A/N: Well, here it is :D.

--

Coming Home

By Anonymoussi

Adrian was six years late in coming home. This was peculiar, as he wasn't expected in town for another month.

Alberta was, essentially, the same town he remembered. Wide streets, neat rows of houses. The inn, with its heavy clientele of gunshot couples and drunkards. Traveling merchants with their carts sitting by the street in the shade, jumping up at the first mention of selling something.

The same feeling of idle listlessness that had driven him to leave.

Adrian sighed heavily and tried not to think about it. Unlike another industrial city he knew of, at least Alberta had fresh air.

"Excuse me, sir."

Adrian turned. Standing before him was a young boy with oddly familiar unruly hair. The boy grinned.

"Need directions anywhere?"

"I'm, uh, ok for now." Adrian nodded sheepishly. The boy squinted at him.

A moment later, he drew back. His face was one of disbelief.

"Adrian?"

Adrian grinned weakly. The boy's mouth fell open.

"It is you!" the boy crowed incredulously. Then he laughed. "It's Elk, remember me?"

Adrian had a fleeing vision of a tiny toddler with messy light hair. "Yeah," he chuckled.

Elk beamed, looking fit to burst. "Gee, it's been six years already. You got a lot taller, Adrian!"

Before Adrian could answer, Elk rushed ahead. "Oh! Got somewhere to stay?"

"Well, I was thinking I'd go rent a room at the inn…." He stopped at Elk's expression.

"You can't," Elk said plaintively. "Or if Grandma finds out, she'll dismember me."

Adrian decided not to question where Elk had learned such a violent phrase, and then recalled who Grandma exactly was. He shuddered.

"Well…"

Elk gazed imploringly at him. "Please? I promise Grandpa won't be too embarrassing."

Adrian opened his mouth and fell short. He'd forgotten.

"..don't go back," Elk was saying. "I mean, then Grandma will push me off a cliff if she finds out we scared you away."

It was enough to break Adrian from his frozen state. He stared, and laughed hard. Elk grinned, first uncertainly, then widely at having said something Adrian apparently found amusing.

"Alright," Adrian found himself answering, and a small part of him that was still apprehensive of the idea disappeared quickly to the back of his mind.

"Can you take me to see them?"

--

Grandpa was although still quite hale, was slightly ill. He sat in an armchair in the family room and watched them happily.

Grandma, on the other hand, was everything Adrian had expected.

"…and you know, I was just about to strike you over the head with this frying pan when I realized who you were!" Grandma sighed in apparent bliss while Grandpa chuckled quietly to himself. She reached out to ruffle Adrian's hair.

"Ah, that black hair. Your mother and I used to talk about how you were the only boy who could keep his hair long because it was so neat. Well, everyone wears it long now," she said, and glared at Elk, who grinned sheepishly.

"How could I not recognize you with those lovely blue eyes. Like sky blue, the minute I saw them, I figured it out straightaway!" Grandma chirped brightly. "And those high cheekbones. Any girl would have killed to have your face."

"That might not be the best thing to say, Greta," Grandpa scolded gently from his corner of the room.

"Nonsense," Grandma scoffed, turning back to Adrian. "Your mother and I always agreed that your good looks were wasted on you being a boy."

She turned and glared at Elk, who flinched, wide-eyed. "Boys always cause trouble! Adrian here, running off at thirteen and not leaving a single thing behind." She gave a stern look at Elk, as if challenging him to attempt the same. Elk winced and grinned apologetically at Adrian.

"Who ran away and came back?" A female voice filtered through the hallway, and a woman, perhaps in her mid-twenties, stepped into the threshold and halted abruptly.

She stared. Adrian stared back nervously.

"Adrian Danes, come here and let me throw you out the window!" The woman marched towards Adrian, and he backed up instinctively several steps, moving away from Grandma.

"Uh…Sara," he said nervously. She smacked him smartly upside the head.

"Don't you Sara me!" she admonished, stepping hard on his foot. He cringed. "Who told you that you could run away and become a Whitesmith-" she said the last word with unnecessary emphasis, "-and not say a single word?!"

