what she'd written there, what she'd discovered.
Violet is your -
She snatches her hand back in an instant. Instead, she lowers herself to the ground, her back to the glass the way Lemony's is on the other end of the door. Neither one of them speaks. Violet wouldn't know what to say if she tried, and she gets the sense that he might be in a similar situation.
She turns the wrench over and over in her hands, taking comfort in its familiar weight, in the grit of the worn metal under her fingers, in the knowledge that she can use it to dissect and create. In knowing she's not helpless as long as she has it with her. Whenever she has it, things are clear.
It's minutes or hours when a question finally bubbles out of her, so quiet and unexpected that she's not surprised when Lemony has to ask her to repeat herself.
She swallows, tries again. "What do you want from me?"
Because that's it, isn't it? Everyone always wants something. She can't imagine what he'll demand of her now that she knows what they are to each other.
A horrible thought occurs to her then, sudden like a slap: he probably has a claim to her fortune. He could do what Olaf did - stars, he could take her away from her siblings, from Olivia and Jacques. If he brought up the fact that he was her - that she was his - if this new information came to light in the High Court, would he even need to wait until she was of age to get his hands on her family's money? And what would he do with her once he had it?
She's busy working herself up into another proper panic, but Lemony's reply jars her back to the present. "That's the wrong question."
She blinks. "What's the right one?"
"The question isn't what I want from you, Violet. It's what I want for you."
Jacques had once mentioned his brother had issues with directness. Violet is starting to understand what he'd meant by that. "And what's that?"
"I want you to be safe," Lemony says without hesitating, "and happy, and to have the life you deserve."
She's not quite sure what she'd expected him to say, but it hadn't been that. She mulls this over for a while. "And where are you supposed to fit in to that?"
"I'm not."
That… makes no sense. "Then why are you here?" She means for the question to sound demanding, but it comes out nearly plaintive instead.
He does seem to hesitate, now, or at least there's a few beats of silence before he replies that feels vaguely contemplative. "I don't know," he says, finally.
It's not the answer she'd wanted, but it's honest, or it feels like it is, and for whatever reason it fills her with relief. Possibly it's because an answer like that means he isn't actively scheming against her.
"How long have Jacques and Olivia known about… about this? Does anyone else know?" She can't imagine any of her past guardians had, and Olaf certainly hadn't - he wouldn't have been able to resist the urge to torment her with it if he'd known.
"Olivia worked it out the first time I came here. I have no idea how," he confesses, "but she's among the cleverest women I've ever met, so I can't say I'm surprised. As for whether anyone else knows, no. Only my brother and Olivia, and us. Not even Kit is aware, although she might suspect."
Another question comes to her then, one so painful even asking it makes her tear up again. "Did my father - did my real… did Bertrand -" Stars, what is she supposed to call him now?
"I don't know if your father knew," Lemony says, with a touch of firmness on the word father that makes something in her relax instantly. "I do know it wouldn't have mattered to him."
Violet sniffles, dashing unshed tears from her eyes, and outside the Lemony-shape shifts uncomfortably as if in response - or maybe it's just because he's sitting on bare concrete.
"Will you please come out and eat something, Violet?"
She can't say no, and won't say yes, so instead she says, "So you loved my mother." It's not a question and she doesn't phrase it like one, but after several long, heavy moments Lemony answers anyway.
"Yes." Simple, like she'd asked him if he had ten fingers or a heartbeat.
"And she loved you."
"Yes." Softer this time, like she'd asked him a great secret, or like she'd slipped a knife between his ribs.
"Why didn't you stay together?"
He sighs. "You read the letter."
"I'm not sure what I read," Violet says, "besides a lot of pretty words and secret codes and sad poetry, but I never read a reason." She hadn't finished it, of course, but if her mother hadn't gotten to the point one-hundred-and-eighty pages in, Violet doubts she ever did.
He's quiet for a long, long time, so long Violet almost thinks he isn't going to answer. When he does, he's so quiet she has to strain to hear him through the door.
"Your mother only ever did what she thought was right," Lemony says, "no matter what you hear about her in the future, no matter what else you discover, you need to know that everything your mother did, she did for what she believed was a noble reason."
That's not an answer, and she's not going to let him get away with pretending that it is. "Which was?"
"Protection, both mine and hers… and yours, as well."
Protection from what? Or whom? Violet leans her head back against the glass, half-closing her eyes as she tries to make sense of what little she knows about the timeline of the events of the schism and the letter and her own birth, about what Jacques had told them the morning after he'd made his miraculous return from the dead and got them to safety at Headquarters. She thinks about what very, very little he had told them all about the infamous night at the opera when the hairline fracture in VFD had exploded into a chasm too wide to mend, about the theft of a sugar bowl, about a poison dart that missed its intended target only to strike an innocent party. He'd given them only the vaguest details, and implied her mother was involved, but hadn't elaborated much beyond that.
The reason why comes to her in a flash. "Did my mother kill Olaf's parents?"
It would explain everything - why Olaf had been so fixated on their fortune in particular, why the sugar bowl never mattered to him as much as hurting them did. Why the news of her mother's survival would have kept him at Caligari Carnival for as long as Olivia wanted him there.
She half-expects Lemony to dissemble again, but instead he laughs, startling her completely. It's a hollow, mirthless thing, but a laugh all the same, and the first one she's ever heard from him. "You've always been so clever, Violet."
She'd have taken it as the compliment it was clearly intended to be if she hadn't wanted so desperately to not be right about that. "So she did."
"Only Olaf's father died that night," Lemony says, grave again, "and your mother never intended to hurt him."
"But she intended to hurt someone."
"In defense of VFD and myself, yes. It was a bad thing done for a noble reason. Like most people, your mother was a chef's salad."
Violet had been about to ask a completely different question, but that statement throws her off the rails. "What?"
