This chapter has some themes some readers may find sensitive. Nothing outwardly explicit, a strong mention or two, but I thought I'd be careful.
Snow came home with her mother that evening. They stopped for a meal on the way back, and Snow sat by the window in silence, watching cars pass by and absently wondering who they were, and where they were going. They joined the traffic, and returned home. Both tried calling, messaging, pinging Douglas's Holoband throughout the night. No answer. Snow kept her mother company, as even in silence, they were comfort to each other. Night became darker. Silence won, and time came for them to return to their rooms. Holly, to try to get an hour or two of sleep. Snow, to lie down and power off.
Snow's head sunk into her pillow, and she was still. She narrowed her eyes, but they didn't close. Something felt off. She shifted to her side, flipped her pillow over, and made out a small shape silhouetted against her sheets. She stared at it for a couple of seconds, then clasped the keys in one hand so they wouldn't make noise. Without light and without sound, she left her room, passed a near-empty bedroom, and unlocked the door to Douglas's study.
As the door closed behind her, a hand in the frame silenced it. Snow's steps were soundless as she made her way to his heavy, mahogany desk. The one with a locked drawer she had never seen open. Moonlight poured through the open window to shimmer off the second key before it entered the lock, and the drawer opened.
Douglas Hudson's Frontline ID sat atop four folded pieces of paper, torn unevenly from the source. She looked her father's ID over, then read the letters one at a time. The first was a bit over two years old– months before Snow's production.
"Holly wants to try again. I'm not sure I can, after last time– I never want to see her in that kind of pain again. But she's adamant. I admit, I've always wanted a daughter. She couldn't care either way, as long as we have someone. (Of course, I'd be happy with a little "Doug Jr," too.)"
The next note was written a couple of months later, in December.
"I've been brought in to run some diagnostics on an Organd they suspect is showing signs of emotion. Her emotive responses are muted, but their suspicions are valid. There's something going on here. There's something more than a computer behind those eyes. I'd hate to see her 'disposed of,' like they're discussing. But it looks like that's the way this is headed. Might need a drink or two."
The next was from over a year later. The day didn't stick out for any particular reason, apart from it being a weekend she visited home.
"Just dropped Snow back off at school. The whole way over, we were talking about when Holly and I were young, what we wanted to do with our lives, and how we ended up where we are now. It's hard to believe how much she's grown. I knew there was something going on in that head, but even I underestimated her. Every day, she grows further into a young woman. One I'm proud to call my daughter."
The final entry was on fresh paper, dated only a week old.
"The pressure's on. I think they noticed me snagging a backup of that android's code. I can't see this ending well. Expecting the termination notice anytime, now. I just hope they don't take Snow, too. I can't drag anyone down with me."
Snow stared at the page, analyzing every letter. His pen scratched the page deeper, and his handwriting was more angled, more irregular, than the notes before. None of the pages had been torn out evenly, but the bottom of this page skewed at an angle of 25 degrees. He must have scribbled it desperately, ripped it out in a haste, and hidden it away. She folded it again, and locked it away.
If Snow were a human, she wouldn't have slept that night.
Two days later, Caspian and Moka joined the deluge streaming from the lecture hall, into the afternoon sunlight. The day began with the suggestion it would be like any other. Aside from Snow's sudden absences, the biggest thing on Caspian's mind were the feelings at the tip of his tongue, and the way his heart pounded when he considered whether he should risk a friendship by telling the girl that walked next to him, or keep it secret until she found someone else and he regretted it all.
His Holoband began to vibrate. His heart skipped a beat when his father's name flashed above his wrist. A second or two after he answered, Lazula joined the line. Caspian mentally plotted the fastest route to the SFC, to suit up for the Grimm attack he was about to hear about.
"Would you two come home, please? There's something I need to tell you."
"Right now?" Lazula questioned.
"Yes. As soon as you can."
She made sure to pronounce her sigh of irritation. "Fine."
"Yeah. I'll be there," Caspian affirmed. "Lazula, need a ride?"
"Sure."
The call closed, and Moka's tail flicked next to him. "Everything alright?" she asked.
Caspian took a deep breath. The stream of students split around them.
"I don't know."
Caspian's chest felt tight on the way to his car, and despite Moka's best efforts to lighten the mood, he could barely squeeze out a reply. Something felt wrong. His father called from his private line, not the Academy's dispatch line. He remembered he hadn't seen Snow in a couple of days, and hoped, desperately, nothing had happened to her. Lazula landed in the passengers' seat with a huff a minute or two later, before his mind could wander too far. Judging by her clothes and air of irritation, she was on the way to the SFC when the Headmaster called.
"What do you think this is about?" Caspian asked. He pressed to start the engine, flicked on his headlights, and adjusted his mirror a hair. "It seems sudden."
