Right, so there was a lot for everyone to talk about. Sariel especially was clearly reeling from the sudden knowledge that not only did she have two more children out there waiting for her, but those two were only alive and well because of Puriel of all people. Puriel, the man who had torn their family apart to begin with, had saved Sariel’s daughter, who had SPS. Even more than that, he’d saved her by allowing the girl to possess him just to get her away from his own wife. Seriously, how was Sariel supposed to process even that by itself, let alone the added fact that they had saved her son too? She had two more children who were alive and well thanks to Puriel. It was a lot to process.
Yeah, their whole family was going to have to talk about that for awhile. But at the moment, all we had time for was a quick update about what we’d found out, for the benefit of Mom and Dare. We let them know that Grandmaria and Grandpartie were actually okay after all. They weren’t being held prisoner, and in fact knew basically everything by now. Well, everything Puriel had known.
By the time we got the basic story out, Mom was staring between Dad and me, mouth opening and shutting a few times before she managed to speak. “You’re saying that Maria and Arthur are helping Zeus, who is now a good guy because of severe mental trauma, restore the Olympus so they can come home. And the person mostly responsible for this restoration is another of Sariel’s daughters, who is also the same person who designed that prototype instant-jump ship.”
Pausing to consider that briefly, I then gave a thumbs up. “Yup, that basically sums it up. I mean, there’s probably more, but yeah. Aren’t you glad you’re here for the insanity now?”
Mom, of course, smiled before pulling me into an embrace. Her grip around me was tight as she murmured a quiet, “Yes, I’m very glad. Even if you do manage to find your way into quite the ridiculous situations.” With that, she teased my hair and turned to face the others while sliding her hand down to rub my back. “So, nothing we can do about all that right now, I take it?”
Sariel, who had summoned her two older children in that time, shook her head. The woman was standing with one hand on Tabbris’s shoulder and the other on Tristan’s, while Vanessa hovered (not literally) nearby. “Nothing right now, no. As much as I want to… talk to my other children there, I don’t want to push things too hard and end up with several of us transporting all the way over there. It… it wouldn’t be a good idea.” From the way she hesitated at that part, I was pretty sure she had been seriously considering whether it would be possible or prudent for just her to transport over there so she could be with those two kids. But, of course, that would mean leaving the rest of her family here. Not exactly an easy question, either way.
Dad seemed to sense the same thing, speaking up immediately. “We’ll go back and see them again, soon. Just let everyone rest a bit. Like we told them, we’ll check in and see how they’re doing. Mom and Dad are–I like knowing they’re okay, but I’m not leaving it at that. If they run into any roadblocks with this whole ship rebuilding thing, maybe we can help. Whatever it takes. The point is, I’m going to check in on them as much as possible. I’d uhh, I’d like your help to do that.”
Once Sariel quietly agreed, Dare spoke up. “It sounds as though this investigation could have ended up going much worse. Lincoln’s parents are safe with this Puriel, who has had a rather severe change of heart. And Sariel has two more children who will be on their way here soon.”
She had a point. We really could’ve found out much worse news than that. Actually, I was pretty sure nobody here in the room ever in a million years would’ve guessed that our little scouting mission would’ve turned out anywhere near that well. It was almost unbelievable.
Still, shaking that off, I said, “It is nice to have some good news for once. And…” Trailing off, I looked over to my parents. “Speaking of having good news, I just realized you don’t have a place to live up here. I just–you don’t–what…” Boy, were there a lot of thoughts running through my head right then. With effort, I pushed most of them aside to focus on the important part. “We left to go save Elisabet before Mom really–before you even, umm… what now?”
Both of my parents chuckled, glancing toward one another. A short, yet intense look passed between them. There was clearly a lot going on there, even as the two linked hands before turning back to me. Mom spoke first. “I’ll want to do a… there’s a lot I’ll want to do, eventually. But right now, I think I’m going to take a few days to be around my family. All of my family.”
Dad agreed. “There’re a lot of things we need to go through, but right now, we’re just taking it day by day. Give your mother time to readjust to everything.”
