Once again I am using this story as a palate-cleanser after another exhausting (but satisfying) step towards finishing Bloodline.

This is based very, very loosely around one of the original chapters of This Is Us I wrote last year, but I maybe left like six sentences... everything else is brand new.

Chapter 7: She's A Runner, She's A Track Star

The day Gracie took her first steps was a monumental occasion. It happened unexpectedly. Mika and Kurda were sitting across from each other at a table in the Hall of Khledon Lurt, sharing a rack of ribs. That wasn't intentional, but Kurda was late wandering into the kitchen for supper and the only rack left was a gigantic one that he didn't have a hope in hell of finishing on his own. Luckily Mika was around to lend assistance. Although they regularly ate meals parallel to each other, they didn't typically share. But as it turned out Mika was very food-motivated for someone with the body of a Greek god, and more than willing to tolerate a few extra minutes in close proximity to Kurda if he got a snack out of it.

Neither noticed when Gracie quietly slipped off the bench in pursuit of the toy she'd dropped, because Kurda was preoccupied by trying to finger-comb out the rib sauce that he'd accidentally gotten in his hair. And Mika's focus was on laughing uproariously at Kurda's predicament. So neither of them realized Gracie had bailed until they heard Seba chuckle from the next table:

"Well, well, well! How on earth did you get over here all by yourself, Miss Grace?"

Both Mika and Kurda nearly cracked their necks looking over at her, but it was too late. That was how they missed the moment she took her first steps. She made up for it though. Once she gained all that independence, she decided she was no longer interested in being carried. During her first week as a certified walker, both Mika and Kurda were late for multiple appointments because every time they tried to pick her up to expedite the process, she screamed bloody murder and refused to settle unless she could walk beside them. So they'd hold her little hand and let her set the pace. It wasn't long before they started leaving extra time in their schedules to accommodate these transitional periods.

But it was the type of inconvenience that doesn't really feel like an inconvenience. Because Gracie was happy, and they found happiness in that. She walked around like she owned the whole damn mountain, and that was a win in their books.

In fact, everything was looking up. Mika and Kurda had hit their stride. They were cooperating with each other almost all of the time, and Gracie was thriving as a result. While Mika and Kurda weren't exactly close, they were finally co-existing in the same space without constantly going at each other's throats.

Then came the fight. It could've been avoided if only Mika had been a little less defensive, and Kurda a little less righteous. But alas, they are who they are, and people only change so much. And it just so happened on that particular day they both got on each other's very last nerve at the exact same time.

The day started like any other. It was Mika's turn to spend the first half with Gracie so Kurda could do his thing uninterrupted. So after a long few hours of meetings, Kurda made the trek up to the Hall of Princes to meet up with Mika and take Gracie off his hands.

He wasn't expecting to take Gracie off the hands of some random guard outside the Hall of Princes. Kurda stopped in his tracks, staring at the guard in confusion.

"Is that… my baby?" Kurda inquired, arching an eyebrow. A rhetorical question, obviously.

"Daddy!" Said Gracie happily, waving as the guard handed her over.

"Good evening, General Smahlt." Said the guard with a polite smile.

"Good evening." Kurda replied shortly. "You'll have to pardon my confusion. I was under the impression she'd be with Mika until I was out of my meeting."

On a normal day, Kurda is quite literally THE politest vampire in the entire mountain. No competition. But he was already tired and frustrated after a long and unproductive conference with a dozen other Generals who refused to take him seriously, so the sight of a complete stranger holding his baby was extra disarming. And it showed in his tone.

"Sire Ver Leth had to leave the Hall of Princes on short notice to assist Master Blane with something." The guard explained breezily. "He left her with me on his way out. Said he'd be back within the hour."

"He did, did he?" Kurda grunted. But he didn't wait for further clarification. He barged on past and continued to the Hall of Princes to wait for Mika to come back.

He settled into one of the front pews with Gracie, and treated her to some of the fruit snacks he'd made a habit of keeping in his bag at all times. The only Prince in the Hall was Paris, and he was busy conducting a trial for some vampire who'd apparently been a little too fast and loose with his feeding habits.

