Thanks to: Shadow914, Jolinnn, Spencerblue, kunoichi, Fowl Fox (yes, make yourself an account - go for it! I'll read your fics and review!) Alchemechanist (x3, thank-you so much for reviewing every chapter since the last time you reviewed!) and as always, Steinbock.

Also, I forgot who asked but Pa calls Dom 'Kingdom' and sometimes 'Little Kingdom' because it stemmed from him calling him 'My Little King Dom' as a baby - based on the fact that he sees him as the only hope to their continuation of their branch of the Butler family tree, since he's fairly certain Myles isn't going to be bringing anything useful to the table. So in a roundabout way he's their heir to the kingdom - although that kingdom mainly consists of ensuring Fowls don't go extinct...

WARNINGS: Long and kinda slow chapter. It was two slow chapters so I've banged it into one for more interesting content. If you're really into the little nuances and snippets that build the relationships between all the characters for future chapters and fics, then I think you're going to like it. If you just want a good action blast... I apologise. We've had that bit for now. Here, have some more gruff!fluff instead.

CHAPTER SEVEN

"REPERCUSSIONS"

Definition: Unintended consequences of an event or action

Fowl Manor, Dublin

Dom shook against his mother's side as she rocked him gently. He was washed and warm and dry, but still he shivered and felt sick to his core; every time he closed his eyes images of horror and fear flashed onto his eyelids. He hadn't let her turn the lamp off.

"Hush, my baby boy," she murmured, smoothing his hair gently. "Let it go. Just rest now. Just sleep."

She had come immediately, of course. She had left work – and was fairly certain she'd be fired upon return but if 'family emergency' wasn't a good enough excuse this close to Christmas then screw it, she'd find another job. She had been due to arrive at the manor within the week anyway, but Eugene Fowl did not use a telephone; he had 'people' for that. She had already made up her mind she was leaving when the name left her colleagues mouth as she handed Theresa the phone. If Eugene Fowl was using a telephone to contact her of all people, something was drastically, drastically wrong. He had said very little over the phone, only to come as quickly as she could and not to stop for anyone or anything. Harson would be at the gates to let her in, he had said. When she had asked why it would be him – when Myles always insisted on doing that sort of thing himself – the hesitation had been all she had needed to be on the way almost before she hung up the phone.

Harson had indeed let her in and the fact he looked even more sullen than usual and did not even so much as make some snide remark about her late-night visiting, put her so much more on edge that when at last she had at last burst through the manor doors, she had almost thrown herself on the Fowl couple stood in the hall behind it.

"Where's my son?" she demanded frantically. "Where is he?"

"He's safe," Vivienne said immediately, understanding a mother's need to hear that of her child. She had been just the same before she had managed to gather Artemis to her bosom once more and squeeze him until he had complained of bruised ribs and told her she was being quite unnecessary as he held back tears of relief that both of his parents were alright. "He's fine, Theresa. Shaken, but unharmed."

The medic who had checked Artemis and Sophia over had said the same. The Simmons were staying the night with them at the manor, but had retired to one of the guest rooms – all three laid together in a king-sized bed, fearful despite the Fowl's manor security team being on high alert. The host family themselves were not feeling as safe as they usually did either; not without their two top security staff.

"Tell me where he is," said Theresa, daring them to delay her any further.

"We will," Eugene said, as gently as he could – tact was not his strong point and he was barely recovering from the healthy dose of shock he had received when his bodyguard had called him from the hospital hours after apparently being rendered deceased in front of his very eyes. "But first, Ms Brady, I'm afraid we must inform you there's been a serious incident and…"

"The 'serious incident' can wait unless you want another one – where is my son?!" she almost snarled.

"Theresa, please – a moment," Vivienne reached for her arm gently.

But Theresa was having none of it. She didn't want to hear what had happened, she wanted her son and she wanted him in her arms. Now.

"Ma?"

Dom's voice echoed from the upstairs landing and they rushed for eachother, meeting halfway at the landing on the flight of stairs. He had not yet changed out of his suit and she gripped him tightly, fearing what the state of the expensive material meant.

