Chapter Text
I dreamed of walking into the woods and never stopping, never getting anywhere. Just being… peacefully lost, I suppose.
Will woke me up to let me know when he was ready for breakfast by pulling on my hair. Aside from the wake up call, it was nice to know he's still my little escape artist. While I got him dressed I made a note to ask about wards that keep kids in cribs.
When we went downstairs, I joined my aunt at the kitchen counter. She let me cut grapes and waffles into Will-sized bites without trying to make small talk, which I appreciated.
My father was not in the same mood when he arrived. "Got in late last night just like old times, eh? I hope you're not planning to make it a habit."
"I got home at eleven. Auntie Aoibhe was still up, even."
My dad sighed into his coffee cup and just like that I might as well have been fifteen again, back from sneaking out to see Garrick.
"It's just that you have responsibilities now," he continued as he sat down across from Will. "I don't want you to get… overwhelmed." That was clearly not what he'd originally meant to say, but I looked over my shoulder in time to see Auntie Aoibhe staring him down.
"Believe it or not, I've been with Willow the entire eighteen months since he was born. I didn't pick him up for the first time at the airport. Do you see the sippy cup lid?" I looked to my aunt. She handed it to me and I set the plate and the cup on Will's tray.
Once he was happily eating, I dug into the fridge, rearranging the half-dozen rune-decorated glass containers the Cardulos had sent me home with so I could cut myself a slice of the leftover cake.
"Chocolate cake for breakfast?" We were bordering on exasperation and it was still so early in the day.
"Amari knows he could use the calories," Aoibhe murmured to him without looking up from whatever conversation she was having on her phone.
Fifteen year old me would have lowered my eyes and tried to argue with him, but this was not how things were going to be now. I looked my father square in the eye as I took a large forkful of cake, put it in my mouth, and swallowed.
"First of all, Dad, thank you again for coming to get me at the airport when I called you. I really appreciate your support, please know that. But I don't want to use up my entire pool of energy arguing with you before I finish breakfast."
My father looked over to Will, then to Auntie Aoibhe, then back to me with another long sigh. "You're right," he said finally. "It's going to be hard for me, but yes. You're right."
I nodded and went back to eating. Out of the corner of my eye I noticed something, now that I was awake. Starting from my wrist, there was a thread of blue working its way among all the black ink on my arm, and a ribbon of black that had been a scar before.
Auntie Aoibhe was the first to notice what I was looking at. "I suppose you really are home now."
My dad smiled, shaking his head. "I'm surprised they found room on there."
"As if they can't find a way when they wish," she tsked at him and looked back at her phone. "You'd best talk to Bodhi today. He'll be glad to see you."
I felt sick to my stomach again despite the cake. "Did he go to- is he working at your practice now?" I asked my father.
"Yes," Dad answered. "He enjoys it." I wasn't sure how to take that. Did Bodhi really enjoy it? Or had he just gotten stuck because I ran, and he made the most of it?
"We're having a family dinner at seven." Auntie Aoibhe looked at me, raising an eyebrow. "You'll be there to say hello to Bodhi, won't you?"
"Yeah, I can find room in my incredibly packed schedule." But I didn't want to start with Bodhi with my father watching over us. "Would he mind if I swung by to see him early? I need to go over to Garrick's anyway."
She typed away while I finished my cake.
"What are you… tell me, what kind of plans do you have?" my father asked, choosing his words. There was a buzz of controlspeak in there, but I used the trick I'd learned protecting myself from Sage. I didn't have the energy to fight the compulsion, but if I paid attention I could make sure it didn't stick. Instead it ended up in the black hole where my center used to be and disappeared.
It rankled, mostly because I was going to tell him anyway. "Physical training," I told him. "I'll take Will with me, don't worry."
"Bodhi doesn't mind company, he just says to give him twenty minutes if you want him to have pants on." Auntie Aoibhe jumped in before I could get properly mad.
I shook my head, laughing, and it felt good. "Definitely in favor of pants. I have to get Will ready to go and actually walk there anyway."
It seemed likely the Cardulos' house would have most of anything I could need for Will, so I just tucked some spare diapers into the pocket on the carrier and clipped his silver bell and his dangly bird to the shoulder harness where he could reach them. Once he was strapped in, I found a little knit hat in one of the boxes that had appeared and pulled it over Will's head.
He tugged it off twice before I gently tipped his head up to look at me. "It's cold here, sprout. You gotta wear the hat."
"No hat!"
"I can put you in a hoodie but you'll have to have the hood up then." Sometimes I felt like I was walking the line between explaining, which the books I'd read said was good, and negotiating with a toddler, which seemed ridiculous.
"No! No hat!" He was close to screaming now, so I dropped the hat back in the box and loosened the carrier enough to wrestle him into his little blue hoodie with the rabbit ears. Once the hood was up and I'd flopped the bunny ears in his face, he happily pulled one into his mouth and started chewing on it.