The trial happened to conclude just as Mika was returning. This worked well, because Paris then headed out to get something to eat. Which meant Kurda could admonish his co-parent in private. Then again, he was so appalled he would've been just as fine with tearing a strip off Mika in front of the entire mountain.

"You're done early." Said Mika as he settled back into his throne. Kurda was solo now; he'd run out of fruit snacks so Gracie had grown bored of his company. She was now running up and down the length of the entire pew and singing loudly to no one in particular. Meanwhile Mika was completely oblivious that Kurda was about to unload a nuclear scolding up on him.

"As if my night hadn't been stressful enough already, you had to put the cherry on top and leave our child with a complete stranger just so you could go play games with Vanez?! Mika, what were you thinking? Just because someone has completed their training as a mountain guard does not mean they're qualified to take care of a child! You didn't even warn me! At the very least I deserved a heads-up that I'd walk up here and find Gracie in the arms of someone who could be a serial killer for all anyone knows! Do you have any idea what kind of locker-room talk I've overheard from the mountain guards over the years? I thought you were smarter than this!"

There was some part of Kurda that recognized he was overreacting just a little. But every meeting that night had been an endless loop of one setback after another, and he was so damn tired of it. And there was another small part of Kurda that was perfectly aware he was using Mika as a verbal punching bag to offload it all. Because there weren't many vampires who could get away with that.

Mika sat and listened, his face caught halfway between pissed-off and amused. Kurda was too irate to pick up on the fact that Mika wasn't interrupting him. That should've been Kurda's first clue.

"Are you done?" Mika asked calmly, arching an eyebrow. "Or do you have any other helpful critiques regarding my competence you'd like to share?"

"That's all for today." Kurda shot back, panting slightly. Pausing for breath during his rant hadn't been a priority.

"Alright, Smahlt." Said Mika slowly. He sat up straighter, stretched, yawned, and settled back into his throne, crossing his arms once more. "I have a question for you. Can you tell me the name of the guard I left Gracie with?"

Kurda felt his face redden all over again.

"You don't even know the name of the man you left her with?!" He snapped, outraged. Mika was never this stupid. Meanwhile Mika's face remained completely placid. The sheer fucking nerve .

"I asked if you could tell me the name of the guard." Mika repeated.

Kurda frowned. Suddenly, the blazing, righteous inferno within him fizzled to a controlled crackle. Part of him already knew where Mika was going with this.

"I... I think it's..." Kurda stuttered. "I'm sure I know, just let me think for a second."

Mika said nothing. He just continued to stare Kurda down with an expression of complete neutrality that was somehow more unsettling than rage mode.

"I have no idea what his name is!" Kurda snapped at last. "You got me! I only know him as the complete stranger holding my baby!"

"His name is Nixon Vanderberg. He was blooded in year 1929 by General Obadiah Flint. He's been a mountain sentry since 1966, and was promoted to guard the Hall of Princes in 1980." Said Mika crisply. He didn't even blink as Kurda began to shrink in embarrassment upon realizing he'd wildly jumped the gun.

"I get the picture-" Kurda interjected. But Mika steamrolled him and continued:

"He was married for thirty years before his family died in the plague and he found his way into the clan. He had seven children and three grandchildren, and he lost all of them. He was a carpenter before he was a vampire, and he carved that wooden duck Gracie's obsessed with. I didn't ask him for it, either. He just surprised her with it one day when I brought her to a meeting with me. Now tell me more about how horrified you are that I left our baby with a complete stranger. Go ahead! I'm literally here all night."

"I'm sorry, okay?" Kurda groaned, suddenly feeling like his face was on fire. "I made an assumption. I was wrong."

"Listen, Smahlt. I'm not perfect. I'm doing my best, one day at a time - just like you are. So next time you feel like getting righteous on me, take that legendary brain of yours and think long and hard before you open your mouth. I'm not going to sit here and tell you I know the life story of every single vampire on staff, because I don't. But I sure as fuck know who I can trust with our baby."

"I've already apologized." Kurda shot back through gritted teeth. "You can cut the condescension now. Don't act like you wouldn't be as righteous as I was, if the tables were turned."

"I'm condescending?" Mika laughed harshly. "You're the one who just came blasting in here to yell in my face about a situation YOU completely misread!"