"Oh my baby," she breathed in relief as she kissed his face, stroked his hair – which was encrusted in dried blood that was not his own – and checked him over for any damage a doctor may have overlooked, running her hands over his arms and torso, feeling for his strong, young heart pounding firmly under his bloodied shirt. "Oh my boy, what happened to you?"

And it was that which broke him.

He had been doing so well to remain stoic and calm throughout the trip to the hospital in the ambulance with his miraculously revived grandfather and the paramedics working tirelessly to resuscitate the last vestiges of the steadily ebbing life of his uncle. He had managed not to cry when the doctors had gently pried his grip from his uncle's hand at the hospital's A&E doors, with repeated promises of 'We'll do what we can for your daddy, son – but you've got to let us do our job now'. He'd wanted to say that he wasn't his dad, but it didn't matter. For all intents and purposes, he was. And that's how he felt now; in desperate need of a parent. And so when his mother held him close to her chest and told him it was all alright and she would look after him now and he wanted to believe her so much it hurt... he collapsed entirely into broken, hitching sobs, shaking and crying in her arms and it was all she could do to hold him steady on those grand stairs of Fowl Manor.

She held him close, standing and looking down on the Fowls over her son's head.

"It's The Major, isn't it?" she said quietly, knowing in her heart even before the saddened nods came that it was.

She felt as though the stair's carpet had been torn out from under her and taken her stomach with it. The world stood still momentarily, everything falling away into nothingness. Everything, that was, but the warm, crumpling frame of her son, shaking in the grip of her arms.

She had known this would happen one day. She had known from the day she had started caring about him that it could. He would be ripped away from her by virtue of his own life's work.

Gone. Just like Beckett. Lost, forever.

"Idiot," she whispered, bitterly as the tears began to stream down her face and she held Dom close to her, willing herself to be strong for her boy. "Damn that stupid, stupid…"

"He's not dead, doch'," the most comforting voice she could have hoped to hear right now rumbled as he made his way down the stairs towards them.

She turned and gasped at the sight of him, but pulled her son with her as she reached to embrace him one-armed.

"Jesus! What the f..."

"I'm fine. Don't worry."

"Fine?! What the hell happened to you?!"

"I got myself shot in the head," he shrugged. "But I'm ok now."

"Shot in the... How?"

"Well, someone fired a gun at me. But it's OK - they missed."

Theresa decided she'd ask again later. There was more information she needed first. Information about someone who was unavoidably not here.

"My… The Major's not dead?" she repeated, desperate to clarify. "He's not dead?"

"No. He's not good – but he's not dead. Yet."

Theresa took a proper breath. She could work with 'not good'. She could even work with 'yet'. She could work with anything that was 'not dead'.

"Take the evening, Butler," Eugene called from the bottom of the stairs, as though the man needed the order. "Tomorrow too. Hell, the whole week if you need it."

"Thank-you, sir," Xandr said, with a nod. "With respect, may I suggest you get some rest?"

"Yes… yes, I will," he muttered absentmindedly, and the bodyguard knew that the man would do no such thing until he had worked out a way to get back at the people who had attacked his family.

They had not yet had the conversation the Fowl patriarch knew would be happening before long. Why had he gone with the Simmons guards instead of waiting for The Major? Why had he left his son behind when he did? They were all things the Butler would want to know. A blow-by-blow of every decision, every moment after he had been taken out of action. It sounded as though his charge needed some 'apocalypse situation' training. This situation, if nothing else, had made them all stop and realise that the Butlers were not, despite evidence to the contrary, entirely invincible. There had to be a better 'Plan B' in the event of their incapacitation, than 'wander off with the next nearest security team'. He would have his reasons. Butler would listen. It did not necessarily mean he had to agree.

"Mrs Fowl," he rumbled, inclining his head. "Will you be so kind as to assist my charge with my request?"

They had a long-standing partnership when it came to keeping Eugene Fowl in the best of health and Vivienne nodded as with a sad smile she took hold of her husband's arm.

"Certainly Butler," she said, steering the muttering head of the Fowls towards the west-wing staircase and their room.

