I'm back. And CARTER'S NOT DEAD! So Zia isn't trying to strangle me anymore.
And about that: I seem to have irked a LOT of people with that last chapter and the whole "killing Carter" deal. But I'll have you know that our dear friends Sadie and Zia gave me a nice beating, and Walt sicked his magic camels on me, which is why this update took so long. That, and my computer crashed.
But I digress.
Warning: Contains Extreme Amounts of Fluff.
And yeah, I don't own.
O-o-O
"Walt! If you don't put me down right now I'll kill you!"
Walt laughed and carried the screaming girl to the edge of the pool in a fireman's lift while she punched his back. Then he threw her in with an impressive splash, stepping back to admire his handiwork as she came up spluttering and shrieked, "I'll get you!"
"Wrong person to pick on, Walt," Carter remarked as the girl flicked her hand and blasted Walt in the face with a water spout.
"Water elementalist. Right," he said as the girl smirked.
Zia lounged on a chair and smiled at Carter, opening the book in her lap. Sadie flicked her wet hair out of her eyes and yelled, "Come on in, Zia! We even remembered to take Phillip out this time before we started swimming."
"No thank you," Zia said, turning the page and kicking her sandals off.
"Come on, Z," Carter said, grabbing Sadie's ankle and pulling her off the side of the pool, "The water feels great."
"It's going to be a lot less pleasant for you in a minute," Sadie growled.
"I'm fine out here," Zia repeated.
"Something wrong?" Carter asked, pulling himself up on the side.
"Nothing. I just don't feel like swimming."
"Why is it you never feel like swimming?"
She closed her book and sat up straighter. "I just don't. Is there a problem with that?"
"Not at all," he said, and slipped back in the water. Zia pulled her sandals on and started walking back inside. "Where are you going?"
She smiled at him over her shoulder and said, "Despite the fact that I play with fire on a regular basis, I don't enjoy the feel of a burn—especially sunburn."
Zia curled up on a couch inside and opened her book again, but she couldn't focus on it. She kept glancing out the glass doors at the trainees splashing around in the water. Carter was swimming laps, and the girl that Walt had thrown in earlier—who, come to think of it, looked like a younger version of Sadie—was beating Walt around the head and shoulders with a pool noodle. Zia sighed and rested her chin in her palm, letting the book slide out of her fingers and onto the couch. She watched the others slip in and out of the water, and remembered the rushing Nile river, a warm, calloused hand on her shoulder, young children sloshing through murky water. She smiled fondly as she picked up her book again.
Later, after dinner, she and Carter were sprawled on the living room floor with a five hundred piece jigsaw puzzle and a solemn vow not to go to bed until it was done. Everyone had retreated upstairs except for Walt, who had a charm he wanted to finish before morning. He had vanished into the library an hour ago and there had been no sign of him since, but since there were no explosions, Zia wasn't too worried.
"Any idea where this one goes?" Carter asked her, fingering a piece before passing it across the monstrous pile. Zia took it, examined it for a second, and snapped it into place.
"How are you so good at this?" he asked her, watching as she snapped two more pieces in place.
"Practice."
"Where do you practice puzzles in the First Nome?"
She smiled wryly at him and said, "You don't honestly think I went straight to sleep every lights out, do you?"
"Point taken." They sat in silence and placed a dozen more pieces in the puzzle before he said, "So what was up with you earlier?"
"What was up with me when? You need to be specific."
"At the pool. You seemed ticked, I guess."
"I just didn't feel like swimming. Why won't you let it go?"
He dropped the puzzle piece he was examining—Zia knew where it should go, but had decided to let him figure it out so as not to injure his pride—and said, "Because you have to be more stubborn than that to live with Sadie."
She laid her head on her arms. "You're going to laugh at me."
"Why would I laugh at you?"
She peeked up at him. "I don't know how to swim."
"Why would I laugh about that?" His face was blank.
Zia could feel her cheeks redden. "Carter, I grew up ten feet from a river and I can't swim. How pathetic is that?"
"It's not pathetic." He sat up straight and asked, "Didn't anyone ever teach you?"
She sat up and crossed her legs. "My dad tried a few times, but I could never stand getting in the water. It was always silly things—like being afraid a crocodile would eat me."
Carter laughed and said, "That's actually kind of cute. So you never got over your…dislike of water?"