"Well-I-"

"No excuses! What's that badge on your vest? King Tristan, why are you working for that creep?!"

"Sara," someone called. "Please keep the noise level down?"

"Yeah, we're kind of…"

Sara and Adrian turned. Standing by the door where Sara had just vacated was a boy who looked about seventeen, with a sharp face and short hair. Opposite him, on the other side of the room, was another man who looked so distinctly like the other that the two could have passed as each other.

They both gaped incredulously.

"Adrian!" they yelled simultaneously, and Adrian would have thrown himself out the window, had Sara not already attempted to.

Linc and Arek converged on him.

"This-"

"-was for dashing off-"

"-and not taking us-"

"-with you! And this-"

"-was for all the-"

"-birthday punches you missed!" they finished together, pummeling any bit of him they could get at with overflowing gusto. A deep laugh came from where Arek had been, and a man of about forty stepped into the room, stroking his dark beard.

"You had it coming, Adrian," he said. "My sons having been waiting six years for this opportunity."

"Thanks, that makes for a very warm welcome," Adrian managed over the pain of his shoulders being pounded mercilessly and Linc and Alek's gleeful exclamations. They stopped hitting him and laughed wildly.

"But you don't seem to mind," Vareth said sagely, settling into a chair next to Grandpa. Adrian grinned, not answering.

"Whew, and just in time for the holiday!" Grandma said cheerfully, and bustled into the adjoining kitchen, as though Adrian had not just had his head nearly knocked off. "Adrian, dear, you'll get to taste some of my wonderful pie!"

Adrian winced, just as another voice floated in.

"Did someone say Adrian?"

They turned towards the front door, which had opened halfway. Adrian froze.

In the doorway stood a young woman, no older than twenty, wrapped in a heavy fur-trimmed cloak. She had very sharp green eyes, and a delicately boned face framed by short, curly brown hair.

Adrian stared. She stared back at him with the look of one who had just had a door slammed in their face.

The sound of Grandpa snoring gently interrupted the thick silence.

The young woman glared.

"YOU."

--

"I DON'T BELIEVE YOU!"

Everyone winced. Adrian sunk deeper into his chair.

"Ok, so you decide to run away and disappear for six years! Six freaking years." Misa swallowed, pacing frantically. "And then, after everyone thinks you've gone and kicked the bucket, you decide that you'll just mosey on down here and that's it's perfectly ok!"

Misa whirled around and slammed two palms on the table. There was a collective scraping of chairs to move farther away.

"But what really takes the cake," she said viciously, glaring holes through Adrian, "is that you didn't tell anyone! Not a single soul, not even a peep. And yeah, that's perfectly fine, huh?!"

Linc and Alek stood hastily. "Yeah, we'll just be going now…"

"Me too," Sarah said quickly, turning towards the door where Vareth stood. She hurried out after Linc with the grandparents on her heels.

Misa eyed the procession with a quizzical look. Adrian watched her apprehensively.

Once the door slammed shut behind them, Misa sighed deeply and stood straight.

"Well, that's the last of them," she said wearily. Adrian raised both eyebrows.

"I really didn't expect to be back so soon," he said by way of explanation. Misa turned away from him and leaned on the sill of the large window.

"Everyone thought you were long dead," she said impassively. She was silhouetted against the bright afternoon sun and looked pale-haired and ethereal.

"I figured as much."

There was an awkward pause.

"I hope Grandmother didn't bring anything uncomfortable up," she said. "You know how she can be."

"It's alright."

Another silence.

"You aren't...really furious or anything, are you."

Misa sighed.

"I was." She paused and considered it. "I still am."

Adrian swallowed hard.

"…do you hate me?"

Misa exhaled quietly, then rubbed the condensation off the window, taking her time.

"No…but I envy you."

He blinked and looked up sharply. She did not turn around.

--

"I've been trapped here nineteen years." Misa held her arms out in the sunlight. The alley she had chosen to walk was spacious but empty, and filled with chilly air and dying winter light.

She dropped her arms and sighed.

"I'm sorry. I knew you couldn't stay here."