"Don't know," Lazula answered. "Whatever it is, it better be important."
The rest of the words they exchanged on the drive could have been counted on both of their hands. Half an hour later, a mansion peeking out over the trees toward the ocean greeted them home. Caspian entered the eight-digit gate code, pulled up the quarter-mile driveway, and found himself between white columns at the entrance to Skye Manor. Their father greeted them at the front door, but joined them outside. He led them silently, solemnly, toward the garden.
"You bring us here to apologize?" Lazula suggested. "I hear I'm not the only one you've been shitty to."
Their father faced away, toward pink carnations in full bloom. He stared ahead. His back was rigid, as though racked with pain from his decades-old injury. His knuckles went white around the handle of his cane.
"Hey, let's... let's let him talk," Caspian suggested.
Their father's first breath out was shaky, weak, as though it barely managed to hold off tears.
"Your Uncle Douglas passed away."
Caspian's hand came up to support a quivering lip. His chest was already tight but squeezed tighter, then tighter, until it began to burn and his heart pounded three times over. He felt a knife in his back, one in his chest, doused with frigid water and burned alive. When he came to, he sat in the grass, his head between his knees. His head felt heavy– or too light, he couldn't tell.
Lazula swore under her breath. She shook her head, and wished she could take back everything she had said in the last half-hour. She shook her head, took a breath, and asked the question Caspian was afraid of.
"What happened?"
"I'm… afraid you won't like the answer," he replied. He crouched down, and took off his glasses to wipe them clean. Behind them, his eyes were red. "Caspian. I know you, especially, were close with him. If you'd rather not know, I can tell Lazula privately."
He swallowed the knot in his throat, and moved his glasses to wipe his tears. "No, tell me. It's best I know."
Another shaky breath. "He committed suicide."
"Both of you, take any time you need. You can stay here as long as you'd like."
"Where's Snow?" Lazula asked.
"At home, with your Aunt Holly. Both of them will be arriving tonight."
With that, the three were silent. A breeze rustled the branches above, but even the birds had quieted. With a sigh, Lazula knelt next to Caspian, and laid a hand on his shoulder. He shuddered beneath it.
Their father turned back to the house. "I'll be inside."
Lazula ended up at her practice facility that night. The perfectly conditioned, double-filtered air inside carried the slightest scent of clean rubber, a welcoming smell that reminded her of home. Each of her footsteps echoed into emptiness, and the sound of her bag hitting the ground bounced off the walls and hit her twice. Her mind was empty, wandering only a couple of times on her fifteen-minute warmup around the track. She worked out arms, shoulders, lats, then chest. She neared her bench record. And when she racked the bar on her last set, thinking of the times she had Snow spot for her, she remembered she'd just lost her uncle.
She called Lilly over. She needed comfort, and needed someone in the house with a grasp on their emotions. When Lilly arrived, she stepped through the doorway gingerly, as if physically feeling out the air of the room. "Hey, Lazula," she greeted, adjusting her collar. "How are you feeling?"
"I'm alright, I think." She shut the door behind Lilly, locked it, and led her to the window, where she had looked out over the sea since returning from her workout. "It's horrible, what happened. Of course I don't feel great. But I almost feel like I should be more sad?"
Lilly smoothed out her skirt before sitting. "How so?"
"Well, I know how much this is affecting Cas. And I feel terrible for Snow and Aunt Holly, but I just feel… numb. I don't know how to describe it. I feel like I should be as upset as them, and maybe I am, I just don't feel it." She looked out the window. "Just worked out, almost hit a PR like it was any other day. It's weird."
"I think that's a normal way of processing it, too," Lilly replied. It should have been hard to hold her gaze, but something about the warmth of her eyes always put Lazula at ease. "You might end up feeling it more in the next few days. Or you might not, and that's okay too. Grief's funny like that. Well, not funny. Nothing about this is funny. Just weird."
"Hm. I guess you're right." She nodded at her. "You ever thought about being a therapist? You'd be good at it."
Lilly smiled. "I've just started considering it, actually." She played with a curl that had fallen next to her ear. "I don't know, though. I'd probably end up needing my own therapist, if I did that for eight hours a day."
Lazula chuckled. Something about chuckling two hours after learning her uncle died didn't sit right with her, and she fell quiet again. Her eyes flicked away from Lilly, to her mother coming down the stairs. Mrs. Skye made her way to the door, so when the doorbell rang she was there to open it. Holly was pale, her dark hair strung over her face. Her eyes looked heavy, her movements were weak and slow. Her daughter guided her in with a bowed head, and disquiet clouded the room.
Mrs. Skye welcomed the new widow into her arms, and held her for a few seconds. I'm so sorry, Holly," she murmured. She let her go, and extended a hand toward the stairs. "Greyson has some tea ready for us upstairs, if you'd like."