"He's old enough for commandspeak, you know," my father said from my bedroom doorway.
"Even if I could do it, I wouldn't. I'm never using command on him."
"Never?" I looked up to see my dad arching his eyebrow the way I had learned, matched with that slightly disbeliving tone. "We'll see how you feel in few years."
"Maybe to save his life. Nothing less. And I expect you not to use it on him either."
"Xaden…"
"My kid, my rules, or I'll…"
He waited, still watching me.
"I'll move in with the Cardulos," I finished, wondering where that had come from almost as soon as it left my mouth.
Dad crossed his arms but he was smiling a little again. "In that little house? They're already running low on space."
"I'll kick you out and move them in here, then, I don't know. Just don't do it, Dad, please. It's important to me."
He was back to frowning. "Are you saying I shouldn't have-"
"Well, Bodhi's waiting for me, I'd better go. I'll see you at dinner," I cut him off and swept past him, taking the stairs as fast as I dared to. I remembered taking them three at a time when I was a teenager, but between my dizziness and my son it felt reckless simply not putting both feet on each stair.
Will called "byebye!" as we went.
I regretted the hasty exit almost as soon as we were outside, because I'd grabbed too light of a hoodie for the last of the morning chill. I didn't have any warmer hoodies; I'd forgotten the range of temperatures and layers needed this far north. I used to run warmer anyway.
Walking helped, and I told myself it was only a short walk to Bodhi's place anyway. As we walked I looked around, pointing out place to Will regardless of how much attention he was paying. "That's the- oh wow, that's a yoga studio now. I bet you'd be good at child pose. There's the library. We'll have to get set up with a library card and find out when they have storytimes, huh? That's a yarn-"
"Holy shit, Xaden? Is that you? I heard you were back in town!" A loud voice cut off my conversation with Will, and I looked up. I knew who it was before I met her eyes, though. I took a deep breath and counted to four as I looked for someplace to escape, but nothing nearby looked promising. I gave in and turned to face my ex-fiancee.
"Cat, hi."
"I almost didn't recognize you, you look like shit." The smile on her face didn't move as she said it, which was pure Catriona. Nice to know some things didn't change.
"I know." I tried to look for a bright side. If I could get through this conversation with Cat, the whole town would know whatever I told her by the end of the day. It could cut down on awkward conversations. "I'm working on that."
"And you've got a little grub, how cute!"
Will always knew when he was being talked about, and he untucked his head where he'd been laying against my chest. "Byebye?" He looked up at Cat with his big, dark eyes and for just a second I thought I saw something like an actual emotion flash across her face.
"Leaving so soon?" she asked him, but the singsong in her voice was enough to make him smile.
"He says byebye to everything, like it's aloha," I told her, unable not to smile when Will was smiling. "Cat, this is my son Willow."
She hadn't actually looked back up at me. "He's pretty cute. He must have gotten his looks from you because you don't have any left."
Okay, there was making it right and there was putting up with this. "If you just want something for the gossip mill, you can tell folks I'm back and I'm going to fix things. I'm actually on my way somewhere, so if you're just insulting me for old times' sake I'll be going."
She took a step back like I'd burned her. "Fixing things with that attitude? Yeah, that sounds like Xaden Riorson."
"I'm not sure what reparations you think I'd need to make with you. You gave as good as you got with Sage and we were already broken up by then. Or are you just enjoying that I was taken down a few pegs?" I was shivering in the chill now.
Cat sighed. "Fun was watching you self destruct at the time. That screaming match with your dad that half the town heard? That was great. Your ex making an ass of herself while you were stuck defending her? Effervescent. Looking at you shuffling around like an old man? Not fun. Depressing, really."
"So sorry for disappointing you," I said, keeping my voice even. Clearly Garrick and Imogen were a fluke and I needed to be reminded this morning that I was a fuck up. Fine. "I have to go, I don't want Will to get cold."
The whole conversation left me feeling off balance, and I arrived at Bodhi's house expecting the worst. I hesitated on the porch even when I couldn't feel the wards pushing back on me, just becuase I thought they should be.
But Bodhi welcomed me in like it was easy. Already had room for Will without having met him. Introduced me to his boyfriend like he wanted me to care about what he was doing.
It was so much easier than Dad's house was, and so then I thought maybe it wasn't that the Cardulos were an outlier. Maybe it just meant that these were the people I'd been able to breathe around before, and I still could.
By the time I left for Garrick's house, I was promising embarassing Bodhi stories to his boyfriend at dinner and feeling slightly less frozen inside.
The Cardulo house was starting to feel nearly familiar already. Will hadn't wanted to go back in the carrier so we'd walked the first block, and then Will had decided he wanted to be carried after all so I was just holding him against my hip when I knocked.