They watched them go, standing in uneasy silence on the stairs. Dom had fallen quiet again, his eyes staring blankly into the middle distance.

"What happened?" Theresa said at last.

"You take care of Dom first," Xandr said, clasping the back of his grandson's head gently for a moment, thumbing the blood-encrusted hair. "Then we'll talk. Take as long as you need – I'm going to clean myself up, then I'll come find you."

That had been earlier. Before she had scrubbed Dom down in the shower - for the first time in a fair few years now, the independent little git that he was - before she had washed the swirling crimson dregs from the bath and wrapped him in one of the Fowl's big, fluffy towels. Before he had dried and dressed himself and she had tucked him into bed and enclosed him in the warm, safe haven of her arms.

There was a light knock on the door and Theresa murmured a response. She would have perhaps been irritated at the interruption in her attempts to get her son to sleep, but she knew who it was. Besides, as she had expected, Dom's eyes glinted in the light that spilled through the door – they were still wide open; refusing to rest.

She moved her feet, allowing the Butler to sit on the end of the bed. Dom unclenched his fist from her shirt and reached for him silently. Xandr gave him his hand to hold.

"Can't sleep, eh, detenysh?"

The boy shook his head with a sniff.

"It does help if you close your eyes…" he rebuked, gently, with a raised eyebrow. It hurt to make the facial expression, not that he made any external sign of it. He had dressed and taped the damage left behind by the bullet meant to kill him. It could do with some more attention, if he was honest. But he would swallow his pride and ask Theresa later. For now, his priority - as always - was not himself.

Dom blinked at him, eyeing the head dressing. He had not spoken another word since calling out to his mother and Alexandr was concerned for what this elective mutism may mean for future post-traumatic stress symptoms. But that was a concern for later. He had plenty to be getting on with right now.

"Are you comfortable?"

The boy shrugged and Xandr turned to Theresa.

"May I?" he said, gesturing to move closer.

"Of course," she said, shuffling over to make room.

The giant slid further back on the bed until he was against the wall behind them, he and Dom's mother arranging the boy so that he was tucked between them in the blanket she had covered him in.

"Now then. I know you're scared. And that's ok," Xandr rumbled softly. "I'm scared too."

Dom pushed himself up to look at him, confused. This was a revelation. This was his grandfather. The Great Butler. He did not get... scared.

"I know you find that hard to believe," he said, with a soft snort. "But I am. That's OK. Fear is normal. It's how you react to it that counts. None of us want to lose your uncle, Kingdom. But lying here awake fretting yourself sick isn't going to help anybody. We will wait for news. Then we will react to it. Worrying never improved a situation, moy vnuk."

The boy was still silent. Theresa ran her fingers through his thick, damp hair, stroking his forehead.

"Try to relax, sweetheart. Just for a minute. Just a few hours rest, OK?"

Dom closed his eyes, but that was as far as he got. Theresa shot Xandr a helpless look and the giant let out a great sigh, stretching his arm around her shoulders and pulling them all in together in a huddle.

And then, quite unexpectedly Theresa thought, he began to sing, in a low murmuring melody;

"Spi mladyenets, moi prekrasný,
bayushki bayu,
tikho smotrit myesyats yasný
f kolýbyel tvayu.
Stanu skazývat' ya skazki,
pyesenki spayu,
tý-zh dremli, zakrývshi glazki,
Bayushki bayu.

Terek bezhit po skalistoy krovati,
I bryzgayet yego temnaya volna,
Po beregam beretsya lukavyy razboynik,
Zatochka kinzhala,
No tvoy otets - staryy voin,
Zatverdevshiy v boyu,
Tak spat', moya dorogaya, bezmyatezhnost',
Bayushki bayu.

Sim uznayesh, budit vremya,
branoye zhityo,
smyelo vdyenish nogu f stremya
i vazmyosh ruzhyo.
Ya sedeltse boyevoye
sholkom razoshyu.
Spi, ditya mayo radnoye,
bayushki bayu.

Spi, mladyenets, moi prekrasný,
bayushki bayu."

