In the Closet

Disclaimer: The characters in question belong to Diane Duane. I own only the plot.

Author's Note: I'm a terrible person and it's been a long time. I wrote the first third of this chapter ages ago and wasn't sure where to send it from there, but I'm very excited about this chapter-it's a little unexpected-so I won't say anything more.

Chapter 13: The Boys

Harry Callahan came home from work late. He was sure they were already long gone, but he called out all the same. "Neets? Dairine?" He wandered through the empty house. He had just stopped in the kitchen when he saw Nita's note waiting for him on the table. His tired face smiled. Sometimes she was so like her mother; of course Betty would leave a note if she was going out somewhere. Granted, she never set off across the universe to go save a planet…or all of humanity or….all of everything. He shook his head. Sometimes, it was so hard to wrap his head around what his girls did.

He opened the fridge and peered inside. It was the end of the week—his options were rather limited. He shut the door, meandered a little aimlessly back towards the living room. Roshaun seemed to have taken his things home with him as far as he could tell. Or maybe he had just moved them upstairs out of the way? Harry somehow doubted that, but climbed the stairs to check anyway, moving slowly. He wondered what to do with his weekend. The house was so quiet. There were some bulbs he'd been meaning to plant underneath the front windows for a while now. The weather was supposed to be fairly nice on Saturday with a little rain on Sunday. Maybe he would get around to planting those.

Nita's door was slightly ajar and he pushed it in. She didn't appear to have taken much with her. No major furniture was missing at any rate. Hopefully that meant the trip wouldn't be too long. He closed the door. Dairine's door wasn't open, but he opened it anyway. There wasn't any doubt in his mind—if Roshaun offered her a place in Wellakh, she might stay. The voices in his head flitted around each other. She's too young, she can't make a decision like this at her age…but regardless, she could make this decision and he couldn't stop her. If she was determined to go and whatever cosmic source decided where she practiced wizardry decided she should go, he couldn't just ground her. He'd never exactly gotten the details of it, but sending Nita to Ireland certainly didn't stop her from practicing wizardry. He shook his head. Imagine his own sister being a wizard and he'd never known. Well, 'til a few years ago he would have thought she was nuts if she tried to tell him anything like that. He supposed he couldn't blame her for not saying anything. He was leaning on the doorframe when he caught sight of the GED book on the cluttered desk. He found himself oddly relieved. He was right; Dari wanted to go. But at least the book told him she wasn't going just yet. She wasn't already gone now, without so much as a goodbye. She'd be back.

When he was downstairs again, he picked up the phone and dialed Tom Swale and Carl Romeo. "Hey, Carl. The girls are gone. I know. I was going to order a pizza I thought maybe you and Tom might c—Well, sure I can come over. Half an hour? Alright, see you then." Half an hour or so later, Harry Callahan had parked on the street outside of Tom and Carl's house. He stood for a moment, a large supreme pizza in his hands, admiring the landscaping on the property. It was one of the only really well landscaped yards in the area that he hadn't done with his own two hands. He had to admire the work.

He walked up to the door and he could hear barking on the other side of it, and a Brooklyn accent telling the barking creatures, "Cut it out!" The door opened and Carl stood there. As far as Harry could tell the dogs were pressed up against nothingness, trying to get around it and come perform their major duty in life—jumping on people. Carl closed the door behind him and Harry smiled. It was strange to think of this man, so normal looking, doing the sort of insane things that he knew his daughters did, but then again, there was the proof right behind him: dogs pressed up against nothingness. "Good to see you."

"Same. Don't mind the dogs. I didn't want them to knock you over. Come into the kitchen." Carl led the way and at a word from him, the barrier holding the dogs fell away, but the dogs kept a little distance still. They smelled food and were hoping to maybe get a bit if they were very, very good. "Beer?"

Harry shrugged, putting the pizza box down on the table. "Why not?"

Carl returned with a couple of bottles and a couple of plates as they sat down. "Tom should be home in a bit. He's trying to settle a squabble in the park. This particularly nasty old oak keeps trying to suffocate anything that tries to grow around it." Harry's face must have registered some surprise. "That sort of thing has been Nita's territory a lot of the time. I promise wizardry isn't all chases off on dark quests across the galaxies."