Holly nodded weakly, and followed her up. Snow watched the two ascend, made her way to a corner of the room, and sat. Alone. Ten ticks of their old grandfather clock were the only sound in the room. The time between each felt too long. Lilly stood, and sat across from Snow. Lazula decided she should follow.
"Hi, Snow. I'm really sorry," Lilly offered.
Snow nodded slowly. Her gaze was unmoving, fixed somewhere a thousand feet past the faunus.
"How are you holding up?"
"I'm not doing well," she answered. "I don't want to do anything. I just want to lie down. But when I do, all I do is think about him. There's this pressure in my head. I feel it behind my eyes. And in my body. It almost hurts to move."
"That's how I felt when I lost my grandma," Lilly replied. "I assure you, that's all normal. It will hurt like this for a little while, but slowly it will fade. All we can do is trust the time to pass, and take time to care for ourselves now."
Snow's head sunk further, and both of her fists clenched so hard they began to shake. "But I can't cry. My own father is dead, and I can't even cry."
Lilly's own hands tensed, a mirror of Snow's. She let out a breath. "Can I hug you?"
Snow said nothing, but nodded. The faunus stood and wrapped her arms around the android, who leaned in toward her.
Four days passed at the Skye Manor before Caspian noticed. He spent most of the time in his room. Alone, ignoring the world, staring at the ceiling or burying his head in his pillow. Peace only came when he was asleep. But every time he woke, and he remembered it wasn't all a horrible dream, he felt the wounds fresh. He became numb again, and in shock.
He couldn't bear to think of Uncle Douglas, the good times, or how much Snow and Holly must be hurting. But anything besides that felt like too much or too little to bother with. He couldn't bring himself to care, beyond a vague sense of bitterness.
Everyone had to die at some point. He knew that, and it only became more apparent each time he scraped through a Grimm attack. Maybe he'd been lucky, since it had taken him this long to lose someone close to him. But he couldn't bring himself to feel that way. He couldn't pull himself past the last time they spoke, past their argument and the resentment that followed, and past the thought in his mind that he'd give it a week or two more, then reach out to bridge the gap the argument left. Because he'd be alive. Healthy. Forty years old, with as many years ahead of him.
He felt like he'd been robbed of something dear. But not even that was quite right, because if he was robbed, he could replace what was stolen. Nothing would ever fill the hole Uncle Doug's death left. In time he might learn where the edges lie, so he didn't catch an ankle and fall in again. But it would always be there. Just as wide, and just as deep.
Of course, his grief couldn't compare to Snow's. And since she'd come to visit, he'd only ever seen her alone. She'd try to lose herself in a book, or stare out over the ocean, but she was almost always alone. He didn't know how to approach her. Maybe just like any other day, though that didn't feel quite right.
One morning, as he made his way down the stairs, she was alone again. He sat across from her.
"Hey, Snow."
Her skin was flushed, her eyes downcast and dull. Her voice was even weaker, more of a whisper than before. "Hello. Do you need something?"
"I've been taking some space for myself, but I wanted to check in on you," Caspian replied. I'm so sorry. I hope you know that no matter what he might have said, or how he began to act, he loved you. I know he did."
"Thank you, Cas." She put her hand over her chest, and Caspian reminded himself it lingered over her core, not her heart. "But I don't understand. Knowing that in the end, he loved me, and he loved mom, it should give me peace of mind. But… I think it hurts worse. He loved us. But he's gone."
Caspian's breath hardly held more tears back. "I'm so sorry."
"Nothing can be done. If I could do it, I would. But nobody can." Her head bowed, then turned aside to the door she entered with Douglas on the December evening that felt so long ago. "Why is it all so confusing? Why does this hurt so badly?"
"You lost family. There's not much in this world that hurts more than that." He took another breath to steady himself. "I had about sixteen years on you to figure out my emotions, but I still haven't. I don't think anyone really has."
"I see. Then maybe I never will."
"Maybe. And maybe I won't. We can get closer, though."
Snow nodded. "Maybe we can, then." She lowered her gaze, but raised her arms toward him. "Will you hold me? Only for a second, if you don't mind."
"Uh– yeah," Caspian agreed. He stepped toward her, and they met in the middle. Her head nestled in his shoulder, and her words were muffled.
"I can feel your heartbeat."
"...Sorry."
"Don't apologize. I like the sound. It reminds me you're alive." Her arms slackened, and his did the same. Her fingertips rested on her chest again. "And yet, I don't have a heartbeat."
"I like the sound your core makes. It's a nice ambient sound. It's calming."
"Thank you." Something else replaced her weak smile. Caspian didn't know what, but somehow it was unsettling. "If it were to stop, would you cry for me?"