By the time he had repeated it twice over, his grandson's breathing had settled and his relatively small frame had relaxed. Xandr ran a rough thumb over his forehead, smoothing the last of the trademark Butler scowl from his young brow.

"I didn't know you could sing," Theresa said softly, leaning her head back onto his solid shoulder.

"I have my talents," he smirked. "Although I'm not sure singing is one of them."

"Well I thought it was beautiful."

The giant grunted noncommittally, seeming almost embarrassed, if that was possible.

"It's a Russian lullaby?" she asked, quietly.

"Yes," Xandr murmured. "There's another few verses, but they're not as happy."

"That's ok," she whispered. "I can't really understand you anyway. Bits and bats, but not all of it."

"Perhaps, but Dom has kept up with his bilingual lessons more than you, moya dorogaya doch'," he chided gently.

"True," she smiled. "I'm sorry. What Is it about?"

"A mother," he said simply. "Singing her son to sleep."

"Like your mother to you?"

"I suppose."

"What is she singing about?"

"About how his father is a soldier and she's proud he'll be a soldier too one day," he said. "And worried."

"Oh."

"Appropriate, eh?" he said, rolling his shoulder under her head.

She stayed uncomfortably silent, so he added;

"It's just a lullaby, 'Resa."

"Did your wife sing it to your boys?"

He snorted quietly at the notion. "My Maud? Sing? No. But I did. As she would tell you; I was always the soft one of the two of us."

"I believe it," Theresa smiled. "Maud… Interesting name."

"Hmm. Don't tell her I let that slip."

"Oh… I didn't know she was still…ah…"

"Alive? Yes she is. Last I heard."

"Last you heard?" she frowned, jolting his shoulder slightly as she looked up at him. "It must be hard to live like that – when did you last see her?"

He huffed in contemplation. "Oh two... maybe three years ago."

"Two or… What? Why?"

The boy between them shifted slightly at her surprised question and the giant hushed her.

"It's how it is," he said, calmly. "It works."

"Works? Pa, she's your wife…"

"And I'm very lucky to be able to call her that," he said, simply.

Theresa sighed. It was this she would never get used to; the complete and utter dedication to the job.

"Besides," he admitted. "She probably would have killed me by now if our arrangement was more… traditional."

"How to you mean?" she said, frowning and smiling at the same time.

"She ah… she likes to test her produce. Get an idea of dosage. Me and the boys are her favourite subjects. We're bigger than average, fast metabolisms… Ideal candidates."

"For what?"

"Oh, never anything too dangerous. Poisoning, sedatives and the likes… I personally have built up quite a resistance to kratom resin," he said, matter-of-factly. "So whereas I would sing to the boys, she… well, she would probably be more likely to slip them some kava or the likes."

Theresa was almost sure he was joking, but the thought of 'the boys' made her throat tighten again.

"I don't have any handy myself, or else I would consider giving us both some kava tea right about now."

He yawned massively and shifted as though to move. She clutched his arm briefly.

"Would you… would you stay? Just for a while. I just… I mean Dom's just settled. I don't want to wake him."

He sighed.

"This will do wonders for my poor old back, I'm sure," he grumbled. "Between that and hauling Myles' lazy backside off the tarmac this evening it'll be a wonder if I can move tomorrow…"

Theresa could see it in her minds eye; Alexandr helping paramedics to load the enormous, limp form of Myles onto a stretcher, warning them of his tendency to decline medical treatment, sternly chastising his son for any attempt to… She was not far off, except that there had been no resistance to the aid from the 120 kilo plus deadweight he had lifted bodily onto the stretcher and a whole lot more rushing around and revival attempts from the medics.

Xandr stretched as though he had decided the matter already… But he stayed. Of course he did. He yawned again like an enormous, drowsy bear and she snuggled more comfortably against his side, tucking her son close between them protectively. And together, they slept.

Undisclosed Hospital, Dublin

The nurses didn't speak to them.

They just looked on at them with politely saddened gazes as the matron of the Intensive Care Unit ward quietly but efficiently directed them to the side room.

They had been given all the information the staff could provide them with about Myles' condition, his prognosis, plans for future surgeries, the likelihood for full recovery... It had been some grim listening.

