Another chapter? Yeppers. And a quick author's note, which I'm sure no one will complain about. Next chapter will be up soon.
The job goes smoothly. Of course, Obidias's definition of smooth includes copious amounts of gunfire, death, and splintered glass, but everyone's alive, so Fitzwilliam can't complain.
Fitzwilliam is on his rooftop half an hour before the rest of the team arrives. He watches the beaten down factory through the sights of his rifle, flexing his fingers against the anticipation of pulling the trigger. Obidias and Leah—it has to be Leah, but her hair is tucked into a cap and there's black powder on her jawline that mimics stubble—park the car, a 1914 Humberette, on the shoulder of the road and disappear into the building after Fitzwilliam downs three guards outside. It takes longer than Macon said it would; Fitzwilliam's fingers tense on the trigger multiple times. But then they're out; Leah's slinging a bag over her shoulder, and all Fitzwilliam gets to hit is the form that appears leaning against the brick. He can see, in the scope, dark eyes, dark hair, a leather jacket, and he misses his shot by piercing the brick beside the man's head. The dark eyes meet his, nearly thirty yards away, and Fitzwilliam shivers. Others, maybe ten, make their way from the building. One of the two, Fitzwilliam hopes it is Obidias, starts shooting and the dark eyes turn their focus from Fitzwilliam to the shooter. The Humberette disappears in the echo of gunshots and space tearing.
Leah's in the passenger seat and throws a glance out her window to the dusky sky. She's fidgeting with her pocketknife, leaving little etches in the wood. When Obidias acknowledges her, she sighs, and her voice arched higher. "I saw Fitzwilliam." She doesn't elaborate, and Obidias can't ask her to. Instead, he nods once and manages to make it into town without riddling their car with bullets.
And Fitzwilliam does stumble in the back door of the diner at about the same time Leah stops pacing, a bit exhausted-looking, but otherwise fine. He takes a deep breath and laughs quietly; he raises three shaking fingers in the air.
"Three headshots," he manages.
"Six," Leah states, as she runs her fingers through her pinned hair.
"You were closer."
"You weren't in the thick of it."
"I saved your life," Fitzwilliam says, inching closer to Leah, who leans against the wall, arms crossed and hair now falling down from under her cap.
"I distracted them from you," Leah replies. Her arms fall to her sides; her thumbs hook in her pockets as she takes a step forward.
"I saw it." Fitzwilliam tilts his head. "It looked bloody."
"It was," Leah quips.
Fitzwilliam closes the distance between them in a swift motion, presses their lips together—there's nothing gentle about it, nothing like the brushing kiss before, her fingers are carding through his hair, and his fingernails are digging into her neck. It lasts barely a moment before Leah lets go and Fitzwilliam pulls back. Only then does he put the bag containing his weapon down. They look at each other, both waiting for something, a reaction, anything. In fact, the whole room is tense and still. Macon has stopped his speech; Obidias has stopped counting money.
Macon pops a bottle of wine, Lena's eyes open sharply, and Boo quietly woofs.
As stares find him, he explains himself. "I bought it to celebrate a heist well done. This seemed like an appropriate moment." He inclined his head towards Fitzwilliam and Leah. "Congratulations, you two."
The pair stares at each other with equal parts confusion, tension, and something Macon can't place.
Obidias nods. "What Macon said. Now, let's count our money, hm?"
The activity distracts everyone enough that things go back to normal for a bit, and, now, Macon has a theory as to why Fitzwilliam didn't need the money.
It only gets better from there.
Their reputation gets bigger, their budget larger, and their lives easier. Everything gets a little faster: the new car (they've refurbished the hearse and it runs like a dream), the heists, their reaction time when Macon gets a tip about rival movements.
And, of course, things get more complicated between them. At first, he kind of misses how it used to be; when they were just acquaintances working together because of a single shared goal. Now it's no secret why Leah leaves every night and doesn't come back until nine, late enough that Macon and Obidias have to open Lucille's and scare off half of the customers between the two of them. That'd be okay—Macon doesn't judge them for wanting to find love, or some equivalent to it—if not for the fact of them being together means a few awkward questions for the rest of them.
Mainly the matter of who will take care of Lena.
Lena, who is always in his bed, right in the middle so there's no way of Macon even thinking of sleeping in his own bed but he does on the desk. Lena, who pulls his hand in the middle of the night and crawls into his arms despite Macon's strong protests and the pull in his chest. Lena, who slips up and calls Macon 'Da' but is far away before anyone asks her what she means. And, one day, when Macon is graced with the presence of the child, the child who is damn near asleep on her feet, he asks her a question that's been a long time coming, billowing up from his tense stomach and smoke-filled lungs.