"Full of good and bad things, all mixed together. No one is entirely good or entirely wicked, Violet."
Violet thinks that's not true only because she knows Olivia, who doesn't have a wicked bone in her body, and is about to say as much before remembering that Olivia had deliberately kept a rather enormous secret from her. She changes the subject.
"So Mother left you because of Olaf?"
"I left her."
Violet frowns. "But the letter -"
"Olaf originally believed I had been the one to throw the dart at his father, and I had to flee the city that same hour. Your mother begged me to stay, but I couldn't bear to endanger her, so I did what I believed was the noble thing, and left."
Fascinated despite herself, Violet turns to look in the direction of his shadow. "And then what happened?"
There's a note of something wry and self-deprecating in his answer. "I regretted leaving her the instant she was out of my sight. I sent her countless telegrams, asking her to run away with me - I was much younger then, and I suppose I thought it was all very romantic." He sighs, pauses, continues. "But Olaf went on a warpath around the same time, lighting fire after fire in my name, until I was being hunted by both him and the authorities. Your mother saw the logic in our separation."
"That's when she sent the letter."
He hmms. "She was already engaged to Bertrand by that time, and her pregnancy with you was common knowledge. Everyone believed he was your father, and she was desperate to keep it that way, as he had… markedly fewer enemies than I did. He was the best, and safest, option for both of you." He pauses again, seems to shift. "He was the only man on earth I would have wanted for the job."
"My mother loved him." Violet's not sure why she says it, but it's suddenly very important to her that he knows, that he understands.
"She did," Lemony confirms, "and he loved her."
She frowns. "But didn't that… didn't it hurt? Weren't you angry?"
The question seems to confuse him, but she can't imagine why. "Of course it hurt," he says, "but I was never angry. I wanted her to be happy." He sighs. "Even if it wasn't with me."
She'd think he was lying, because she's never even heard of love like that, not even in storybooks, except he sounds so painfully sincere it makes the breath catch in her throat. There's no possible reply she can give that would accurately convey how she feels right now.
They sit in heavy, thoughtful silence for a long time.
"Why are you researching me and my siblings?" she asks a while later. The light on the floor has shifted even farther, but Lemony hasn't moved an inch.
His shadow jerks like she'd startled him - she wonders if he'd dozed off. He grunts, shifting in place. When he speaks, there's a fragment of wry conspiracy in his voice. "I'll make you a deal," he says, and she instinctively goes tense, "I'll tell you what you want to know, but you have to come out and eat while we talk."
Violet has a sneaking suspicion that he'd still answer her questions even if she refused, but he's been nothing but accommodating so far, so she thinks she can give him this - and anyway, she's starving. She gets to her feet and opens the door, stepping over the threshold with rather more confidence than she actually feels.
Lemony looks up at her from his position on the ground, his gaze flicking over her face like he's startled to actually see her standing there. He looks vaguely like he expects her to bite him, which is patently ridiculous, because Violet is not given to her baby sister's proclivities and has never bitten a single person in her life, not even when they deserved it.
He gestures to a covered tray beside him, and she carefully takes a seat on the other side of it, just out of his reach.
She doesn't actually think he'll try anything. She'd just… rather not chance it, that's all.
The look he gives her makes her think he knows what she's doing, but he doesn't say anything about it, just removes the cover from the tray to reveal a plate of finger sandwiches and a pair of empty cups, which he pours tea into from a thermos at his side. She tucks into a sandwich as politely as she can despite the fact that she's so hungry it feels like her stomach is in knots.
"I started the research because I was looking for you," Lemony begins without preamble, startling her for what feels like the millionth time today. "For all three of you."
She blinks at him, unable to ask the question she wants to with food in her mouth, but he seems to know what she means.
"When I heard about the fire, about what happened to... your parents," Lemony begins, pausing for a moment to stare off into the middle distance as though lost, and then shakes himself and continues, "I was in such a remote location that it took me quite some time to make my way back here, to confirm what I had heard, to ensure that the three of you were in good hands. By the time I realized that you weren't, that Olaf's wickedness had already touched your lives, you had already been accused of his murder in the Village of Fowl Devotees. A murder of which, by the way, I believed my brother was the true victim."
"And then we ran away, and not even the Volunteers could find us," Violet finishes, reaching for another sandwich.
He hmms again, watching her. "No matter how much research I did, or how closely I retraced your journey, I was always several steps behind you. I had just started looking into your time at Prufrock Preparatory School when the news reached me that not only was my brother still alive, but that he had also gotten you safely to VFD Headquarters after Caligari Carnival burned down."
Violet frowns, taking a sip of her tea. "But you didn't show up at the manor for ages after that. If you wanted to know we were safe, why didn't you come sooner?"
He looks at her, looks through her. "I am a coward, Violet," he says. "I always have been. I knew you were safe with my brother. For a while, that was enough for me. I didn't want to show up in your life without a reasonable excuse - I didn't want to endanger you, any of you, for any less."
"And when you heard that Olaf had followed us back to the city, you had one," Violet says, still frowning. "I don't see how you could have endangered us, though."
"Olaf wasn't - isn't - the only fire-starter in the world, Violet," Lemony says gently, reminding her of the thought that had driven her to search his room in the first place, and she looks away. "I've been a volunteer since I was younger than Klaus. That's more than enough time to accumulate countless dangerous enemies."
"So why are you here now?" she asks again, going back to the question she'd had at the beginning of this conversation. "If it's so dangerous, why did you agree to stay?"
He looks away again. A muscle jumps in his jaw, the same one that jumps in Jacques' whenever he's distressed. She wonders if Lemony genuinely doesn't know the answer to her question, or if he doesn't want to tell her. She wonders if she really wants to know.
She changes tack. "Why are you still doing the research, now that you've found us?"