"He's not conscious," she told them, not unkindly. "But I can assure you, he's being kept comfortable – he's not in any pain at the moment."

"And when…" Theresa said, since Xandr had merely nodded an acknowledgement and gone on ahead through the door. "When do you think it will be possible to… you know, try see if he'll regain consciousness?"

The matron reached out and squeezed her elbow just for a second.

"Well I think he's in for a bit of a journey, sweetheart," she said, smiling sadly at her. "But he seems like a strong one, so we're hopeful for some steady improvement over the next few weeks."

She meant it kindly, but the timeframe she gave made Theresa baulk at the door-handle. What state exactly was her invincible, stalwart friend on the other side of that door? Alexandr hadn't given her much more information than 'he was alive when I last saw him' – perhaps unwilling to diverge more in the face of his own denial at his son's condition.

"You can speak to him, you know?" said the woman, as she stood, frozen in the hallway. "They say people can hear you. If that brings you comfort."

Theresa nodded, numbly. But except for official qualifications, she could be a nurse. She would know by opening the door just how bad the consequences of Myles's life-saving antics were going to be for him long-term and she knew that the head nurse was merely sugar-coating her own diagnosis.

She opened the door.

Xandr Butler didn't even look up. He was sat on the far side of the bed so that he could still see the door – still defend his son from further attackers – and it hit her even more than the machinery Myles was all-but-encased in, that he had folded one giant paw around his boy's.

It was that that broke her. A single sob of shock and anger escaped her as the door clicked shut, locking her in the room with the nightmare.

"Come – sit, moya doch'."

But she couldn't. Not yet. Instead she went to the end of the bed and, glancing only briefly at the pseudonym they had used for him, flashed her eyes over the statistics in Myles's medical file.

"I thought he always wore a vest?" she said, almost accusingly.

"He does. And you should see the state of that," Xandr told her. "He was lucky to get away with just the seven getting through it."

"Liver damage, left lung puncture, ruptured stomach lining… Is there an organ they didn't hit? Oh, he's still got a functioning pancreas, thank fuck for that…"

"Pancreases are important."

For one moment she looked at him in utter disbelief as she suddenly realised that maybe Beckett was not such a complete belaya vorona of the family as Myles had once described him. She could almost hear him saying; 'You should get that printed on a t-shirt'.

"I want to see the x-rays and the surgeon's report," she said bluntly. "And I want to speak to his surgeon."

Myles had already been through several hours of surgery just to stabilise him enough for the intensive care staff to take over. Whoever had been in charge of that would have an opinion, and she wanted to hear it.

"They're not going to show us the x-rays just because we demand to see them, 'Resa," Xandr said, gently. "The surgeon will talk to us in due time, I'm sure. But we must have patience."

"Due time? They'd better speak to us. There's a note here about spinal cord damage… Did they say anything about paralysis?"

Xandr placed one finger over his lips with a pointed nod at his son. "Let's not jump to any conclusions."

He didn't want Myles getting any wind of something like that. Willpower was likely all that was keeping the man alive. Well, that, and the life-support machine he was hooked up to.

She scowled and read through the list of drugs he was on, frowning deeper with every line.

"They're giving him too much morphine – I agree; most people don't have his level of pain tolerance, but he can have a welfare-level of comfort on half that dosage. It's probably really not helping his breathing being on that much, either. Oxycodone would work better for him in this case. And there's no need to give him that much sedative, either; two thirds of that dose should keep him under, even if he is fighting the ventilator, which I presume is why they've put him under so deep… But if he's fighting to breathe for himself, we keep him in an induced coma? Management? He's stubborn but he's not that dumb. Not with god knows how many bullet holes in him and... fuck it. I just feel so helpless. I hate this."

"'Resa, we have to let the professionals handle this one, remember?" he said, infuriatingly reasonable and calm.

"I used to treat his identical twin, remember!" she retorted, sliding the clipboard back with a sharp snap. "I know how this exact same body metabolises what they're pumping into him and I know what works best for it too!"

Xandr raised one hand placatingly.