Kurda knew he was in the wrong at this point. But Mika always had a knack for getting under his skin.

"Yes, you're condescending! You ooze condescension from your damn pores! It's at least eighty percent of your personality! I made one mistake and I can already tell you're going to hold this over my head for the next three months!"

Mika wasn't laughing now. He was staring back at Kurda with disbelief intermingled with frustration.

"You could've just come to me and asked about it. I would've understood your concern. I might've even apologized for not giving you a heads-up." Mika snapped. "You didn't have to wait in here to attack me as soon as I walked in the door. You also didn't have to double down on defending yourself after I'd called you out. Gods, don't you get exhausted from playing the victim?"

"Victim?! You're the one who kept digging the hole after I'd apologized!" Kurda fired back. "Just because you're good to Gracie doesn't mean you get a free pass to be awful to me! If you want me to see you as more than an asshole in a fancy chair show me there's more! Because at this present moment, that's all I see!"

Mika's steely eyes narrowed dangerously, and he stood from his throne and slowly descended the platform steps til he was eye to eye with Kurda. Any other vampire would've shrank beneath that eviscerating gaze, but Kurda had never been one to shy away from any of his clan-mates' hyper-masculine power moves.

Kurda spent a large portion of his time arguing, debating, defending. He was a pacifist among barbarians, after all. It was part of the territory. He was certain he'd argued with every single vampire in the clan at least once over the years. But there was nothing like facing off with Mika. Maybe that was why Kurda found Mika so uniquely frustrating. Mika was every bit as intelligent as Kurda. But unlike Kurda, he had the power to make changes Kurda could only dream of. And yet, Mika was perfectly content with upholding the status-quo.

Of course, none of that is Gracie-related. But this argument was never really about Gracie. Few are.

"I'm sorry you're so determined to hate me, Kurda. I'm sorry that no matter how much I love Gracie, or how hard I work to cooperate with you, you'll only ever see the times I fell short. Because anything else would contradict your perception of me, and we can't have that. " Said Mika. He spoke in a perfectly even cadence that conveyed more danger and more severity than a raised voice ever could. "I've played nice. I've upheld my end of the deal - no ranks in co-parenting, remember? Which, by the way, was the worst fucking decision I've ever made. And I don't mean Gracie. I'm referring to you, specifically."

"You took the words right out of my mouth, Sire." Kurda replied icily.

"Finally we agree on something." Said Mika, voice still silky soft even as hurricanes raged in his eyes. "Now, General, it is my absolute pleasure to order you to get out of my Hall."

Kurda nodded deftly, and delivered a final parting blow:

"As you wish. And I'm sorry too - sorry you're that pathetic."

Both of them really thought that was it. That any spark of friendship they might've had was mutually extinguished in that fight. Fortunately, Gracie was too young to pick up on the dead air between them. The icy silence lasted a week and a half, until the day Gracie initiated a game of hide and seek that neither Mika nor Kurda consented to participate in.

The day started out innocently, but it didn't last.

"The itsy bitsy spider climbed to the mountain top. Up came the wind and blew the spider off..." Kurda sang quietly to himself as he rolled out of his coffin while yawning and wiping a bit of sleep from his eye. He immediately knew he'd overslept, but it had been a tiring week so he forgave himself. As it turned out, raising a child with Mika was even more exhausting when they weren't talking to each other.

"Rise and shine, Gracie!" He called cheerfully as he got dressed. "We've got a big day ahead of us!"

He didn't hear a reply from the next room, but it wasn't a cause for alarm. Gracie usually slept like a rock. Kurda changed out of his sleep clothes into his standard garb; a white t-shirt and a sky-blue jacket. He quickly ran a comb through his hair, and he was ready to go.

"Come on, sleepyhead! Time to brush those tee-" he felt his stomach drop as he rounded the corner and saw an empty coffin.

Don't panic. Don't panic. Don't panic. He willed himself. Think, think. What was Mika's schedule today? He must have her. That's the only logical explanation. He took her with him and forgot to tell me. But Mika doesn't usually forget. Oh gods, oh gods. What did Mika say he was doing today?