"It sort of rationalized itself when I became a fire magician."
"Right." He flicked a puzzle piece in her direction, and she absent-mindedly placed it.
"So, how childish do you think I am?" she said, her hands flying and snapping pieces into place.
"It's not childish. Why are you so stressed?"
"What makes you think I'm stressed?"
"I've never seen anyone put a puzzle together at light speed."
"I don't like feeling weak."
He threw a puzzle piece at her head and said, "If there is one person in this room who is weak, I'll go ahead and tell you that said person's name does not start with a Z. There are lots of people who don't know how to swim."
"Name one in this house."
"Felix."
"He's nine. That doesn't count."
"You're really upset about not being able to swim?"
"I don't like talking about it."
"I'll teach you."
Her head snapped up. "What?"
He scooted around the pile so he was sitting next to her. "I said I'll teach you how to swim."
"You don't have to do that." She picked up another piece and snapped it into place.
"I will."
She turned her head enough to see him and said, "Really?"
"Of course." He put his arms around her shoulders. "We can start tomorrow," he started, then glanced at the clock and corrected, "Later today, actually."
"Thank you." She studied the pile of puzzle pieces. "You know, I bet we can have this finished in an hour."
"No way." He leaned forward and exclaimed, "There must be at least two hundred pieces left!"
"Watch the master at work." She grabbed a piece and set it in the proper place.
"Hey! You knew where that went the whole time?"
She bit her lip. "I meant for you to figure that one out. Sorry."
"Oh, you are going to pay for that." He grabbed her waist and started tickling her.
"Stop it!" she shrieked, trying to wiggle out of his grip.
"You two having fun?" Walt asked, hovering in the library doorway with a little smirk on his face.
"I take it you finished your charm," Carter stated, letting go of Zia.
"What does it do?" she asked, punching Carter's arm.
"It's a sleep inducer," Walt said, "and I think I'm going to test it out now," he finished with a massive yawn. "G'night."
"Sweet dreams," she yelled as he trudged up the stairs, which earned her a half-conscious wave.
"And then there were two," Carter said.
"Let's finish this puzzle, shall we?"
*#*#*
"Do I want to know why there's a puzzle on the floor, or not?" Sadie asked as she sat down at the breakfast table with her loaded plate.
Walt flicked a Cheerio across the table and explained, "The lovebirds got bored. How late did you guys stay up to finish it?"
"Not long," Zia said. "I'm good at puzzles."
The little water elementalist girl appeared at the railing the next floor up and yelled, "Hey! Check this out!" She backed up a few steps and ran at the rail, leaping over it and flipping before she landed on the floor below. "Sweet!" she yelled, pulling a charm off her neck and squinting at it, "This thing Bast gave me really does work!"
"And what if it didn't?" Carter asked.
"Okay, I admit I could have thought that out better. But it worked, so I didn't go splat!"
One of the college-age kids sat at the table and said, "I heard a new Egyptian exhibit opened up at the museum. Who's up for a field trip?"
Everyone's hands went up except Carter and Zia's.
Sadie smirked and said, "You two are just going to make out on the couch all day, aren't you?"
Zia shrugged. "I've practically grown up in an Egyptian exhibit since I was eight. They don't interest me much."
"I've seen pretty much everything with my dad," Carter said, "so I really don't care if I go or not."
"Whatever you say."
The group left an hour later, opting to take the portal instead of walking twelve blocks, which meant they would be gone for at least twelve hours.
Carter stood up and said, "You ready for your swim lesson?"
"Absolutely." She ran upstairs and pulled on a swimsuit she'd taken from Sadie's room, then dug out a pair of cotton shorts and pulled them on before dashing back down the stairs to the pool. Carter was already wet, swimming back and forth across the deep end.
"Hi," he said. "Get in."
"Yes sir." She dipped a foot into the water and took three steps into the shallow end before she started to panic. As soon as the water touched her knees, a knot formed in her stomach and her throat started to close up. Another step. The water was now halfway up her thigh; she remembered hearing that it was possible to drown in a teaspoon of water. Step. The water brushed her hips and she stopped; she couldn't go any farther, because she was going to drown and die and she couldn't do it.
"Something wrong?" Carter splashed to her side and pushed a strand out her eyes.