"I am aware. You don't need to tell me. Believe me, his mother would not have him on half of these drugs either. Now sit down," he said firmly. "Please."

She did, pulling a chair up and throwing herself down into it opposite the man who had welcomed her into his family more readily than either of his sons ever had. He was just as maddening as either of them, but she was so, so grateful not to be going through this alone. So, so grateful he had somehow survived impossible odds to be here, exuding his special brand of 'que sera sera' and generally being the rock they all needed right now.

They sat in silence until she had calmed down enough to sigh and run a hand through her hair. It needed washing – as though that was the most of her worries right now...

"He's... He's worse than I thought," she whispered, mirroring the elder bodyguard and curling her fingers through Myles's as they lay on the bedsheet then wrapping the other hand over the top.

"You think I would have managed to keep him from walking home from the crime scene if he wasn't?"

"I just mean..." she bit her lip and shook her head, unable to say it.

"It's…" Xandr sighed, picking his words. "It is not looking good, I'll admit."

He didn't seem angry, or upset. He didn't seem like his world was in turmoil and inside his head was nothing but a constant screaming that this could not be happening, this was not going to happen. It was not part of the plan. He had - stubbornly - refused every to put much thought into this eventuality. The apparent loss of one son had hit him hard. The definite loss of his remaining son... Externally, he was still. Very calm, and very, very still.

They sat in silence for what felt like a long time, the machines droning their solemn melodies into their subconscious; a permanent reminder even when they closed their eyes, that all was not well in their world.

Eventually, Xandr checked his watch and rose to his feet.

"I need to speak to the matron," he said. "Will you be ok here for a moment?"

Theresa nodded and he squeezed her shoulder gently as he passed on the way to the door.

It clicked softly as it closed behind him, thudding into the frame and sealing her in the room alone with her friend. Her best friend. The one who knew how to torment her more than anyone else. The one who would do anything for her. The one who had got her through all these years raising Dom as a single parent in a world that did not give one iota that she had not come into her situation through her own doing, nor that she had had her version of a perfect life lined up until the point of Beckett's disappearance. Circumstance had brought them together - two worlds that would never otherwise have intertwined. But here she was. Sat at the bedside of the brother of the man she had loved enough to embark on a mission to find, when so many others would have written him off as no good...

"Oh shit, Myles," she whispered, raising his hand to her forehead and holding it there with both of hers, curling his fingers in on themselves into a fist, for she knew he would never willingly let her hold his hand for long had he had been awake. "Why do you do this to me?"

The only answer was a beep from the heart monitor. She glanced at it and sighed.

"Please don't give up on me, alright?" she asked him. "Don't give up on us. Dom needs his uncle. Pa needs his son. Artemis needs his bodyguard back. I... I need you. We all need you. And…"

She felt the tears welling up and kissed his battered knuckles with a loud sniff.

"… I can't go through this again, Mylo. I just can't. I can't lose you like we lost Beckett. I think… I think it…" she held back a sob, not quite wanting to say what she was thinking, but needing him to know it all the same. Until now, she didn't think she could ever feel something as close to what losing Beckett had felt like. "I think it would be worse."

A single tear trickled down her cheek and onto the back of his hand, rolling down his wrist until it soaked into one of the very many dressings he was bound in.

"At least with Beck there's a chance…" she took a deep breath, composing herself before Xandr returned. "Please don't let there be no chance of you coming back to us. Don't let that happen. Be the stubborn git I know and love."

She screwed her eyes shut and pulled his loose fist close to her chest, hugging his forearm whilst she couldn't hug the rest of his bound and bandaged body.

The door opened quietly and Xandr leaned through it, hand on the handle.

"Come on," he said, gently. "We should be getting back. Kingdom will be waiting for us."

Theresa nodded, squeezing Myles's still hand tightly for a moment before she let go, placing it carefully on the bed beside him.

"Do you think we should let him see him?"

Xandr's mouth was a thin line as he breathed out heavily through his nostrils.

"We'll see what he's like tomorrow. I don't think it'd do him much harm and I wouldn't want mladshiy to miss seeing him if…"

"Don't say it," she interrupted. "Please."