Lemony frowns, seeming to try to order his thoughts. "You suffered more tragedies than just Olaf," he says quietly. "I wanted to put the injustice on display, to show the world how badly you were mistreated. I'm only a writer," he says with a shrug, "my influence is limited. But I thought if I could just… shine a light on it, something could be done. Maybe future orphans wouldn't be sent to live in crab-infested shacks, maybe an entire town wouldn't be allowed to have collective custody of children, maybe inheritance laws could be changed, maybe people would just… pay more attention."
"Maybe Mr. Poe could lose his job," Violet says hopefully, even though it's wicked. Lemony lets out an almost startled laugh in response, and this time it's real, full of genuine amusement. She wishes he'd do it more - he looks so much kinder when he smiles.
"I'll stop, if you'd like me to," he says once he sobers - all too quickly, in Violet's opinion. There's an odd note in his voice, a gravity beyond his words, like he's trying to tell her something else.
But Violet is tired, and she has a headache, so she doesn't try to parse it out. All she says is, "You don't have to."
When he raises a curious eyebrow at her, she shrugs, picking at another sandwich as she looks back at the house. "It's a good idea. I could… I could even help you, if you wanted. Primary sources are important for this kind of research, right? To fill in the gaps?"
He looks at her for a long, long time. She's about to open her mouth to apologize, to take it back, when he gives a small, quiet smile. "I would like that very much, Violet."
She nods, and keeps picking at her sandwich. "Why did you give me Hedy?" she says, trying for a change of subject.
He blinks at her, brow furrowed in confusion. "The stuffed cat," she clarifies, "the one in the picture."
"I always called it Hemingway," he says, which makes her smile despite herself, but then he continues. "Bertrand Baudelaire is your father," he murmurs, meeting her eyes like he wants her to hear what he's saying. "He loved you. But the cat…"
He sighs, stares into his cup of tea. "I sent it to you because I couldn't be with you. I suppose I wanted you to have something Snicket." He smiles fractionally. "Even if it was only a toy."
She doesn't know what to say to this, to the weight behind the gesture that had brought her so much comfort as a child. He doesn't look like he expects anything of her, though, in this or in general, and that's the most bewildering thing about the conversation so far.
It comes to her then, slowly, that he really never would have told her if she hadn't worked all this out on her own. He never would have taken the shelter of Bertrand Baudelaire away from her if she hadn't torn it down herself.
She wonders if that's cowardice, or kindness. She wonders if it can't be both.
"Are you frightened of me, Violet?" Lemony asks, drawing from her reverie. She realizes she's been staring blankly at him and quickly looks away.
"No," she says, carefully.
He watches her. "But you were before."
"Why were you outside my room, the night I had the nightmare?" she asks instead of answering. It's rude to do that, but if he's allowed to dodge questions then so is she.
His brow furrows as though he's trying to follow her train of thought. "I was concerned for you."
"No, I mean," she huffs, ties to articulate herself better, "why were you on the second floor at all?"
His expression settles. "I was on my way to the library, and I passed your room to get to the staircase. You sounded distressed, so I woke Jacques."
That… that makes a lot of sense, actually. She could kick herself for not reasoning that out before - in her suspicion and panic it had only seemed logical that he'd been lurking, rather than going about his own business.
Stars, I should have listened to Olivia. I should have just told her I was worried about him.
"Is that what today was about?" Lemony asks.
"I didn't trust you," Violet says. "I'm still not sure if I do."
"That's reasonable," he says, watching her carefully. "But I would never hurt you, Violet."
She wants to believe him. Part of her, the part of her that's always wanted to see the best in people, already does. But there's another part that recoils from his words, the part that had looked to Justice Strauss and Jerome Squalor for help only to be ignored or abandoned. Well-intentioned people can do as much damage as treacherous ones, she knows, so for the moment she'll reserve judgement on the man before her, the man her mother loved, until she can get a better measure of his character now that she's not determined to see him as a threat.
"Alright," Violet says. It's the only response she can manage.
They don't speak again after that, but they no longer need to. They simply sit, and share their sandwiches and tea, and let the threads connecting them lie where they are.
And, for now, it's enough.
She finds her guardians in the kitchen, after, seated at the table with their heads bent towards one another, murmuring lowly. Both of them snap to look at her as she enters, and Olivia is on her feet at once, seeming equal parts relieved and wary. Violet can't blame her, after the way she'd acted today.
Stars, when she thinks about what she'd said, how they'd flinched - tears spring to her eyes before she can stop them.
"I'm sorry," she says, lurching towards Olivia before she can stop herself.
Olivia meets her halfway and sweeps her up into a hug that makes every single awful thing about the day disappear into smoke.
"Oh sweetheart, it's alright," Olivia says, pressing a kiss into her hair, "it's alright."
It is very much not alright, but she doesn't know how to say it, doesn't know how to articulate the depth of how very stupid and childish she feels. She can't bear to meet their eyes.
Olivia is having none of that, though, and pulls back from her enough to cup a hand under her chin, to examine her face for any kind of injury or distress.
"Are you alright? Did you eat? Can I get you anything?"
"No, I'm fine," Violet says. "I... ate with Lemony."
Over Olivia's shoulder, she watches Jacques go oddly tense. "Where is he?" he asks, expression inscrutable.
"He's still outside. I think he might have wanted some time to himself."
Jacques only nods, seeming distracted.
Violet bites her lip. "He's not leaving," she says quietly, unsure why she feels the need to reassure him, only knowing that she does.
Jacques turns back to look at her then, brow furrowing in concern. "He can," he says, then pauses, hesitates, working his jaw contemplatively. She wonders if he knows how much he looks like his brother when he does that. "He doesn't have to stay, Violet. We can make other arrangements."
Violet blinks at him. Jacques had walked around the house whistling for weeks after Lemony had moved into the manor, had been quicker to laugh, for once seemed to not remember whatever burdens perpetually dragged his shoulders down. Lemony's dour disposition hadn't appeared to bother him - he'd just been pleased to know that his brother was safe and nearby.