She looked down at the water that was going to swallow her whole. "I can't do it."
"Come here." He put his hands on her waist and gently pulled her into deeper water. "See? I've got you. I'm not going to let anything happen to you, I promise."
She bit her lip. "I'm scared."
"Don't be. There's nothing to be scared of."
"Nothing but dying a slow death in a watery grave."
He rolled his eyes and pulled her out until he couldn't touch the bottom anymore. He kept one arm around her so she didn't sink, but he kept going under, and finally he said, "You think you can stay up by yourself?"
"I don't know."
"Try it." He let go of her.
Zia sank until her head was completely submerged, and the panic kicked in. She was going to die down here and what was she thinking, she couldn't breathe because there was no air under water and she couldn't swim.
Her foot brushed the concrete bottom of the pool, and she instinctively kicked off, propelling herself back up.
"See?" Carter said when she came up spluttering. "You won't drown. You'll be fine."
She pulled herself out of the water and started walking inside. "Where are you going?" Carter asked her, following her to the door.
"I can't do it." She yanked the door open but stopped when Carter put his hand on her shoulder.
"Something's going on."
She started shivering, and Carter wrapped a towel around her shoulders. She leaned against the wall and said, "I had a little brother. Adrian. He was three years younger than me, and the most adorable child…" she smiled at the memory of him laughing and holding her hands. "You remind me of him."
"What happened?"
She sat on the ground and took a deep breath. "He…he drowned. In the river. He was only two." She hung her head. "I was supposed to be watching him while our parents worked in the fields. I only took my eyes off him for a second, but when I turned around he was gone. We never found his body."
When Zia looked up, Carter was kneeling in front of her, horror-struck. She took his hand and said, "Its fine. You didn't know. I don't think about it much, really."
"I'm sorry."
She shook her head. "I hardly ever think about it. I sort of…blocked it from my memory, I suppose. And we were both so young." It was a complete lie, but she wasn't going to tell Carter that she still fell asleep crying some nights. She just…missed him so much. For years after he had died, she had been able to convince herself that he would walk home one night, covered in dust, saying he had gone on an adventure. After all, they had never actually found him, had they?
She stood up and dropped the towel, extending a hand down to Carter and saying, "I still want you to teach me."
He pulled himself up and said, "Of course I will." He pulled her back to the edge of the pool and walked straight over the side of the wall, landing with an impressive splash. She slid in after him and slowly let her fears go.
*#*#*
"We're back!" Sadie yelled as she and the other trainees bounded down the stairs. "What did you two do all afternoon?"
"We swam," Zia said, tossing the senet sticks and bumping one of Carter's pawns back to start. "Sorry."
He took the sticks from her and threw, putting one of his other pieces in the House of Horus. "And then I beat Zia at Monopoly a few times."
"I still don't understand why you would want to buy spaces on a game board. It makes no sense." She moved the last of her five pieces off the board and took the chocolate bar from the middle of the table. "I win."
"You guys are boring," Sadie declared. "Anybody want to spar with me?"
"I will," Alyssa said, and the girls vanished into the training room.
The other kids dispersed, and Zia broke the candy bar, giving half to Carter. He raised his piece and said, "A toast to two hours of board games."
She laughed and tapped her own piece against his, taking a bite and letting the chocolate melt on her tongue.
Adrian tugged on her sleeve and whined, "Zia? Can I have some?"
She smiled and broke off a piece of the chocolate her father had given her, which was hard to get this far from a city. Adrian giggled and swallowed the whole thing in one bite.
"I love you, Sissy," he said, taking another piece of candy from her. She dug her toes into the river mud and said, "I love you too."
That was the last time she shared anything with her brother, even a smile.
Carter nudged her leg with his foot. "What's wrong?"
She sighed. "Adrian used to love chocolate."
"I'm sorry."
"Don't be." She grinned at him. "Carter?"
"Yes?"
"I am so going to dunk you tomorrow."
"Is that so?" He cocked an eyebrow at her. "You couldn't even catch me today!"
"There's a first time for everything, isn't there?"
He laughed along with her as they continued to eat their candy.
I love you too, Adrian. I'm sorry.
O-o-O
You'll be reading a lot more about Adrian later ;)
So? Love it? Hate it? Thought it was pointless? You can tell me. If nothing else, leave a review in Adrian's memory!