Skulduggery – Crow

Anton – Bear

Ghastly – Panda

Dexter – Wolf

Saracen – Weasel

Erskine – Snake

Solomon – Raven

Chapter 75

All hell broke loose.

Snake started screaming, Wolf and Weasel began laughing and pointing mockingly at Panda, Crow nearly broke the table standing up, and Bear nearly broke his chair and the wall when he stood up too quickly and it went flying back.

Valkyrie laughed at them and didn't help even a little when the Idiots started chanting and trying to hug Tanith, slapping a disgruntled Panda right out their way.

Tanith swatted them away but couldn't run as she was on bedrest. She crossed her arms as Wolf, Weasel, Snake and Valkyrie ran loops around her and sang about the baby. In the other room, Panda had been flattened to the wall by Crow and Bear and looked to be being interrogated.

"Alright, stop it!" Tanith shouted, smacking Weasel and Snake harshly. Wolf and Valkyrie jumped out her way as she stormed over to the others. "You can stop that! There's no need to interview him about it."

"He got you pregnant," Crow growled, not taking his eyes off Panda's stubborn look.

"It's the twenty-first century, Skulduggery," Tanith said with exasperation. "It's both our fault. So instead of lecturing a grown-ass man about conception, you can congratulate us so I can sit the hell down before I fucking feint!"

Valkyrie jumped forwards and helpfully added: "She really will faint."

Crow sighed and they backed off Panda. "Fine. I am sorry Tanith. Congratulations on your pregnancy."

"Thank you," she told him. "I need to get some sleep."

She turned and left at a slow walk, looking altogether paler than before dinner. Panda followed before Crow could threaten him again.

"Aren't people meant to be all radiant and lovely when they're pregnant?" Snake asked as they sat back down at the table.

"Tanith's not exactly been keeping safe since she got pregnant. It's taken a toll on her body and that's why she was getting so sick and is tired so much," Valkyrie explained to him. "She might get better in a few weeks with all the weird things Civet is making her drink."

"Can I have some?"

"They're for pregnant women, so no," Valkyrie said, rolling her eyes. "You can have alcohol."

"I like vodka," he agreed.

"What happened on this mission then?" Valkyrie said quickly before he offered her some and Crow banned alcohol from the house forever. She had to keep her options open!

"That was a strange turn of events," Wolf said with a huffed laugh. "Saracen knew before we got into Roarhaven that someone was under the bar, but it wasn't a prisoner. Idiot barkeeper nearly got himself killed and we had to drag his sorry arse to the Sanctuary in cuffs. Thinks he's the Killer Supreme."

"Aside from him, we didn't find Tesseract at all," Weasel said, putting them on track.

"The Torment was waiting for us," Crow said.

"Whose that?" She asked quickly.

"He's the leader of the Children of the Spider," Snake said in an oddly far away voice, looking at the table. Wolf put a hand on his shoulder. "He's ancient and been missing since the middle of the war. He rescued me in battle after I escaped Mevolent's castle after being tortured for weeks. They healed me in secret and tried to convince me to join their army to kill all mages."

"He nearly managed to brainwash Erskine too," Crow said darkly. "Until The Torment tried to stab Dexter and Larrikin and it set Erskine on the path back to us."

"They wanted to create an army to bring the Spiders into the leaders of the living world," Snake said quietly, reaching up and holding Wolf's hand. "We went after them and they knew I'd brought soldiers to their doors. Many of their people died that night, and so did The Torment's wife. He's blamed me since."

"And he was there when you went under the bar?" Valkyrie concluded.

"He's been living there for years," Crow said, rubbing his skull. "All reports said he went to the African rainforests decades ago. We fought him but he got away. We weren't prepared."

"And did Tesseract turn up?"

"No, but The Torment made it very clear that Tesseract is working for him. So at least we know," Crow ended. "We'll have to go looking, but we can't do this alone. We have no idea how many Children of the Spider there are any more, and Erskine doesn't like to be reminded of them."