Adrian didn't answer. She accepted his silence with a nod.

"My…grandfather is dying."

He glanced at her, alarmed. Her sigh shook the still air.

"I know. He looks fine. But he's truly ill. And…we can't do anything to stop it."

She bit her lip. Their footsteps echoed slowly up the street.

"He became ill shortly after you left. I went to Aldebaran to study alchemy because I thought maybe I could find a cure."

Silence. A crow called overhead.

"Sometimes I just wish you could have taken me with you. But I know I would have weighed you down," she said throatily. "You might have thought you didn't have anyone, but really we were all here for you. And then after you left, I was the one alone."

Misa had stopped walking. Adrian turned to her and was shocked to see her face averted, one hand pressed to her mouth, fingers covering her eyes.

The full meaning of what she had said hit him in the face.

--

"Where have you been?" Grandma brandished a silver pot at them while stirring another on the stove.

"Oh." Misa rolled her eyes. "Catching up."

Adrian took a seat at the table and was joined by Misa, who sighed heavily. The air was warm and thick with the smell of sugar and spices.

"Goodness, I never know where in the world you two are off to or what you're doing. Just like when you were children, never well-behaved."

Adrian caught Misa's eye and she turned away quickly, stifling laughter. She buried her head in her sleeve as Grandma came to the table, setting a large pie between them and giving Misa a suspicious look. She scurried back to the stove, and Misa looked up again.

"Pumpkin?" she mused, wrinkling her nose.

"I thought you liked pumpkin pie," Grandma said. "Always ate at Christmas dinner."

"Well, I do," Misa shrugged, "but I remember someone else who doesn't."

She gave Adrian a sly look. He groaned. "Don't listen to her, Grandma."

"Ah, but she's right. You never did like my pie." Grandma pointed a spoon threateningly at him. "But try it nonetheless. You might actually have a taste for it this time around."

While Misa cut the pie, Adrian's eyes wandered over the kitchen. The table was the same, scratch marks where he and Misa had been caught playing with her father's daggers, ten years ago. Cabinets with the brass paint rubbed off the handles. The window still looked out into the garden, with the same dying wisteria and peach trees. The branches were bare and skeletal in the cold, as he remembered.

"Here," a voice broke through his train of thought. He looked up to see Misa standing over the table with a plate in one hand and a fork in the other, wearing an exasperated expression.

"I forgot how absent-minded you can be," she said, putting the plate down in front of him.

"You make me sound like I forget to put my shoes on when I walk out the door," Adrian said, snorting derisively.

"I actually did that once," Misa mused, sitting down with her own slice of pie. "Remember? When we went butterfly catching, but I left my shoes inside on purpose."

Adrian smirked. "And burned your feet."

"It was an accident!" Misa pouted. "Honest to goodness, I didn't mean to. Just because I had to sweep the store that day didn't mean I…"

She clapped a hand over her mouth. Adrian laughed at her slip and picked up his fork.

"So, Adrian," Grandma said over her shoulder. "Are you thinking of staying here for the holidays?"

Adrian paused with the fork in his mouth. He hadn't thought about staying.

Misa glanced at him, then looked away. Her face was carefully blank. He thought back to earlier.

"If it isn't too much trouble," he said finally after swallowing.

Grandma turned around and slapped his head.

"Nonsense," she scolded, as Adrian rubbed the ache and Misa laughed at his misfortune. "Since when have you ever been any trouble?"

The irony was amazing, Adrian thought.

"Then I'll stay," he said aloud, and the words sounded strangely comfortable on his tongue. He glanced back at Misa, who wore the tiniest of relieved smiles on her face.

"Well," Grandma said, turning around, and she was smiling widely. "What do you think of the pie?"

Adrian looked down and realized that his plate was empty, the fork resting beside it.

"It's the best thing I've had in a while," he said without thinking, and paused. "The best thing in six years, actually," he amended.

Grandma laughed. Adrian looked to Misa. She beamed across the table at him, and he found himself smiling back.

--

Part II will be coming next week. Hopeless, it's you on the spot :3...