"You're on Gracie duty first thing tomorrow. I have be up early to watch about a dozen quarterly assessments. It'll take the whole night, but I'm free to look after her the night after that." Was what Mika said during their brief, blunt conversation. It was very unlikely he'd have taken her with him. But Kurda needed to rule that out before he let panic overtake him completely.

He prodded Mika through their mental link while ransacking every corner of his cell.

KS: Hey.

MVL: What do you want?

The reply came a second later. It sounded faint and he could tell Mika's attention was very focused on whatever he was doing in the sporting hall. Kurda had moved on to searching Mika's cell by now, but his brief raid revealed nothing.

KS: Is Gracie with you?

MVL: IS SHE NOT WITH YOU?!

Kurda cringed. He didn't know it was possible to yell telepathically. Now he had Mika's undivided attention.

KS: She must've ran off. She's not in her room, or ours.

MVL: How long has she been gone?

KS: Don't know. I overslept.

MVL: …You overslept?

KS: Mika, I really need you to not panic right now.

For a moment, no response.

MVL: Not panicking. Start looking, I'll be there soon.

Kurda didn't know what to make of Mika's disarmingly calm reception of the news. He figured Mika would rather just berate him in person, but that was the last thing Kurda was worried about. He kept looking, and was halfway down the long corridor when Mika came hurtling around the corner like a tornado. He'd clearly run all the way up from the much lower part of the mountain. He was very tense.

"You haven't found her yet?" Mika growled.

"She has to be around here somewhere! Just start looking!" Kurda shot back in a much higher voice than he intended. He could feel his heartbeat in his throat. He watched Mika watch him for a moment. Although Mika was doing a better job of hiding it, he was clearly as anxious as Kurda felt.

"Why are you just standing there?" Kurda hollered at last, hating how unhinged he sounded. Mika's face darkened for a moment, like he was preparing to yell back. But then he closed his eyes and took a few deep breaths. When he opened them again, there was a fierce determination about him that hadn't been there before.

"I was thinking." Mika replied coolly. "Alright. Where would she go first if she was unsupervised? Have you tried Arrow and Paris's room? You know how she'll just walk in there like she owns the place."

"I looked in Arrow's cause he left his door half-open. And Paris's was locked. I don't think she's in this corridor anymore." Kurda panted, voice shaking.

"Okay, good start." Mika replied. "So we carry on to the next corridor. Move!"

Kurda fell into step beside Mika as they walked swiftly down the hall and shifted their search to the lower level.

"Alright, let's split up. You go left, I'll go right. Don't forget to look behind things." Said Mika seriously. "Remember she doesn't understand she needs to ask people before she initiates Hide and Seek. I'm sure she's just playing."

"She could be anywhere by now!" Kurda moaned. "Gods, this is all my fault. I can't believe I slept that late."

Mika had already turned away from Kurda to start scouring his designated section of the corridor, but he sighed in exasperation and rotated on the spot. Kurda braced himself for the verbal fireworks that were surely coming, but found himself more stunned by how calm Mika looked. Maybe calm was the wrong word; there was as much fear in Mika's eyes as Kurda currently felt in his own heart. But Mika was immaculately composed, coldly calculating.

"First of all, I know she could be anywhere. That's why I have every spare guard looking for her right now. It was the first thing I did when you told me she was missing." Said Mika evenly. Then his face shifted ever so slightly. His jaw twitched, and his voice cracked ever so slightly as he continued: "Second of all, spare yourself the guilt trip. Who the hell do you think left the door open?"

Kurda felt his mouth slide open, and couldn't believe it hadn't occurred to him sooner that the only reason this had never happened before was because both Mika and Kurda knew better than to ever leave their doors open.

"This is on me, Kurda. I've had so much on my mind and I was up so early I just forgot about the fucking door." Mika added. His voice was quieter this time, and more bitter. But still steady as ever. "As soon as we find her, you can rip me apart for it. This time I deserve it."

"I don't care about the door, it doesn't matter who's fault it was! It could've happened to either of us!" Kurda choked out, and he meant it. Because Mika's mistake amounted to absolutely nothing compared to the crippling terror Kurda was experiencing as Gracie roamed unsupervised through the mountain.

Mika paused, and arched an eyebrow skeptically.