"Saying it won't increase or decrease its likelihood, dorogaya 'doch," he sighed.

"I just don't want to hear it," she sniffed. "You saying it feels like admitting it and…"

She didn't need to finish the sentence. He understood.

"Come on," he said, taking her under his wing and steering her out into the corridor.

They both looked back, though it went unnoticed by the man they stared at.

They left Myles to the thrumming and beeping of the machines and made their way out of the intensive care unit and out into the main corridors of the hospital. Theresa was walking on auto-pilot, mentally putting together the treatment plan she would subject Myles to if it was down to her when they reached a T-junction and suddenly Xandr was not by her side.

"Oh…" she said, frowning. For he would be right – he was always right. "Sorry; I was distracted I thought it was this way…"

But the giant paused too, flicking his eyes to read a sign on the wall.

She noticed him squinting.

"Are you alright?"

"Mhm," he grunted. "Just…"

He put a hand out to the wall suddenly and she rushed to his side.

"No, no – don't you try holding me up – I'll crush you!" he rebuked her efforts, steadying himself and blowing out a long, slow breath through pursed lips.

Loss of sense of direction, lapses in concentration, blurred vision, dizzy spells, nausea – that headache she knew was coming on stronger by the second by the slight scowl of pain he gave when he gritted his teeth.

"Your concussion is worse than you told me," she accused, looking around for something for him to sit down on.

"Of course it's worse than I told you," he scoffed. "Why on Earth would I tell you how I really felt? I'm a Butler; my boys had to get it from somewhere, remember?"

She knew he was trying to lighten the mood, to put her at ease with his self-ridiculing, to bait her into telling him that she was fully aware of any Butlers' penchant for downplaying serious injury. But she wasn't having it today.

"Let me look at you," she said, firmly.

"I'll be fine," he replied, firmer still, touching his fingers to the dressing plastered to the side of his skull. "A shot to the head leaving one a little woozy is to be expected, I'd imagine."

"You shouldn't be driving," she warned.

He said nothing, steeling himself with another breath before he set off at his usual striding pace, daring her to pass further comment on his capabilities. Which would have worked out just fine for him had he not immediately decked it around the next corner.

"Pa!"

"Chert voz'mi…" he muttered, pausing on his knees for a moment whilst the floor stopped spinning. "Some use I am now if we get attacked…"

"Please just stay down for a minute…" she begged, kneeling next to him. The were alone in the corridor for now, but any minute someone would find them and then he would either have to explain himself or put up a bloody good act to get out of being whisked away to the triage desk some floors below.

"Stay down, my arse…" he grunted, planting one hand on a row of metal chairs bolted to the wall beside him.

"Fine," she said, glaring at him. She was well-used to stubborn; Butler males as he said, after all. "Stay down or I'm driving us home."

He scowled, taking the hand off the bench.

"Good. Now just sit down with your back against the wall for a moment and…"

She almost didn't catch the keys he hooked out of his pocket and tossed to her.

"You do not," he growled, hauling himself up off his knees. "Drive her like you drive that rust bucket of yours, understood?"

That was another thing about Butler males; their over-attachment to inanimate vehicles and weaponry.

"Shit me…" she said slowly. "You really are concussed."

Fowl Manor, Dublin

If Harson was surprised to see the woman behind the wheel of Butler's, he wisely said nothing of it.

"You should rest," she told Xandr as they made their way indoors.

"I'll sleep when I'm dead," he grunted.

"Which will be a lot sooner than billed if you don't look after yourself," she said, seriously.

"Thank-you for your concern, but really; I will be fine," he assured her. "I have some things to do, but if you tell Junior we'll take him tomorrow, I'll clear it with the Fowls. If you think… you know. You're his mother. If you think it right."

"What I think is that he'll hate me if I don't," she said absently, still staring up at him. "Are you sure you won't let me take another look at your head? I want to check you over. Please."

He sighed.

"Fine. You can check me over again later if you're still worried, alright? It's just a concussion."

"There's no such thing as 'just a concussion'," she said. "You worry me."