"Good to see you, man," Garrick greeted me, pulling me through the wards for another bone-crushing hug that somehow managed to avoid squishing Will at all. "Ready to get started?"
"No," I said honestly, but he just laughed. Today Garrick had me come in the front door and turn straight down the stairs to the basement where the kids were playing. While the space Imogen had met me in at the bookstore looked clean and professional, like any of the offices our parents' kept, and the parts of their home I'd seen afterward were a comfortable, lived-in kind of house, the basement was clearly the girls' domain. There was toddler-sized gymnastic equipment, a tiny kitchen, a pre-school's worth of baby dolls and the piles of books you'd expect for kids whose family owned a bookstore.
Will squirmed to get down immediately, drawn to the promise of new toys and new playmates. I set him on the floor and he toddled about five steps before stopping to look up at the girls. His head tipped so far back he fell, sitting down heavily on his bottom.
"Girls," Garrick got their attention. "this is Willow, and his dad Xaden. They're going to be spending some time with us. Play gently with Will, okay?"
"Xaden, Will, this is my oldest, Gwen-" the taller girl grinned at us and bowed like she was being introduced in a show. She was a dead ringer for Imogen at that age, except that her pale hair was as curly as her dad's. "My middlest, Lyn-" who was already taking Will's hand and helping him up, before leading him over to the tiny kitchen. She looked like a Tavis, with dark hair in a mess of curls framing her round face. "And baby Avery." Younger than Will, Avery was sitting up and very intently studying a set of stacking blocks as she moved them into a row.
"I'm not surprised you guys already have three," I let myself smile a little. "They're adorable, Gar."
"Yeah, I know." He was clearly proud of his family, just like his parents always were. I remembered his mom's kitchen at least as well as my father's. Probably better; I'm sure I spent more time there, especially after my mother returned to her home when I was ten. Ma Tavis was on the list of people I needed to apologize to, but the list was so long it threatened to overwhelm me when I thought about it.
I leaned against the oversized couch in the middle of the space. "So what did you have in mind?"
"Well my goal is to reintroduce you into your natural habitat," he grinned, "but first we have to rehabilitate you."
I rolled my eyes. "I'm not playing wildlife sanctuary, Tavis, come on."
"Hey, it's a metaphor but it's a good one!" he insisted. "Look, once you're feeling better you'll be in a better position to want to talk to people again. Not to mention you're about as skinny as I was when I was twelve and that is not a good look on you."
"I'm not..."
"You really kinda are. Come on, let me show you my workout routine these days."
I wondered if he had a weight room tucked back somewhere, though I didn't see many doors. The walls were painted with different colors and giant flowers bloomed on all four walls. When I looked closer, I could see runes worked into the design, making up the detailed center of each flower. Looking at them too long threatened a headache.
"I didn't exactly dress for this," I said, looking dubiously at my jeans. "I had an argument with my dad and left a little faster than I meant to. Are we going somewhere?"
"Nope, I do it right here." He clapped his hands. "Girls! Workout time! Bring Will and Avery over please." Gwen carefully picked up Avery and Lyn giggled as she walked Will over.
"Avery gets to play today?" Gwen asked, sounding surprised. "I thought she was too light for you."
"Xaden's going to start with Avery and work his way up."
Now that seemed unnecessary. "I carry Will around every day," I pointed out.
Making my point for me, Will toddled away from Lyn and raised his arms. "Ups!"
"You can switch to Avery when you get tired," Garrick said lightly, almost dismissively, and I did feel a flame of the old competitiveness between us. We'd always pushed each other; it was hard not to, when I was only a month older than him and our dads were partners, best friends, whatever, it meant we were around each other all the time.
"Switch? Wait, what are we doing? Where's your equipment?" I was starting to feel like this was a joke I wasn't in on, and it was getting old.
"You've heard of bodyweight workouts? This is a babyweight workout." Garrick got down in a position to do pushups, gesturing for me to follow him. I did as he instructed, and when I looked back over at him I saw the two older girls had climbed up to sit on his back. "You can do this part without anybody on you though, just to start."
I narrowed my eyes at him. "Will, backpack."
Will obediently started to stumble toward me, laying across the back of my neck. I reached behind me to adjust him so he was laying between my shoulders, his arms wrapped around my neck. He giggled.
The girls were also giggling, and Garrick was smirking. "If you insist. Okay, here we go-"
Despite my certainty that I would be fine, my muscles started to burn sooner than I was ready to admit defeat. Garrick called it before I had to, though, which I appreciated. Not that I'd admit it.
"Now on your back," he said, and Will climbed out of the way before I flipped over. "Will, can you get on your papa's legs?" It was leg lifts, and somehow again Garrick stopped us both just before I had to worry about dropping Will. Then it was time for bench presses, and I finally admitted that this was harder than I'd thought.