"You're actually turning down a free pass to tell me how much of an incompetent idiot you think I am? This is your moment to shine."

"I don't want a moment! This week has been hell! I'm as exhausted as you are! That's the only reason I slept in so late!" Kurda exclaimed, about ready to start ripping his hair out by the roots. "I know you're not an idiot and I'm sorry for every time I've implied otherwise! Now let's just find her!"

Mika nodded decisively; a silent truce had been struck. They parted ways, and searched the corridor top to bottom.

And the next one.

And the next one.

With every door he threw open, every room he upended only to find nothing, Kurda's panic mounted higher and higher until he could barely see straight. An hour passed. No trace of her, and no news from the search parties Mika had dispatched to every different corner of the mountain.

Mika and Kurda met up at the end of a narrow passageway that opened onto a wider cavern that contained several meeting rooms.

"Any luck?" Mika called once they were within earshot. He looked considerably less calm than he had last time they'd checked in with each other.

Kurda drew breath to respond, but no sound came out. Suddenly the room was spinning and his lungs were shrinking. In fact, his entire chest felt like it was imploding into itself. Was this what having a heart attack felt like? Because it felt like what a heart attack probably felt like.

He vaguely acknowledged a bench to his right and he collapsed onto it, bruising his shins and almost knocking the thing over in the process. To add insult to injury, of course. The harder he tried to slow his breathing, the more oxygen seemed to get sucked out of the room until he was certain he was literally about to die right there, face buried in his hands as he hyperventilated.

Then, a presence at his side. Larger than him, warm, solid. Not actually touching him because that'd be weird and Mika doesn't do comfort. But it was solidarity all the same.

"Kurda, listen to me. It's just a panic attack. Happens to me sometimes. You're not dying, but it's also not helpful whatsoever. So you just need to breathe, okay?"

"I can't…"

"Of course you can. You're literally doing it right now. You're just not doing it well . Slow down. Deep breaths. Sync up with me."

Mika stopped talking for a minute or two, substituting words for exaggeratedly slow and deep breaths in and out, until eventually Kurda was able to match it. And as his rapid breathing finally slowed, so did his heart. He was still anything but calm, but he no longer felt like he was spiralling out of control.

"Better?" Mika asked after another minute of silence.

"Do you really have panic attacks all the time?" Kurda croaked out when he'd finally gathered himself enough to look up.

"No. I was trying to be relatable and empathetic so you'd calm down."

Kurda rolled his eyes and mumbled,

"Fuck you."

"That's the spirit." Said Mika flatly. "Now let's go find our baby. Yeah?"

Suddenly, a moment of clarity so intense Kurda's heart skipped a beat, but not in an awful way this time.

"The upper east storage cavern!" Kurda shouted. "The one with all the spiders! She wanted to go in and see them a couple weeks ago and you wouldn't let her, remember?"

Mika cringed, but nodded. His face was already lightning up with the same realization as Kurda.

"She asked me about it again yesterday, but I said no because I was running late. You know how she loves watching those damn spiders!"

"I don't like to think about it. But fuck, you're right! Let's go!" Said Mika. He stood up, offering Kurda a hand seemingly without thinking about it. Likewise, Kurda didn't think before accepting it. And that was it.

The mad dash to the cavern took maybe four minutes but it felt like four hours had passed until they finally flung the door open and saw Gracie there, standing on a storage crate. She was reaching up and trying to pet the spiders which kept crawling away.

Kurda heard himself make some incoherent, unintelligent noise because he didn't know whether he should laugh or cry and attempted both at once. He flew to her, scooped her into his arms and finally sank to his knees, trembling in relief as Gracie giggled obliviously.

One second later, Mika was on the floor too, and his arms were around both Kurda and Gracie. Kurda's ear happened to be in just the right place to pick up on just how hard Mika's heart was beating.

For a long few moments, neither of them said a word.

"Gracie, what are you doing here all by yourself?" Kurda managed to gulp at last. "You scared us silly! You can't just go off on your own!"

"Play hide-a-seek!"

Suspicions confirmed.

"How many times do I have to tell you? You have to ask people to play with you. I know you're not into rules, but that's how it works." Said Mika, the words tumbling out of his mouth as a shaky laugh, because there was no way in hell either of them could be mad at her for this. Or at each other. Or anything else, for that matter. Because she was safe.