"Don't quote me to me," Xandr scowled with a snort. "Worry you indeed..."

She smiled weakly, still looking concerned and he made his way upstairs.

He was fairly certain she already knew he had no such plans of letting her back anywhere near his head with a torch and antiseptic cream, but he was grateful she let him go anyway.

Once he made it to his room, he locked the door and unlocked his wall-safe, peeling a piece of tape away from the underside of one of the shelves and rubbing the key clean of sticky residue. Then he opened his wardrobe and lifted the base out carefully. It had been quite some time and the wood creaked in protest as he eased it free of its housing.

Underneath was a large, metal safe box which he opened with the small key, then in that a coded container. He keyed in the passcode automatically, tapping each of the keys in turn before he pressed the ones he required; to negate a crafty safe-cracker from picking up his fingerprints on the metal buttons, even though he cleaned it after every use.

He lifted the radio-like device out of the box and closed his eyes for a moment, gripping it. Then he turned it on and began to tap out a message in Morse Code.

M,

All is not well.

Our Solider is fallen and I do not know if this time he will rise again.

No news of River.

– X

It was short, but it would do. Cryptic enough that it would be at least mildly confusing for anyone intercepting it, yet detailed enough that the intended receiver should have all the information she needed. Or so he hoped, as he returned everything back to its proper place.

Undisclosed Location

She read the printed message again even as it burned on the fire, the paper curling, the ink smoking lightly until there was nothing but ash.

Received.

– M

The reply she sent back was short and to the point. He would pick it up and know that at least she knew.

She sat back in her chair, for once in her life, uncertain.

Then she made her decision and picked up the second of her communication devices. This one was different; the likes would not be seen in human technology for several decades.

"Cesar?" she said into it.

The static fizzed through it quietly.

"Cesar, pick up. I know you can hear me."

The silence fizzled through the receiver for another few seconds.

"Cesar, I am growing impatient. Do not force me to use other lines of communication to gain your attention."

Far, far away, the one with the other handset rolled out of bed and scrambled for the communicator which he kept in the bottom drawer of his beside cabinet.

"Cesar…"

"Alright, alright - I'm listening," he interrupted. "This better be good."

They were both 'to the point' people; it was one of the many qualities they admired in eachother.

"I'm calling for a favour."

"A favour?"

"I need your specific skill set for a gravely injured person."

There was a rush of static; a sigh. No other response.

"You owe me," she said, dangerously quiet.

"Owed you, you mean. I helped you heal your husband, I have searched for your lost boy, so why are you calling on me again – you know what this means."

"You haven't found him though, have you?" she accused. "And you will always owe me. I saved your life - amongst the very, very many others of your kind - and you always said one of your lives was worth three of ours. So prove it now, or admit you are just as worthless as the rest of us."

His faced flushed with frustration and suppressed anger.

"And if I don't help you?"

"Then he dies, I imagine," she said, staring into the fire once more. "He is strong, but if his father is sending me that sort of message then my potions will have very little to work on. So if you say no… he dies. I wouldn't have called you if I had another way."

"You can't call on me a third time – I'm not one of your genies. Your memories – I told you I wouldn't be able to convince them again if they find out…"

"So don't let them find out. Whilst I am of use to them, they will not follow through with that petty threat of theirs. Besides, I will call on you a thousand times if I have to; I do not care for my memories."

"Then you must care a lot for this man you want me to save."

"I wouldn't be talking to you if I didn't, Cesar," she said, simply.

He ground his teeth, plucking a half-smoked cigar off his table and patting around for a lighter.

"Alright I'll do it," he growled. "Where am I going to?"

"Well first, you are coming for me."

Apologies for the botched medical jargon and drugs. I remember doing some research about it, but to be honest it was months ago now so I'm just going to go ahead and hope past!me was thorough with that.

The Russian lullaby is a genuine Russian lullaby I heard of and found a copy of online. Paste a line or two into Google if you want the full translation. And yes, Xandr sings lullabies. Of course he does. He's the actual best.

Anyway. New characters coming into play. Exciting, eh?

Wolfy
ooo
O

14/12/18