"You're really okay letting me do this with your baby?" I asked him. I was almost hesitant to pick her up. She was bigger than Will had been at her age but smaller than any baby I'd handled in a while.
"If you're worried about it," he said, making sure it was clear he wasn't, "I'll spot you, okay?"
I realized I didn't have eyes on Will, though it only took a second to spot him at the play kitchen with Garrick's girls. Gwen seemed to be giving a cooking lesson, and something about the way she had one hand on her hip and was waving a wooden spoon with the other reminded me so much of Imogen that it startled me. Avery was starting to fuss and when I looked back at Garrick there was concern on his face.
"Where'd you go?" he asked.
"The way Gwen's giving orders over there, it was like looking at mini Imogen." I laid back down, setting Avery on my chest for a moment while I stretched my arms.
"Yeah, I see so much of her mother in her every day." Garrick's face went soft. "You sure you're good? We can pick up again on Tuesday."
"Garrick, if you imply again that I can't lift a literal infant I will punch you."
He laughed. "You can try, honey bear." He showed me how to arrange my hands so I was supporting Avery on both sides, and just like he'd promised, his own strong hands were never more than an inch away from mine. When he stopped me, my arms had started to burn again, but it felt good.
He scooped Avery out of my hands and I sat up. I expected him to move around me, maybe to offer me a hand to help me up, but instead I felt him pressing against my back. He was so warm and solid, like a sun-warmed rock I could lean against on a summer afternoon, and it was easy to let my thoughts drift away while I watched Will play with the girls.
By the time I realized I was half dozing and half wanting more physical contact, I was glad he was behind me so he couldn't see whatever blush was on my face.
"How do you usually do that lift? I can't imagine Gwen's that much of a challenge by herself." I needed to distract myself before I got too comfortable.
"Sometimes Lyn sits on Gwen and they have to balance, and sometimes I use actual weights."
"Sometimes he lifts Mama!" Gwen demonstrated that she was listening.
I desperately wanted to raise an eyebrow at that, but since I wasn't facing him, Garrick couldn't appreciate it. "I wouldn't have thought she was into that."
"That one time was because Gwen wanted to know if I could," he said. "But… I think she was more into it than she expected, too."
"Sometimes I practice picking up Lyn so I can be strong too." She demonstrated by putting her arms around her sister's waist and hauling her off the ground. Lyn kicked at the air until she got loose and dropped to the floor, yelling the whole time. She disappeared behind the beat-up couch, but Gwen was paying attention now, her eyes curious. "Can you lift Willow's daddy?"
I snorted, fully expecting Garrick to laugh too, but instead he made a sort of thoughtful sound. When I turned to look he was considering me. "I doubt you weigh much more than Imogen at the moment, Xay, I bet I could bench you without breaking a sweat."
My heart raced a little more than was probably healthy. "Bet."
It was only seconds before he was on his back again, guiding me to lean backward in the strangest trust fall I could remember doing. All of the kids were watching now; Lyn had come out from behind the couch and even Avery seemed riveted.
"Just hold your core tight. It's like doing a plank," Garrick advised as he nestled one hand between my shoulder blades and the other under my ass.
Fucking hell, stop making this weird, I yelled at myself, trying to keep my face as rigid as my muscles as Willow and the girls started to keep count. I hadn't reacted to Garrick like this for years even before Sage was in the picture. He and Im had three kids. Why couldn't my body get the memo? I must have been even more touch-starved than I realized. Suddenly I was glad I'd worn jeans after all.
I don't know how long he was planning to go on; my body shook from the strain of holding the pose before he was even close to seeming tired. He set me down gently and I found my head on his chest, not quite sitting up on the floor next to him. The girls took this as their cue to jump on us and Willow followed their example.
The tickle fight that ensued was vicious and we were badly outnumbered. Finally Garrick tapped out for both of us. Willow was past his nap time and he climbed up onto Garrick's chest next to me before falling dead asleep. Lyn must have followed; I couldn't see her from my position but I heard a second small set of lungs breathing in and our next to my head. Gwen murmured something about not being tired, which I assumed meant she was going to nap too.
Avery crawled over to me and pushed herself up enough to climb into my lap. I tried not to think, until the sound of Garrick snoring joined all of the others.
Well, I couldn't exactly get up then, could I? I let myself doze and not quite think so much as watch my feelings float by. I was starting to feel properly relaxed when I heard Imogen's voice.
I startled awake, realizing she was laughing. When I looked over, she had her phone out and pointed at us.
"Well that's my new lockscreen," she said, looking very pleased with herself. "I'd ask you to stay for dinner, Xaden, but I hear you're eating with Bodhi and the new guy tonight."
"Thanks anyway," I told her as I shook the sleep out of my head. "Come on, Will, let's go home to grandpa."