"Was playing with the 'piders!" Said Gracie, as though it was the most obvious thing in the world. Mika stiffened, clearly he'd forgotten there was a large family of arachnids crawling around in the nearby corner.

"Well, they're really bad at hiding, because I can see all of them." Mika replied, glancing anxiously at the ceiling. "Let's go get a snack, shall we?"

Gracie nodded her approval and Mika stood up, holding her securely in her arms. It didn't occur to Kurda not to follow them, and it didn't occur to Mika to object to Kurda following them; last week's fight seemed so utterly stupid now.

"How'd you stay so calm while we were searching?" Kurda asked in an undertone as they sat across from each other in the Hall of Khledon Lurt while Gracie nibbled her way through a bowl of crackers. "I always thought I was the easygoing one, but all it took was the mental image of her falling into a water closet… and I just…"

"Fell apart." Mika finished the sentence for him.

"You don't have to remind me."

"You really think I'd judge you for that, of all things?" Said Mika seriously. "It was my fault, remember? I can tell you with absolute certainty that until the moment we found her, there was no part of me that felt calm . I've just had more practice at faking it. That's all."

Kurda nodded understandingly, finally able to meet Mika's steely gaze with that admission on the table. He figured that would be as much openness he'd get from Mika - it was already more than usual. So he was surprised when, after a heavy pause, Mika added a footnote to that:

"Also, that half an hour where we didn't know if she was safe… was way scarier than any clan crisis I've ever had to manage."

"We really need to get her out of this mountain." Kurda murmured. "Forever."

He expected Mika to agree. After all it had been one of the few things they'd always been on the same page about: their role in Gracie's life was a temporary solution. He did not expect to see Mika's face darken like an incoming storm.

Mika took his time before responding, as he often did when considering his words. Kurda did not attempt to fill the silence, and watched as Mika gently wiped the cracker crumbs from Gracie's face. He smiled when she giggled, but when he looked back up at Kurda his face was impassive once again.

"I don't trust anyone else to protect her like we can." He told Kurda with dead seriousness.

Kurda sighed, but didn't object. He couldn't object, because he didn't entirely disagree. He occupied himself by munching on the last two crackers Gracie had abandoned. Then he shot Mika a brittle smile, and remarked:

"Other than that one random guard, of course."

Kurda knew he was taking a gamble by making that comment, but it paid off. Mika sort of tried to glare, but didn't commit all the way. He laughed, then pulled Gracie into his arms for one last hug before heading down to the sporting halls to pick up where he'd left off earlier.

Gracie seemed to be tired from her grand adventure, so it wasn't long before she was ready for a nap. Normally Kurda rejoiced when she napped willingly - it was the perfect opportunity for him to catch up on paperwork. But it was impossible to focus on the mundanity of scale diagrams when he had so many thoughts running through his mind. What were they going to do with Gracie?

One day at a time had turned into one week at a time, which had turned into one month at a time. They were past the six-month mark now; was this going to become one year at a time? That wasn't the plan. It had never been the plan.

But none of this had been part of the plan. Finding her, bringing her back here, waking up to her giggles and gibberish every night. Although these days it was less gibberish and more actual words, strung together with increasing coherence. She'd learned to walk and talk in the time she'd spent with them. That certainly wasn't part of the plan. The way Kurda felt like she was part of him now, and the way he knew Mika felt it too - it was written all over his face when he held her. That was the only other thing Mika and Kurda were on the same page about, whether either of them said it or not. Absolutely, unequivocally not part of the plan.

That was what Kurda was thinking about when he unexpectedly heard Mika's consciousness reach out and nudge him through their mental link.

MVL: How is she?

KS: Perfectly fine. We're the ones who had a traumatic day, not her.

MVL: Hah. True. What's she doing right now?

KS: Napping with her head on my leg while I try to finish those cavern diagrams for the renovation team. Why?

MVL: I just miss her.

KS: You saw her a few hours ago.

MVL: And?

Kurda laughed quietly to himself.

KS: Nothing. I get it. Let me know when you take a break - I'll bring her down to the sporting halls to visit you.

MVL: You're the best.