So the fact that he would be willing to send him away, for her… it's almost too much to comprehend.
"No," Violet says. "No, he's fine. I'm fine."
Beside her, Olivia makes an exasperated noise. "You don't have to be fine, Violet," she says, grabbing her gently by the shoulders and bending down to meet her at eye level, like it's important to her that Violet understand her. "That's not your job. Your job is to tell us when something isn't fine so we can help you through it."
Violet swallows, nods. "I'm sorry," she says, wondering for a moment whether she's ever going to be able to stop apologizing. "For everything. For lying about being sick, and for what I said to you both, because it's not true. You're not like everyone else, you never have been."
Olivia sighs, and leads her over to the table, gesturing for her to take a seat. Violet does so, and Olivia takes the one beside her, pushing her chair back to face her more directly. "We aren't upset with you, Violet," she says, "not for any of it. You were obviously very worried about Lemony, if you felt you needed to take matters into your own hands like this. The only thing I am upset about is that you didn't trust us enough to tell us, to let us explain."
"Would you have explained? Would you have told me the truth?" Violet doesn't mean to be difficult, but this - she's been lied to her whole life, first by her parents, then by just about every guardian she's ever had since then, and she'd thought, really, honestly believed, that Jacques and Olivia would never hide anything from her.
Olivia sighs and looks up at Jacques, who takes a seat on Violet's other side. "Olivia wanted to tell you the moment she figured it out," he says, and his eyes are dark and soft and serious. "I was the one who told her we ought to wait."
"But why?" Violet demands. "Why wouldn't you have told me?"
Jacques looks at her for a long moment. "How do you feel, now that you know?"
Violet couldn't give an answer to that if she had a week to figure it out, but one thing she definitely doesn't feel is good.
"You were protecting me," she acknowledges softly, reluctantly. But honestly, when hasn't he protected her, protected all of them, from the moment he came into their lives? Everything he's done since he first walked into that courtroom in the Village of Fowl Devotees, and maybe even earlier, he's done in an attempt to help them, to keep them safe.
He nods. "I was trying to spare you from something that would put you through a great deal of pain for no reason."
Violet looks down at her lap, fiddles with the buckle of her tool belt. "I still deserved to know," she says, "regardless of how I feel about it. I deserved to know." She swallows, looks back up. "But I know… I know it wasn't a secret you were supposed to have to keep. Lemony explained everything, about why my mother lied to everyone, even me. I know it was a hard choice for you both, and I know you would never hurt me on purpose."
"Never," Olivia says solemnly. "We should have told you, you're right. I suppose we wanted to wait until you'd been with us a little longer, until you really felt like you could trust us."
"I do trust you," Violet says, remembering in that moment the first time she'd ever said it, shivering and filthy and exhausted in VFD Headquarters the night they'd been rescued. She had barely believed her own words at the time, but they've come such a long way since then. "You did a bad thing for a noble reason," she says, "because people are like chef's salads."
At this, Olivia gives a quiet laugh, but Jacques' face takes on a strange, nearly exasperated expression. "You've already been spending too much time around my brother," he says. "Only he uses those kinds of ridiculous metaphors."
"I like it," Violet says, "he was very helpful, actually."
"I meant what I said, Violet," Jacques says. "Kit and Dewey can put him up in Hotel Denouement. He doesn't have to stay here."
Violet looks at him, studies his face, tries to understand. "But he's your brother."
He nods. "Yes, he is. But you're my ward, and you come first. And if him being here would make you uncomfortable, then he'll go."
"Oh," Violet says. She considers this, considers what she's learned about him today, not just from what he'd told her or what she'd read in the letter but how he'd acted, how he'd handled the entire situation. A lesser man, Olaf for example, would have responded with violence, threats, a scheme for her fortune. Violet knows now that's what she's been expecting of Lemony all along: another Olaf to sweep into her life and burn everything to the ground.
But Lemony isn't Olaf. He's Jacques and Kit's brother, and a quiet, lonely writer, and the man her mother once loved, and her... well. That.
"He can stay," Violet says, picking at a groove in the table.
"Are you sure, Violet?" Olivia asks.
No, Violet wants to say. "Yes," she says instead.
Jacques watches her for a moment, studying her face. "Alright," he finally says, "he'll stay, then. But if you change your mind, I'd like you to promise that you'll come to me immediately, alright?"
Violet is careful to meet his eyes. "I promise."
He nods once, sharply, before standing and excusing himself. He rests his hand on her head for a single, warm beat, sapping the last of the tension from her shoulders, before exiting out the back door. Violet thinks he's going to go make some kind of fuss at Lemony, and she doesn't know why. She sort of hopes he hides until Jacques has cooled off a little. He seems like he'd be good at that.
Olivia's gaze rests on the door for long moments after Jacques disappears through it, a pensive frown on her face. But then she seems to shake herself, and turns back to Violet with a quiet, tired smile.
"Tea, then?" It's Olivia's solution to everything, Violet knows by now - and for good reason. She smiles back.
"Yes, please."
Violet has taken refuge on the second floor balcony by the time Klaus gets home, leaned up against the railing and peering out over the backyard.
She's not looking for Lemony, so the fact that she can't see him or Jacques anywhere on the grounds is both irrelevant and not at all worrisome. Oh, mother, she thinks, prays, please don't let me have ruined this for them.
Klaus brings Sunny with him when he comes to her, presumably having made a beeline to find her the second he got home. He must have been worried about her "illness", she thinks with a mirthless smile. She wonders how Olivia even managed to get him out the door this morning without her.
"Violet," Klaus greets the moment he steps through the balcony doors, "are you feeling better?"