"Lena, where do you think you are?"
"With you," is the answer he receives, but he immediately knows she's more competent than that, just a good liar.
"Yes, but where's your mother?" Macon continues, his voice as flat and emotionless as he can make it, as if he's simply asking about the oncoming storms.
"She's gone." She leans her head against his shoulder. "She went away."
He doesn't relent. Well, he doesn't want to. He wants to know why she's so comfortable here, why she's absolutely at ease with the random gifts and sudden change of location doesn't make her question anything. "And your father?"
She hesitates, then. "He was there when the baddies found us." She blinks, Macon glances down to her, and he can't bring himself to stop asking. "When you found me." Her lip quivers. A furrow starts between her brows. "Why…why didn't you save him, too?"
"There wasn't enough time." He doesn't mention the risk of toting around a grown man was far too high for what he was insured for, or that his shoulder wouldn't have allowed him to do much than drag her father through the burning house and then none of them would have survived. "He died painlessly, I assure you that." He knew that much. He had eased killed him himself, softly, of course, a quick separation in the connection between the man's brain and his heart.
He leans his elbows on his knees. "Who would you like to live with, Lena, if the time came?" When she doesn't answer, he glances at her. "With Leah and Fitzwilliam?" She fidgets the hem of her shirt nervously. "With Obidias?" He fervently hopes she wouldn't approve of that.
She scoots towards the edge of the couch and grips the arm of the couch. "I…can we not talk about it?"
Macon looks at her in the way he usually looks at hired underlings and people he's about to shoot. It's a look that works wonders and makes him feel a bit bad about himself, but he assures himself that it's the only way.
She closes her eyes. "I think…I think there's nothing wrong with…I mean…" Lena exhales. To Macon, it looks like she's giving up, leaning into the cushions, pushing further away, but letting go of her tight grasp on the couch arm. "I like all of you, maybe?"
Macon needs a second to understand, and he watches her lips twitch a little, her eyes on the ground. "That's not a choice, Lena."
"You."
"What?" He nearly sputters the water he took a sip of.
"You, too," she mumbles.
"That's—" Macon begins, but Lena cuts him off.
"Leah's th' one who came up with it. What if we were all—" She huffs and falls back, her head in his lap, and his hands come up unexpectedly to protect her. "What if we were all a big family? I know you care about Lila Jane." He blinks and his mouth goes dry.
"How…how do you know that name?"
"You talk about her sometimes, when you sleep." She moves on as if it's nothing. "I think Leah has Fitz…Fitzwull…" She stumbles on the name.
"Fitzwilliam," Macon supplies.
"She has his address memorized for a reason." She toys with his ring carefully, spinning it between her fingers. "I mean, we wouldn't have to choose, then, would we?" He resists the urge to roll his eyes. "What do you think?"
"I think it's far passed your bedtime." She nods once. "And, if it's worth anything, Lena, I'll talk with the group about it."
She giggles. The sound starts loud in her chest and grows lighter. He scoops her up into his arms and stands carefully. When they walk through the hallway, Fitzwilliam is there, the only one of them who is completely sane, and the sound of Lena's giggle causes a smile to pull his lips. He'll deny it in the morning; Macon has no doubt. Obidias watches them make their lumbering way towards Macon's study.
Macon places Lena on his bed and, then, leaves her there, after reading a chapter from Emma—her choice from when he had nothing better to do with his itching fingers than rearrange his bookshelf—and turning down the lights, for an hour and a half before he, too, goes to sleep there. The bed is large enough they aren't close; they're not even touching, and Macon sleeps on the sheets while Lena cuddles deeper inside them.
When he wakes up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat, he paces the halls to check on his employees, Lena's words cut through him—a family, indeed—and he returns to drape an arm over the sleeping young girl beside him. By the morning, she's snoring into his chest.
Macon wakes up first, panicking a little, heart racing, breath stuck in his throat, regrets flying through him, and oh, gods, what had he done? What had he promised?
Nothing, really, he gathers. He blinks and takes inventory. He's still wearing his clothes, which is a start. But he figures something must have happened for him to end up cuddling with a seven-year-old girl. His barely-there headache doesn't make thinking any easier.
He carefully leaves bed—thankfully, Lena remains fast asleep—and gathers his jacket from the back of the chair. Puts it on. Leaves.
In the kitchen, he sees Leah sitting with her cup of tea—she can't stand the jump of caffeine in coffee, but somehow manages tea well enough—brown hair shining in the morning light. It's too bright.
"Morning, brother-dearest," she says. Macon nods. "Things were discussed last night, I take it?"