"What? Yes, of course I would."
"And yet if your heart stopped, I couldn't cry for you. No matter how much it hurt, I couldn't. You would still cry for me?"
"Yes." He sighed. "Losing Uncle Doug is enough. Please, I'd rather not think about it."
"Sorry. I have a lot to think about, and I'm saying strange things."
"It's fine. We both have a lot to process right now." He paused, and fidgeted for a second because he didn't know how much Snow wanted to hear the next thing he had to say. He looked toward the door too. "But, there's this idea I can't get rid of. I don't think he'd do this to himself."
Snow sat straight, her sadness fading into something dubious, unreadable. Once again unsettling, but unlike her expression from before. "Why do you say so?"
"He had so much going for him. Holly, and you, all of his friends. He always seemed happy. Honestly, he used to be my role model of someone doing well in life, and enjoying it." He shook his head. "I know people always tend to deny these kinds of things, and you can never really know what someone's going through. But I feel like something else is going on."
"You're just denying it, too. There's nothing else going on."
Caspian sighed. "...Maybe you're right. But, I also got this awful feeling leaving his house for the last time. Like someone was watching me. It was this overwhelming gut feeling that I needed to get out of there." Snow was quiet for a second, and he lost all his confidence in the pause. "I-I don't know, you're probably right. It was probably just anxiety."
She stood up, and for a second Caspian thought she was leaving with nowhere to go and nobody to take her.
"Sorry, I shouldn't have brought it up."
She took a step toward the window. She turned back to him.
"I don't like lying to you."
"Lying?"
"Yes, lying." She turned fully, and took a step closer. "The story you've been told is very likely only a cover. But I can't tell you anything else. Please don't ask any further questions. I hope you understand."
"I can't understand if you don't tell me," Caspian contended. "I can't just sit back and accept something I know is a lie. Especially something like this." His brow furrowed, and he bit his lip before addressing her again. "Something's going on, isn't it?"
Her eyes caught a sunbeam streaking in through the window, and the blue was renewed within them. "Knowing the truth would put you in the same danger Douglas was in." Another step closer. "I don't want to lose anyone else. Especially not you."
At some point, he must have let Moka come over, because she showed up at their door the next Sunday around noon. She was quiet as he showed her in the door, with a weak smile and tail hanging low. "We've missed you at Sparring Team practice," she finally said.
Caspian replied with something like a grunt, but thought he should play his part in conversation, even if just for her sake. "What have I missed?"
Moka cocked her head. "Eh, more of the usual. Still a good time, though."
"Yeah," Caspian replied. He sat on a couch in the foyer, and Moka sat next to him. They were silent for another handful of seconds. "Maybe I'll come next week."
"No rush." Her voice was soft, a sudden break from her forced nonchalance. "Really. Take all the time you need."
"Thanks." He took a feigned interest in the couch's seam, and said nothing else. He heard Moka sigh next to him.
"I've thought a lot about losing my mom. But I've still never felt it. I can only imagine what you're going through, and I'm so, so sorry."
Caspian tried to thank her, but his throat quivered and he couldn't make a sound. He felt the stinging in his nose again, and resented the fact Moka had to see him like this. His head sunk into his hands and he shook, tears leaking between his fingers. Moka made a small noise out of sympathy or out of pity, and leaned over. He felt her arms wrap around his back and around his arms. He didn't feel any of the shame he expected. Only warmth. He let himself cry, and let her hold him.
He returned to Sentinel with her that afternoon. Maybe he was ready, or maybe he would have felt bad making her take transit for another two hours back. He didn't remember driving, but he must have made it safe because next thing he knew he was back in his dorm's bed. He woke up from his after dinner nap at six the next morning, and remembered his uncle was gone.
It was Monday, and felt worse than one. But he figured it was convenient enough, to start at the beginning of the week. He showered, re-ordered his backpack, and stared at the wall until it was time to leave for class. He'd have three that day– Advanced Grimm Ecology, History of Vale, and Applied Physics. The lights were too bright. The voices were too loud, and the professor spoke too fast. Too many in the classroom only thought it was Monday.
He left halfway through filling his seat in AGE, oblivious to the eyes that followed him out and the professor that fell silent.
He walked forward. Down the stairs, out of the lecture hall, to nowhere in particular. He passed the spot on Blue Square where he almost died on the night of the dance. All over something stupid. He had just begun to wonder who would grieve the same for him when he heard someone behind himself.
"Caspian!"
He kept walking.
"Caspian!"
He turned to Ichigo, opening his backpack under his shoulder as he ran after Caspian. He finally caught him, then his breath, then looked up. Hidden in plain sight, he showed Caspian a letter that should have already been ash.