Sunny trails behind him, walking entirely on her own the way she almost always does, now. Her hair has grown and so has she, and while she's not quite speaking in full sentences yet, neither Violet nor Klaus have needed to translate for her in some time. Olivia had told her that her sister had been entertaining herself with the dogs and her collection of interesting things to bite in the library for most of the day, for which Violet is privately grateful - she can't imagine what would have happened had she seen her sister in the direct aftermath of her discovery.
It's not much easier to bear now. A modifier has been added to that title, to her brother's, too: half. She is now - and in truth, always has been - only fractionally related to these two people she loves best in all the world, has been reduced to less of herself than she has ever been. The one relationship she thought she'd understood completely, the one thing she would never, ever have doubted, has now been sliced neatly in two by a simple fact of biology and that single, ugly adjective.
Stars, no wonder Jacques hadn't wanted to tell her. She wishes, the second she sees their faces, that she didn't know, regardless of what she'd told her guardians downstairs. For a wretched instant, she hates her mother and Lemony Snicket and VFD and the entire stupid, wicked world for putting her in this position.
"I'm not sure," Violet says, and only realizes she's started to cry again when Klaus' eyes go wide in alarm.
He takes several quick steps to her side, Sunny on his heels. This close, it's easy to see how much taller he's grown, too, with nearly half a head of height over her, now. Somehow, this only makes her want to cry harder.
"You're not really sick, are you?" Klaus says, brow furrowed in concern, voice low with conspiracy. "What's wrong, Violet? What do you need?"
Stars, where does she even start?
"No," she says, wiping her face with her sleeve and trying to pull herself together. "I'm not sick. I'm sorry if I worried you."
"You're worrying me now," Klaus says.
"What's wrong?" Sunny demands, tugging at her trousers. Klaus picks her up so they can all be at eye-level.
Get scared later, Violet thinks, even as she's instantly filled with terror. But she takes a breath, and reaches for the wrench on her toolbelt, and then it pours out of her, the whole, awful story: how her suspicion of Lemony had started, what she'd planned, why she'd kept them both in the dark. And then she tells them what she'd discovered, down to the very last detail, and as she does she thinks about all the times in her life she's been the most frightened - when she saw Sunny dangling from that tower window, when Olaf had shown up at Uncle Monty's, when her brother had been hypnotized, when Olaf had caught hold of her in the Library of Records and she'd thought he was going to murder her on the spot. And in all that time, in all that she's seen and experienced and lost, she has never in her life been more terrified than she is in this moment.
If she loses them, she really will have nothing left.
Klaus and Sunny wait politely, without saying a word, until she's finished, until the whole thing is laid out before them, thrown at their feet like a gauntlet.
And then Klaus very casually steps over it and hugs her so tightly she can hardly breathe, and Sunny latches her little arms around Violet's neck and refuses to let go. Violet's heart instantly shatters into a billion little pieces.
It takes her long moments to realize that her siblings are crying too, now, and she's started back up again. They all just huddle there, crying and not saying anything, for what seems like an eternity. Violet doesn't mind - she doesn't care if they never move again.
"I'm sorry," Klaus mumbles eventually, sniffling, and Violet recoils so fast she almost bruises her back against the balcony railing. Sunny has yet to let her go, though, so she quite effectively and accidentally rips her out of her brother's arms and almost drops her in the process.
"For what, Klaus?" she demands once she regains herself, totally bewildered.
Klaus removes his glasses to scrub at his eyes. "I'm sorry you found out alone. I should have stayed with you when I heard you were sick, I could have helped -"
Violet wonders if this is what hysteria feels like. "Stop, Klaus," she says, almost wanting to laugh, because if anyone would take the blame for what happened here today while simultaneously having absolutely nothing at all to do with it, it would be him. "If you had stayed it would have ruined my plan and I would have waited for another day when you were out of the house," she says. "I chose to do this alone, and that's not your fault."
"I wish you had told us what you were planning," Klaus says, and in her arms, Sunny nods along in agreement. "We've never done this kind of thing alone."
"I thought Lemony might have been dangerous," Violet says. It's a weak excuse and she knows what Klaus will say in response even before she's finished speaking.
Klaus, as usual, doesn't disappoint. "All the more reason we should have been there."
"Trust?" Sunny says, blinking at her sadly, and something kicks in Violet's chest.
"Of course I trust you," she says - stars, after today they're just about the only people she does trust. "I wanted to protect you."
Klaus frowns. "Promise us you won't do anything like this again without us, Violet. It's not like it was before. You aren't alone. None of us are."
If anything like today ever happens again, it will probably be the death of her, but she nods anyway. "I promise."
He nods, then rubs at his eyes again. "How are you… feeling, about all this?"
"Horrible," Violet answers honestly, the first time she's been able to identify a single thread out of the ball of emotion that's knotted itself up in her chest since she found out.
Klaus looks at her then, really looks, the way he sometimes does when he's trying to read her like a book in his collection, like she's a word he understands only vaguely and he's trying to make sense of it from context alone.
"You're afraid," he says, and she flinches.
"I'm not afraid."
"Yes you are. What are you afraid of? Is it Lemony? Did he do something? Have you told Jacques and Olivia?"
"He didn't do anything to me, Klaus, and I'm not afraid."
"Afraid," Sunny insists.
Violet looks away, but Klaus' gaze never wavers. "You're worried about us, aren't you?" he says with an air of grave realization. "That's it, isn't it? You're worried this is going to change things with us."
"No, I'm -"
"You are," Klaus says, stepping closer. "You're my sister, and I know you. You're actually afraid of us."
"I'm barely your sister," Violet says, and then turns sharply back towards the grounds before she can start crying again. She still can't see either of the Snicket brothers.
To her surprise, Klaus genuinely sounds… confused? "Why?" he asks. "Because we don't… because our fathers aren't the same?"
She doesn't say anything - can't, probably - so he continues. "Violet, that's ridiculous and you know it. You'd be our sister even if you discovered that we don't share either of our parents."
"It's not the same."