"Yes," Macon eventually allows, albeit hesitantly. He glances at the door and then to the sunlight. "Storm today?" Leah nods.
"An east wind is blowing in." He nods once. "Where are you going?"
"To smoke," he quips. The words come out slowly, almost too much so. He knows that. He wants to stay away for a little while, simply until Lena wakes up, so he doesn't have to sit around waiting or face Lena going from sleepy to wide awake of whatever she remembers. Macon feels like he's ruined something, possibly.
He makes for the back door, but it slams open inches from his face. He jolts involuntarily. Fitzwilliam stares back and whistles lowly, eyes wide. He looks like he has a worse hangover than Macon. He places a hand on Macon's shoulder.
"Macon," he says, his voice low and serious, and Macon's autopilot turns on.
"Good morning, Fitzwilliam."
"Did something go wrong?"
"Nothing at all." There's a faint, youthful smile playing on Fitz's lips.
"Really? You told us all last night we were raising Lena together." Macon vaguely remembers that, yes, sometime after tucking Lena in and falling onto the sheets with brandy on his lips. "Might as well call her Lucy."
Then, he does the most unexpected thing. He reaches out, grabs Macon's shoulder, and pulls him in for a hug. Before he knows it, Leah has her arms around the both of them. It's not tight or uncomfortable…the weight is just there. She lets go soon enough, Fitz steps away like he's stuck his hand in a fire, and, when Leah speaks, there's a slight tired drawl in her voice. "Want some tea, Macon?"
He nods once, all he can manage. While waiting for his mug of chamomile, he sees Obidias curled up under the gray quilt on the couch. Hears Lena get up in his room. Hears Boo's nails click against the hardwood.
He takes the tea with him, despite the nagging that won't leave him alone, and ducks into the clouded alley.
Once the rocky morning-after is past them, the arrangement works out better than any of them dared to expect. Lena goes from borrowing Fitzwilliam's couch to getting her own bed, tucked beneath the window. Obidias almost stops secluding himself, and Leah gets to kiss Macon's cheek and make breakfast for everyone, waiting with a cup of tea in hand.
Fitzwilliam never really had—or wanted—someplace to call home, but he's starting to think this might be it.
Okay, he's not really the most normal person, he knows that much. He doesn't sleep on the same schedule as everyone else. And he's not as good as the rest of them when he comes to sharing personal experiences. He doesn't mind the "family" arrangement, but he can't suppress a certain possessive urge to make sure whenever Macon tucks Leah's hair up and pats charcoal along her jawline, he sees a mark Fitzwilliam's left.
He still fits in like the last piece of a puzzle.
He fits in the space between Macon and Obidias when Leah challenges Lena to asinine contests. He fits in the space in the apartment that would be too empty and cold without him. He fits into the blackness of Macon's shadow when he goes down to meet shady dealers in the dead of night, and he fits in between words and sentences when they talk about everything and nothing.
When they head for the promenade in the spring, about five months after he's joined up, he carries a grenade with him in his pocket and the others accept it as much as they can. They all run a little differently. Fitzwilliam gets to watch Lena eat candy floss in amounts he could have sworn would be enough to kill a person, Obidias brings his sketchbook and charcoal, and Macon pays for the ordeal. Leah gets to play a parody of a doting girlfriend when she leans against the carnival booth as Fitzwilliam shoots targets to the best of his ability only to find he's not as good as he thought at close range. Macon performs better, winning a large teddy bear, which he readily gives to Lena, much to Obidias's amusement. Fitzwilliam's next shot is a bull's eye, and, while the prize is much smaller than Macon's, he's satisfied when he hands it over to Leah, who jokes around it, but might like it. He doesn't see the thing ever again, but that doesn't have to be a bad thing.
Leah keeps many things to herself.
Sometimes Fitzwilliam takes things. Sometimes, when Leah is sitting on her office alone, he wanders over to the potted plants and inspects them. It's her garden, one of a kind. There are small daisies, a few herbs, and various flowers she's picked up from flea markets last year, as well as a variety of poisonous plants. And the roses, not at all suited for being grown in a little pot so far from the ground, are red and vibrant, even if they are smaller than normal.
He touches them gently, asking something along the lines of, "where did these come from?" and "can I borrow these?"
Today the answer is, "I stole them on one of Lucille's first heists." After a while, she answers the latter question. "Borrowing's not the right word. For what?"
"Love and things." Leah puts her tea down with a click and looks at him. Raises a single eyebrow. Fitzwilliam pretends he doesn't notice. "I'll just break this off, then—" he begins, but stands up with a startled yelp. "What in god's name, Leah?"