He nodded, absently petting one of the sheepdogs leaning against his knee. They chatted for a while, Harry asking some professional questions about the landscaping, and some friendly inquiries into Carl and Tom's general well-being.

There was a rush of four-legged friends to the door before Carl and Harry had even registered the sound of the car in the driveway. They ran into the door as if hoping to go straight through it to Tom on the other side. There was a muffled, "Annie, Monty, if you don't get off the door I can't come in," as Tom forced his way through. His face registered slight surprise at the presence of a guest. "Good to see you, Harry." He made his way to the table and rested a hand on his back. "Have you heard from the girls yet?"

He shook her head. "No, no, they just left this afternoon. Nita left a note. They should be fine. Kit won't let anything happen to Nita, and I know Roshaun will look after Dairine." He sighed. "Except those hero-girls of mine will probably turn around and try and protect the boys. But…they should all be fine. They weren't going off to fight anyone. Have some pizza, Tom. It's got everything on it."

Tom got himself a plate and a drink from the kitchen and joined the table, trying to read Harry's face. There was something that clearly hadn't quite come out yet. "How's business?"

He smiled. "I can't complain. It's pretty good right now—it's always better in the spring, especially now, so close to prom season. The school year is nearly over."

Tom nodded, glancing out the window into the yard. "I love spring."

They had exhausted much of the pizza supply by the time Harry Callahan got around to the other reason for his visit—granted, being here instead of in his empty house was a good reason in and of itself. "There's been something on my mind. I feel like…like Dairine might run away…if she can. To Roshaun's planet. Welcome? Whelk?" He frowned, struggling for the name.

Tom supplied simply, "Wellakh," and nodded once as if telling him to continue.

"She can't do that, can she? I mean she has responsibilities here. She has school, and her family, and her wizardry is here, isn't it? She can't just walk away from things she's in the middle of. My daughter can't just move to a new planet because she's fallen for some alien prince, can she?" He looked from one wizard to the other with his hands were spread out on the table in a somewhat helpless sort of gesture.

Tom and Carl exchange a brief glance. "One of the things we always tell the new wizards is, 'if you're old enough to ask, you're old enough to know the truth.' A wizard can't reassign him or herself. He or she is sent somewhere because he or she is the only answer to that particular problem. It may be that Dairine is the right answer to problems somewhere else. As far as permanent relocations go, Dairine is a little young for that, but it's not unheard of. She was pretty young during her Ordeal and the younger a wizard is, the more power he or she has. There's also another hormonal burst of power when they hit puberty."

Tom gave a wry smile. "As if teenagers needed another reason to be moody, right? It makes sense that a lot of work they do will be during this time though. Dairine is about at that age. It might explain part of why bigger assignments are being thrown her way again."

Harry looked as though he'd really like to be relieved. He took a sip of his beer. "So this should all pass when her hormones settle down?" Good luck trying to get her hormones settled down while she's in her first relationship, he thought. He probably ought to have some sort of birds and bees talk with her. She was too young for that…

Carl shook his head and chuckled. "I wouldn't count on that. Some of it may be hormones. Some of it may just be Dairine. Dairine likes to do things in a big way and she sees things other people don't. "

"She had the opportunity to help give birth to an entirely new race of sentient beings and she created a living planet of computers. She doesn't do things the way a lot of people would," Tom said, raking his fingers through hair that was a little thinner than it had been the day Nita and Kit had knocked on his door with their first spelling problem—Fred.

He shook his head, thinking back to his little girl in her Star Wars pajamas. She still wore the Star Wars pajamas. "She never has. One minute she's doing algebra and the next she's putting curlers on the neighbor's dog or winning poker money from half the guys in her class."

There was a chuckling over that image, followed by a pause. They could all picture Dairine wreaking havoc on the neighbor's pets or outwitting boys her age. Tom took a breath before continuing. "On the issue of relocating, I have to tell you, it could happen. It could happen in such a way as not to allow her a great deal of control over it."

Harry's hand clenched his drink. "What do you mean?"

Carl answered, his voice soft, a little hard to make out through the thick Brooklyn accent. "Was it Nita's idea to go to Long Island that summer you found out about her wizadry? Was it Nita's idea to go to Ireland to visit your sister?"