"Why not?" Klaus demands. "Family is whatever we decide it is, and biology is only a small part of that. We're not related to the Quagmires, and they're family."
"Olivia," Sunny says, patting her face. "Jacques."
"So it's not strange to you at all that I'm only your half-sister?" Violet challenges, but hugs her closer.
"You're not our half anything, Violet," Klaus says, and when she turns back to look at him he's in the middle of an eye-roll. "And of course it's strange. But everything is strange now. We're orphans who live in a mansion with a taxi driver and a librarian and a set of clever triplets and dogs that only bark when they smell smoke. We're safe and Olaf is gone and we have different fathers." He frowns, resolute. "You're still my sister. And Sunny is still my sister. We're family - we're Baudelaires. Nothing has changed."
Violet looks at him for what feels like a long time. Something warm blooms in her chest, in the back of her throat, and it tastes a little like hope. She doesn't know how to reply to him, but Klaus seems to sense this because he moves on.
"Do you want to tell the Quagmires?"
Violet looks down at the railing, runs her hands across it, over and back, over and back. "Yes," she says eventually, "but not today."
She can see Klaus nod in the corner of her eye. Sunny hugs her neck again, and Klaus steps closer until he's right next to her on the railing, at her side the way he always has been.
He's staying. They're staying. She hasn't lost them.
Violet closes her eyes in relief, and breathes, and breathes, and breathes.
Lemony doesn't leave.
Despite what Violet had told Jacques, it had surprised her that he'd chosen to stay - Lemony is a self-proclaimed coward, after all, and based on what little she knows about him she can tell he's not the kind of man to stick around when things get dramatic.
But still, he stays, even if he does remain shut up in his room a little more than he had before, and skips more meals with the family, and looks tired all the time. Jacques hadn't said what they'd discussed, that day he'd gone out after his brother, but the pair of them had stayed out for hours and returned with a strange, singing tension between them. It's faded, in the weeks since, but sometimes Violet will catch Jacques giving Lemony sharp looks when he thinks she's not looking, or sometimes Lemony will just up and leave whatever room she's in a few moments after she enters. He rarely speaks to her, and he's long since stopped watching her in the way that had once been so confusing.
Lemony is avoiding her, probably at Jacques' insistence, and that's… it's unnecessary and she doesn't like it, that's all.
But it's not just Lemony who's being strange. Violet can't stand the way everyone in the house seems to be walking on eggshells around her now, like they expect her to fall apart if the wind blows too harshly. Her siblings almost never leave her side, now, and Olivia must ask her how she's feeling at least three times a day. Even the Quagmires, who had taken the news of her parentage in stride, are being extra cautious in everything they say and do. (Quigley, she had noted, had seemed marginally less surprised than the others to hear the news, but sometimes his research on the history of VFD leads him to strange and unexpected discoveries, and if anyone could have worked it out without any kind of prior indication or involvement, it would be him. He hasn't actually said one way or another, but Violet gets a feeling, sometimes.)
It's all very annoying, honestly, and she's sick of it, which is why one night after dinner, she gathers Klaus and Sunny and marches up to Lemony's bedroom with no ceremony and only a little trepidation.
"Good evening," she greets once he opens the door, like they hadn't just sat across the dinner table avoiding one another's eyes half an hour earlier. "My siblings and I were wondering if you still wanted help on your research."
For his part, he looks completely stunned to see her there, like she's a total stranger peddling a product he's never heard of. He blinks several times before opening his door only slightly wider, almost like he doesn't mean to do it.
"Yes," he finally says, so quietly she has to strain to hear him. "Yes, please come in."
They do. It's awkward, at first, both because of the situation and the fact that he's researching the darkest period of their lives, and talking about it, unpacking it in this kind of detail, is strained and emotional and very, very difficult.
But it's important, and even Klaus and Sunny agree that it needs to be done, that their story - the real story, not the nonsense in the Punctilio - needs to be told. Nothing they do will have any bearing on the past and the horrors they all suffered in it, but it could have a significant impact on the future of others, and it's for that reason that they drag themselves to his room night after night, and answer question after question, tell story after story. Lemony, for his part, does the same, fills them in on what little information Jacques and Olivia hadn't already provided about what had gone on in the background, about the sheer number of people who had been looking out for them, trying to keep them from Olaf's clutches. They'd mostly failed, at least until Jacques and Olivia came on the scene, but the important thing - to Violet, anyway, she thinks Klaus might be more skeptical - is that they'd kept failing, kept getting up, kept trying, until she and her siblings and the Quagmires were finally safe.
Violet knows better than anyone that VFD wasn't - isn't - anywhere near perfect. But they'd tried, and tried, and tried some more, and isn't that all anyone can really do?
Gradually, very gradually, everyone in the manor starts to relax. It takes another few weeks until Lemony stops being so weird around her - weirder than he had been before she'd made the discovery, anyway - and a few more after that until Jacques stops looking at her like he's waiting for her to have some kind of breakdown. She suspects Olivia had been a big help with that part, since she'd been the first to back off, to come around to the idea that Violet really is fine - or at least feeling much calmer about the whole thing.
The first time Violet goes up to talk with Lemony without one of her siblings in tow, she almost can't make herself do it. She climbs up and down the staircase to the third floor four times before she finally gets ahold of herself and makes it all the way to his room. She's oddly gratified to find that he seems just as nervous as she is about the change in their unspoken protocol, and also that he leaves the door wide open and takes the seat farthest away from it. He never says anything about it directly, but she knows he's doing what he'd done that first time - always giving her an exit, always silently telling her I'm not going to hurt you.