"What is it this time?" She doesn't look up from her daily newspaper.
"I almost lost my fingers."
"Roses have thorns, Fitz."
He shakes his head. "Not the thorns, Leah. There's a damned knife under there."
She smiles. "Be careful. We need those fingers."
"We do. Gods, Leah." He isn't as mad as he sounds; Leah knows that. She watches him cut off a few roses and take them away to where ever he goes. She always lets him because they end up in his flat anyway, nice and decorative and a little touch of her, even if they do look out of place. She resumes reading after checking if he took the jackknife with him and, upon happily discovering it's still there, moves it to another pot and lets it stay there under the leaves. She doesn't forget about her tools, either.
She waits for him. There are long periods where they simply don't see each other for days on end, when Leah is persuading buyers and Fitzwilliam is waiting for his shot, but, in between those periods are the times where they work together or the occasions where Leah helps Fitzwilliam remove evidence. In her opinion, this is best done by arson. She likes to see the flames rise after she lights a match and throws it onto gasoline-soaked carpet.
Fitzwilliam lives for his heart pounding and pulling pins from grenades and throwing them into buildings.
Most wanted criminal.
The rush of it all creates a kind of high, higher than any drug (and he's tried a few, never quite getting hooked), and, unlike before when he was on his own, he doesn't have to feel the crash. There's the same kind of pleasant warmth everywhere in his body. He sees the same fire in Macon's hands, in the corners of Lena's mouth, and in Obidias's eyes. It's in Leah's humming and in the way she grabs ahold of him like he's the only thing left because they actually got away with it.
There are a few close calls.
There's one time Obidias vividly remembers, about four months after the carnival. He was out by the river, on the harbor, in the middle of the night, and only a few streetlights give him anything to go on as he runs down the docks, looking for the boat Macon said would, for sure, be there by now. He has a bag full of valuables, sure, but he's more worried for his life, at the moment. The yelling's getting closer. The headlights are suddenly too close, and, then, the cops get out. He realizes they're armed. His rifle's out of bullets and a grenade at this range is certain death where he'll get caught in the explosion. He takes a step back, stands on the edge of the dock. Behind him is only murky water.
He is accepting he has no choice but to take as many down as he can when he remembers one of Leah's random facts about water. Jump back into the river, hope he doesn't get shot or drown, hope that they find him.
He throws a grenade as he jumps, which doesn't do wonders for his aim. He doesn't see the results, only the explosion as the blast helps throw him further backwards and deeper down into the water. All his soaked clothing brings him down, and, at first, he struggles to kick up before he manages to breach the surface. He waves his arms. Yells "I'm here, I'm here, where are you?".
A hand grabs his and pulls him onto a rowboat. He remembers his mind singing out they came back, they came back, before they pull him back into his element.
He remembers Leah saying something along the lines of it being the best exit she's seen. Soon after, he gets a small black cat tattooed on his forearm, a symbol of Lucille's.
There's also the time where it's Fitzwilliam, back against the wall, and everyone else is in the process of bailing because there was a tip (Macon later announces the culprit was an outsider, but for all the others know Macon was covering for someone). No one plays the hero, this time. Instead of someone swinging in like they usually do, the Humberette doesn't make it in time, and there's a tear in space, a pull in Fitzwilliam's chest beyond the blood loss.
The last thing Fitzwilliam remembers is a man's arm tight around his neck and the Humberette's tires squealing as Leah chased as Traveling overtook him.
It's not a good omen; however, Macon is an opportunist. This sort of thing does happen in a gang where the first priority is not getting captured, minimizing the damage, and not playing the hero. Someone always missteps. Someone always miscalculates. He's only glad it's not him, and it's their stalwart soldier. Point of the matter is, once the remainder of them stumbles through the threshold, Fitzwilliam is gone and Macon is sure he knows where his captor took him.
Leah, of course, is less optimistic. And, when it's all said and done, Macon is the one who comes up with the idea of hitting Silas's Valerian. He explains, gesturing to the map pinned above his wall, now decorated with a throwing knife in between Lough Borough and King's Highway, that there, really, is the only place Fitzwilliam could be. He tips back in his chair, then, and raises his hands, awaiting the criticisms.
Obidias is the first to speak, drawling around his cigarette. "Valerian?" Macon nods. "We're challenging…" Obidias squints lightly. "We're challenging Silas Ravenwood." When Macon doesn't refute, Obidias curses lowly. "Hell's bells." Macon realizes, then, they are all too sober for this conversation.
Leah inclines her head. "What do we need to do?"
Macon doesn't stop the smile that twitches his lips.