Snake nodded and got up from the table, holding his arm like a small boy and leaving the room.

"Is he okay?" Valkyrie asked them quietly.

"He will be," Wolf assured her. "He just didn't expect the reminded. He blames Larrikin's death on himself."

"It's not just that," Weasel said even quieter, leaning into her. "He has almost no recollection of his time in the castle, at least consciously, but he does remember the Spiders and their brainwashing and the torture they put him through after telling him they were family and all he had to do before he was able to leave them fully. He really, truly believed they were family and always had been. It broke his heart and I think a little more of him too. We love him. He's our brother. But they did something that's made him act differently since."

"He used to be like you when you were a little kid," Wolf said with a sad smile. "Always laughing and loved everyone. Him and Larrikin were so close. But then all that happened, and that side doesn't often happen now, and when it does, he turns a little, I don't know, goofy."

"Like he's a small child, not a full loving man," Crow explained. "He was the best of us."

"After you of course," Wolf winked to her.

She smiled a little and they finished their conversation about The Torment and Tesseract, agreeing to get Corrival to give them some help which they knew he'd do since he'd all but raised Snake apparently, and she went upstairs to her room to think.

Sitting with her door closed firmly behind her, she fiddled with the lock and turned it closed after a moment.

She wasn't sure why she hesitated. After having them open up to her, and Tanith being ill and Snake surely upset, it didn't seem right for her to lock her door. She knew she needed her time, though, and she lay down on her bed.

There was so much to think about.

She wasn't altogether worried about The Torment. He was an old man that had isolated himself for decades, it wouldn't be too hard to find him in the modern world even if he was an incredible fighter. Tesseract was a worry, but they could handle him just like everyone else. She couldn't stress too much for Snake, she would just be there for him like he was for her, like she would always be there for him regardless of the situation.

What was really pressing on her wasn't any of that, or even Tanith or her impending niece or nephew. It was Mr Vinay and Nadia.

He had said she was sick earlier that day, so long ago as it was. How sick did he mean? It could be a small sickness that was just sticking around, or it could be that she was so upset over Valkyrie that she was making herself sick.

Or it could be that she wasn't eating like the last time Valkyrie saw her. She sorely hoped it wasn't that, but she knew that was how Nadia dealt with stress. Valkyrie would not eat much too when she was really stressed, but only until she'd tidied everything, then she'd eat and find something else. She could regulate it. But she wouldn't put it passed Nadia to not stop, simply because Nadia hadn't had to deal with stress the way Valkyrie had with her parents and Gordon dying and having no friends at school and using those deaths against herself for so long.

Nadia was a mature girl, but she didn't know hardship like Valkyrie, hadn't had her family help her learn to regulate it. She'd had the threat of everything she loved removed by her parents, which was somewhat traumatic in itself as it had been so stressful, and it had pushed Nadia to break up with her which had surely been hard on her mentally, and then been uprooted hundreds of miles away with, apparently, no way to communicate with anyone.

That was a lot on someone who'd previously been handed the world on a silver platter.

She just couldn't understand why she would do that though. Was she just upset about the breakup or was it more? What if she was struggling at her school? Or it was her parents? They had proved they didn't care about Nadia's interests when they sent her to India, and more so Mr Vinay had admitted they hadn't allowed her a phone.

But that in itself brought Valkyrie another problem. She would have just text Nadia or tracked down a friend and made them start forcing Nadia to eat and stop her stressing about it all, but she couldn't do any of that. She couldn't pretend and help, and if she was realistic, she couldn't force Nadia to get over her inability to eat and however many mental health issues she was struggling with right now.

So her only option was to either go to Nadia's parents and force them to give Nadia a phone and stop pressuring the girl or she'd have to go to the school, break in and find Nadia herself. She quickly reminded herself that none of that answered what the illness was or if Nadia wanted to see her whatsoever.

She groaned and covered her face with a pillow.