Those visits become more and more frequent until they're expected - her siblings and the Quagmires know that three nights a week, like clockwork, she'll carry a tea tray to Lemony's room after dinner and talk with him about his research until Jacques and Olivia start herding them all to bed. It's not even always the research they talk about - sometimes he tells her stories about her parents, about his training days at Prufrock, about his siblings, about his apprenticeship in the tiny, derelict town of Stain'd-by-the-Sea. He's seen so much, and done so much, and he's a brilliant storyteller - Violet catches herself hanging on every word he says. Lately she has begun to dread bedtime on those nights because she enjoys their conversations so much.
She still tries to invite Klaus and Sunny, sometimes, but strangely they always seem to have other things to do. She has her own private suspicions about why they're really declining to accompany her, but keeps them to herself.
Violet discovers after about a month of this routine that she really, genuinely likes Lemony Snicket. It sort of frightens her, and she has to take apart the toaster and her gramophone and the grandfather clock in the hall to deal with it, but she doesn't stop visiting him and the world doesn't end, so it's probably fine.
She still has nightmares. Sometimes she's able to go back to sleep, sometimes she wakes to Olivia's warm hands on her shoulders, sometimes Klaus and Sunny slip into bed beside her, sometimes she just gets up and tinkers until morning.
Lemony is never around again to witness them when they happen. She wonders what that means, and if it should bother her. Probably not.
It sort of does anyway.
When Lemony announces one morning at breakfast that he's leaving, it startles Violet so badly she knocks her fork off the table.
"Only for a few days," he's quick to clarify, "for research." He's looking at his brother, who had gone stiff at his announcement, but he glances over at her when she bends to pick her fork up off the floor, an unreadable expression on his face. Violet doesn't meet his eyes.
"How long is 'a few days'?" Jacques asks this casually, but there's a note in his voice that suggests he doesn't expect he's going to like the answer he gets.
"A week," Lemony says, "maybe longer."
"Will you send a telegram, if you plan on being away longer?" asks Olivia, very casually. She phrases it like a question, but Violet thinks it's probably meant to be an order.
It takes Lemony a beat too long to nod, probably because he's not used to having someone to miss him, or else because he's simply the kind of man who doesn't like his movements tracked. But he agrees, and Violet can breathe again.
When she returns home from school later that day, he's already gone, and it doesn't bother her. Why should it? She barely knows him, after all, and aside from the fact that they're doing research together they don't have much of a relationship to speak of.
She doesn't miss him, she tells herself as she rewires her bedside lamp long after she's supposed to be asleep that night. She doesn't. She's just sort of… bored, now that he's not here and she doesn't have their talks to look forward to.
The week drags on, interminably long, and her nightmares are full of fire. It has nothing to do with him being gone, though, she tells herself as she tinkers with a portable fire extinguisher that volunteers could theoretically keep on their belts during missions. He's not that important to her, really - they're barely friends.
On the evening Lemony is supposed to return home, Jacques gets a telegram on the machine in his study, stating that his brother will be away for another fortnight due to complications with his visa and a few unsavory characters who tried to sabotage his passage back from Peru.
This news doesn't bother Violet in the slightest. The fact that she doesn't sleep for almost a week after that is completely unrelated.
Olivia has started to give her those looks again, her gaze lingering on the shadows Violet knows have appeared under her eyes. Her restraint is admirable, especially given that Violet almost falls asleep at the breakfast table one morning before school, but catches herself just in time to avoid falling out of her chair. Olivia doesn't press - she only sighs and sends Violet back to bed, gently stating that she wasn't going to be able to learn anything if she could barely keep her eyes open.
Violet tries to protest, because she's fine, but Olivia doesn't budge, standing her ground in a way she rarely does with any of them. Violet goes back to bed and doesn't sleep.
She can hear her guardians lingering in the common room outside her hallway that night, no doubt in an attempt to make themselves available in case she should need them. So Violet doesn't tinker or read or organize her closet again or do any of the other things she normally does when she can't sleep - she just stares at the canopy above her bed until morning. She dozes, a little, but always snaps awake in moments, certain she can smell smoke, certain she can hear her mother calling for her.
Another week passes. Klaus and Sunny and the Quagmires are showing signs of concern, now, attempting to push where Olivia won't. But Violet is fine, the not-sleeping thing will pass and it's got nothing to do with Lemony Snicket whatsoever, and she tells them this. They plainly don't believe her, but she doesn't waste her time trying to convince them.
Jacques doesn't receive another telegram updating him on Lemony's status one way or another. He doesn't seem as concerned about this as Violet thinks he ought to be, but Olivia only says - when Violet brings it up, very casually because she isn't worried about it - that Jacques trusts his brother and is long used to his radio silence by now.
"He'll come back, Violet," Olivia says softly, which is an odd thing for her to say since Violet hadn't prompted her and doesn't care. "He hasn't sent another message, which means he should be home tonight."
Violet nods, but for whatever reason her stomach is in knots. She drinks some tea and retreats into the garage to tinker until the feeling goes away.
Lemony has not returned, or sent any kind of word that he will, by the time the inhabitants of the manor settle in for bed. Violet lays awake in the dark, staring at her clock and listening for the sound of Lemony's arrival for so long she thinks she might actually go insane.
Huffing to herself in exasperation, she throws the coverlet off and slips into her house shoes before quietly stealing out her bedroom door. She avoids tripping over Charybdis or waking anyone as she makes her way down to the sitting room on the first floor. If she can't sleep, she can at least wait up for Lemony to make sure he comes home - for Jacques' sake, obviously.
She settles herself on the couch with her lockpicks and box of padlocks and lets the rhythmic clicking of tumblers settle her racing heart.
She doesn't remember drifting off, or what she dreams about, only that there's smoke, and that the manor collapses around her, and that she is completely alone.
No, wait - she's not alone. A voice calls to her through the fire, coming from a shadow like a dragonfly, and for a strange moment she thinks it's her mother, trying to show her the way out.
But then the voice changes to a rumbling baritone, familiar and foreign at once, and the dragonfly flits away. She cries out, trying to reach for it, feeling as though it takes something from her when it goes.