"No, I sent her to get her away from Kit…and the time at the beach was a family vacation. I didn't know…"

Tom's voice was gentle. His eyes flickered to Carl—he knew that he'd had to sit down with Nita before the Song of Twelve…to explain her options to her. It was one call that he was glad to have missed. "There was no way for you to know. And we didn't make those plans, nor did she. The Powers may have nudged one suggestion or the other into your head. Or maybe not—maybe it was fate that she was supposed to be where she was at the time she was, and no one could have arranged it better if they had planned it." He spread his hands in a "who knows?" sort of gesture. "Nita wanted to be at the beach that summer. I doubt she wanted to leave Kit and go to Ireland. Like so much in life, this isn't the sort of thing we can necessarily choose. She made the choice to be a wizard, Harry, make no mistake about that. There was no one trying to convince her, no one lying to her about what was to come, or making any sort of false promises. She found the book and felt the connection to it. She read the Oath, and made the decision to serve Life. She has served Life faithfully for several years now."

Harry shook his head, "She was too young to choose—" And Dairine was younger…

Carl cut in. "Harry, this isn't a decision that she made once, when she was thirteen. This is a decision that she makes every day. She could walk away at any point in time if she chose. But she doesn't. The fact of the matter is, wizardry does not live in the unwilling heart. If she didn't want to do this, she could stop, and she'd forget about all of it—about me, Tom, Kit. This isn't a decision she made once as a young teenager on a whim. She consciously makes this decision every day, knowing the risks, and knowing exactly what it entails."

"Dairine does too," added Tom.

Harry took an absent-minded sip of the beer in front of him. "And they know that the universe, the Powers, whatever term you want to use can send them anywhere? For anything? And they still go out and do this? You do this?"

Tom nodded. "The job needs doing. Someone has to take care of everything. Just like your garden. If you didn't tend it, who would?"

Nelaid stood ramrod straight, hands clasped behind his back, gazing out his window into the darkness of the landscape. His long hair was immaculately bound back for sleep. All the same, sleep would not come. It mocked him from the corners of his mind, creeping about the shadows and refusing to come near enough to claim him.

There were three aliens on his planet now. Not just on his planet, but in his palace, and planning to make vital changes to the planet that it was his charge to protect. Not just aliens, but wizards. Theoretically they were all on the same side, but life had taught him that what should be wasn't necessarily what was in this world, or in any other. Their presence on his planet made him feel uneasy. And they were only children. They had no clear idea what they were doing. His gaze continued to comb the landscape. He had read the précis in the manual regarding their previous encounters with the Lone One. The three of them certainly had seen their fair share, but they were still so young. Young people were volatile; one could never know what to expect from them. Indeed, Roshaun had surprised him a number of times, sometimes for better, sometimes for worse.

Making no more noise than a rustle of fabric, Miril slipped out of bed and came to stand beside him. "I do believe they are capable of the task before them," she offered quietly. "The Aethyrs have given them this task. They would not have done so if they were without chance of success."

Nelaid's voice was equally quiet, perhaps a little bitter. "Even those suited for a task do not always succeed at it. There are a thousand upon a thousand missteps that might happen at any point in time."

"Nelaid…" She reached up and touched his cheek. "Roshaun has grown stronger, wiser, and more compassionate in Dhairine's company. I do not think they will lead one another astray. She is coming to care for Wellakh a great deal. She has a great deal of conviction."

He closed his eyes. "Perhaps too much. She seems unmanageable and she does not yet understand the balance of things as they are here."

Miril gave the slightest of chuckles, like a passing breeze. "She is young, and she is still learning our ways, but she is willing to learn. She believes in Wellakh…she believes in our son. She will adjust. She may be what this planet needs to recover from some of the old wounds." She managed to nearly cover the pain in her voice, the people divided from the kingship, the assassination attempts. "Sleep now." She took his hand and led him back to the bed, and rubbed his temples until he fell asleep. All the same, she lay awake for some time, wondering what would happen if her tekeh followed Dhairine away from here and chose not to come back. What if it wasn't his choice? What if the Aethyrs sent him away and he couldn't come back? These thoughts troubled her restless mind as she tried to sleep. She stayed in bed, not wanting to rise and wake Nelaid now that he finally apparent to be getting rest.