She wasn't sure what she wanted to do let alone what was the right thing. Nadia broke up with her, but she loved the girl to bits. She'd run to India in a heartbeat if she was certain Nadia wanted to see her even if just to cry on her. But without that confidence, she didn't want to go. It would kill her all over again to be rejected by Nadia.

What would she want Nadia to do?

I wouldn't expect anything, Valkyrie thought to herself, but I also wouldn't have broken up with her because my family said so.

But Nadia's family was everything to her. Valkyrie couldn't forget that. Nadia loved her family as much as Valkyrie and she knew the stress of everything could have caused it. And that was Valkyrie's biggest problem. She couldn't compete, and that held her back from trying to see if Nadia wanted her.

That realisation made Valkyrie sit up.

If it was just a lack of belief, she had to think around that.

It didn't stop the pain of rejection, but was Nadia still worth trying to convince even if she didn't succeed? Yes. Valkyrie knew that wholeheartedly. She'd do it every day if there was even a glimmer of hope. So if that was the case, if she forgot about the parents pressuring, what did she do?

She still wasn't sure. But a yearning to see Nadia was deep in the pit of her stomach and she had to look out her window as if that made them closer somehow.

She just didn't know if she could do it. The same way Nadia hadn't been sure she could deal with her parent's pressure and had succumbed. Put like that, she wanted to go see Nadia and prove to herself all that pressure couldn't control Valkyrie. But it was harder when her heart was aching. Perhaps they weren't so different. It made it a lot easier to not blame Nadia but not enough to take away the feeling of rejection.

And the feeling of betrayal from Nadia's words about her.

She bit her lip and sat still for a moment when her door was knocked on. Sighing, she unlocked it and saw it was Bear on the other side.

"Hey," she said in surprise, letting him into the room. She closed it behind him. "I didn't expect you."

"You have a lot on your mind," he said, pulling a chair over to her bed and sitting on it. "Tell me."

She did, going through all her conflicting feelings and her realisation about Nadia's pressure. He nodded and said nothing, listening carefully to her.

"I understand," he said after a few minutes silence when she was finished.

"You know what I should do?"

"No," he said, putting a hand on her knee. "But I know how you can know."

"Well, how?" Valkyrie asked eagerly.

"You must wait. Nadia will and can come if she wants in the meantime. But until then, you must explore for yourself what you want. You are not sure if you can cope with her giving in to parental pressure. You are not sure you want to see her strict parents and deal with their policies. You are very independent, and this is a conflict of interests between you. Your answer will come when you have explored yourself and know what you want long term and in this, you can work through your feelings of rejection and come to your answer. It is okay if that is not Nadia. It is okay if she remains sick. You cannot look after her if you cannot look after yourself."

Valkyrie nodded slowly, mulling over his advice. "So I need to wait basically."

"You must do things for yourself. The answer will not lay itself on your lap."

She bit her lip and nodded absentmindedly. He leaned in and kissed her forehead and left her room to let her think over what she could possibly do to explore what she wanted.

I am so sorry for the extra few days wait for this chapter! I started reading another fanfiction recommended by justsomethingtrash and I just finished it and now I'm annoyed because she didn't warn me it is incomplete and not updated since 2015 and I want to know the ending. It's very frustrating! I was also looking at venues. For anyone interested in weddings and likes being nosey, you can look at Charlotte House, Lincoln, UK. I have a viewing on Sunday and I'm super excited!

KiedisXI: I'm gonna make it a lot cuter, don't worry! The boys will get cuter with time, as of now they're excited rather than cute, but they just found out they're all going to be uncles, so we can let them off ;) I want to make all the readers awwing and squealing at their cute reactions as we go through the pregnancy and finally have a baby!

AND FOR ANYONE READING THIS FAR DOWN, no, I haven't worked out gender or names yet! Please leave me name suggestions of all types (male, female, neutral etc.), and I will be using a random generator for gender and picking my favourite name.

I will make sure to credit who suggests it, so please leave your name!