"Violet," says Lemony, "it's alright. You're safe."
She opens her eyes, or thinks she does - it's hard to tell when one is dreaming - and wonders if that's true. It looks like she's safe, now that she's focusing; there's no fire anymore, and the manor is still standing, quiet and dark and still. But she must still be asleep, because Lemony is here even though she knows he's never coming back.
She's not sure why she'd dream up him being thinner than before, or why he'd have those bruises on his face, but it's hardly the weirdest thing her brain has ever come up with, and she doesn't question it overmuch.
"Lemony," she says, and nothing else. Stars, she's so very tired - and isn't that odd, to be tired even when she's asleep?
"What are you doing down here?" He sounds almost as exhausted as she feels, but also faintly amused.
It's a funny sort of question. Can't she go where she likes, in her own dreams?
"Waiting," she says, and that's important but she can't quite remember why.
"For me?" There's that amusement again, stronger now. It sounds right, but she doesn't want to admit to it, because it's silly to wait for someone you know isn't going to come back. How many times had she lain awake in the dark in Olaf's house, waiting for her parents to kick down the door, waiting for them to return from wherever they'd disappeared to - because surely they couldn't really be dead - and take them all to safety?
But her parents aren't coming back, and Lemony isn't either. She's not sure why the thought makes her so sad. She ought to be used to it by now.
The Dream-Lemony at her side peers down at her as though she's an utter mystery. "You ought to return to bed, Violet," he says, much softer than before.
Violet thinks maybe if she ignores him, he'll go away. She doesn't want to dream about him if he can't bother to come back in real life - and anyway, she's already in bed, or else how could she be dreaming?
"Violet," he tries again, only to sigh when she doesn't answer him. She's not technically being rude since he isn't really here.
For a few moments, there's nothing, and the world slips back into the darkness and solitude and oblivion of before, and Violet thinks he's finally left her alone. But then she hears something like another sigh, and the world spins gently, gives way beneath her save for two iron bars that hold her fast to something warm and solid. She opens her eyes again, finding her cheek pressed against the smooth, dark fabric of a dingy suit jacket.
Now she knows she's dreaming - Lemony Snicket would never carry her anywhere, both because he still seems so terrified of her, and also because he's not coming back.
The heartbeat confuses her, though, thumping even and low in his chest - she didn't think dreams had heartbeats. She closes her eyes, trying to listen.
Safe-safe. Safe-safe. Safe-safe.
Oh, Violet realizes, clarity dawning, I'm not dreaming at all.
She should be uncomfortable with the situation, probably, or at the very least demand that he put her down, because she's fifteen years old, not a child, and also she's upset with him. But he's so warm, and she's so very tired, and he's holding her so carefully, like she's something precious, like the sugar bowl or her mother's letter or someone he wants to protect.
"You came back," she murmurs. She doesn't open her eyes, doesn't dare.
"Yes," he murmurs, so softly it's almost lost to the darkness.
"Why?"
He's quiet for so long Violet almost drifts off again, lulled by the steady rhythm of his heart and the sway of his steps as he climbs the stairs. "I told you I would," he finally says, and something warm and bright melts through her. She latches a hand around the lapel of his jacket and just holds on.
"Don't leave again," she says.
It's been an unspoken rule in her life for so long that people don't come back once she loses them, not ever. Not her parents, not Justice Strauss, not Uncle Monty or Aunt Josephine or Jerome Squalor. She'd always thought Jacques' return from the dead had been some kind of fluke, an accident when the universe wasn't looking, and she still wakes up some days forgetting that the Quagmires are safe down the hall, still expecting them to be lost.
Maybe Lemony… maybe she can make him stick around, after all. Maybe she can find a way to keep him.
He doesn't reply to her demand, but within his chest his heartbeat picks up, thrumming fiercely against her ear. She thinks she imagines the way his arm tightens around her back.
Violet can hear the promise in those things as clearly as though he'd spoken aloud.
A treacherous, thread-thin hope sparks in her chest, and she holds onto it tightly as the world slips back into nothingness for what could be minutes or years. When she comes back to herself, she's on her bed, and Lemony has pulled off her house shoes and is in the process of drawing her comforter tightly up to her chin. A warm hand brushes a stray strand of hair from her face, feather-light, hesitant, almost trembling.
She only cracks her eyes open when she hears him turn away, start to leave. "I'm glad you came back," she says.
He's quiet for a beat. "So am I," he replies. There's a part of her that thinks he sounds almost surprised.
She can't help but smile then, just a little. "Goodnight, Lemony."
He pauses in the doorway, hovering for long moments, a tall, dark shadow. She wonders, still tangled in the spiderwebs of sleep, how she could have ever been afraid of him, this sad, strange man who loved her mother and who very probably loves her.
Curiously, the thought doesn't frighten her at all.
Lemony Snicket will never be her father, not in the way that Bertrand was. He will never be able to replace the man who had raised her, who had given her her first toolkit, who had been there for every birthday and scraped knee and nightmare. He will never be her father the way Jacques will never be her father, the way none of her past guardians had been able to fill that role.
But maybe he can just... be near her, occupying roughly the same space. Maybe he can be a friend and an ally and a listening ear. Maybe that can be enough.
"Goodnight, Violet," he says.
He leaves, then, but Violet isn't worried - she knows he won't go far. She closes her eyes, and finally, finally allows herself to sleep.
That night, and for many nights after, Violet's dreams are quiet.
A/N: That's a wrap, folks! I really hope you guys enjoyed!
Also, I will award twenty points to the Hogwarts House of whoever can tell me where I got the title of this story from!
Thanks to everyone who fav'd and reviewed! You have no idea how much I appreciate it!
Special thanks also to my beta and dearest friend, lady-stormbraver! You're magnificent, darling!
Don't forget to leave a review!
Sincerely,
Starcrier.