That time, Dare and I were the ones who exchanged brief glances. Yeah, there was a lot I wanted to say. Especially when it came to Mom being around ‘her entire family.’ But I couldn’t. We couldn’t say anything at all about it. Hard as it was, especially right now, we still had to keep Dare’s identity secret. Fuck, how did she do it for so long? How did she give up Mom to begin with? And then go so long, especially while my mother– her own daughter — was running a full-on rebellion? I just couldn’t imagine having to surrender my entire identity like that. And now to have her right here after all that time and have to pretend Mom barely meant anything to her?
All of that was too much to deal with at the most normal of times. But right now, Mom had just been returned after a decade of being imprisoned by that monster and Dare had to pretend that she barely knew her. How would I feel if I was in her situation? What if my mother’s memory of who I was happened to be erased, and I had to pretend to just be some girl who had heard about her? God, how much would that destroy me? And Dare had to live like that? I had no idea how she went on. Gaia. Gaia was the answer, clearly. And now Gaia wasn’t here, so Dare had to deal with all this with only Koren and me to talk to, and I had been gone for– yeah. Ouch.
In any case, Sariel eventually said she would be around to help whenever we needed, and that my dad should absolutely never try to mental-recall alone. Then Tabbris headed out with the Moons, my sister calling back that she’d come find us later. Yeah, I didn’t blame her one bit for needing to spend time with her other family. After what they had just found out about having two more siblings out there, no wonder she wanted to be with her mother and the twins for the moment. Besides, I was pretty sure she was equally leaving me time to be alone with my own parents.
Which, of course, still left Dare with us once the others had stepped out. And I was trying my best not to obsess too much over the fact she was family and absolutely should be here right now. There was nothing we could do about that secret right now, so I had to just push it aside and continue to act as though she was just a teacher whom I greatly respected and trusted.
Shaking off those thoughts for the moment just as Dare started to excuse herself, I quickly raised a hand. “Um, I need to talk to you. Uhh, later, I guess.” Exchanging a brief glance with my parents, who already knew (or thought they knew) what I wanted to talk to the woman about, I added, “You know, if you’re not busy. It’s about everything that happened at the Meregan world.”
Dare, of course, gave me a curious glance. As far as she knew, the official story about what had happened had already been reported. I felt her gaze staring into me, clearly realizing very quickly that there was a lot more to it before she gave a very short nod. “Take time with your family, Felicity. I will be available whenever you need.” Her voice was quiet, and only the two of us really knew how much more was behind her words. Then, with a very faint smile toward my parents, toward her daughter, she pivoted and headed through the door. I was pretty sure that if she hadn’t left right then, she would have shown more of a reaction than she wanted to. More than was safe.
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And there I was, standing in a room with just my mother and my father. Both of them were standing close, hand-in-hand as they watched me. Their expressions were unreadable, but there was clearly a lot going on there. For a few long seconds, the three of us just stood, silently staring at one another. How long had it been since we’d had a moment like this? How long since it has been just the three of us, not only safe in a room together, but also with no immediately pressing life and death problems? I had been a tiny child the last time. Now, so much had changed. We had all been through so much to eventually bring us to this specific moment.
Finally, I crossed the distance between us, walking those few steps before opening my arms to embrace both of my parents together. I felt them return it immediately, their strong, firm grips pulling me up close to them, hauling me against them. For a few long seconds, the three of us just stood there together, embracing in a tight, unwavering family hug. Unwanted tears were streaming down my face. God, this moment, how long had I been waiting for something like this? How many years did I spend completely dismissing it as even being a possibility, before going to Crossroads and learning the truth about my mother? I just–this whole thing was… it was a lot. It was more than I had ever allowed myself to truly think was possible. And yet, here it was. Here we were. I was with my parents. My mom and dad were both safe, free, and here.
I wasn’t sure how long the three of us stood there like that, but eventually we separated a bit. Dad said that he wanted to take us somewhere more comfortable and with that, led Mom and me out of the room. I had no idea where he was going, but he clearly did. Over the next few minutes, my father led us through a maze of corridors. He pointed out the way down into the school area that I was more familiar with, but kept going past it. It was obvious that he’d had a pretty thorough tour of this area. And yet, there was clearly more to it. As we continued onward, moving through blank corridor after blank corridor with only a few minor signs here and there, most of which were written in a different language, I finally realized the truth and pivoted to face him. My finger rose to point. “Hey, you’ve been using the Chimera-Seosten bonding for more than possession practice. You’ve been using the Seosten bonding to memorize where to go.”
Mom, for her part, chuckled while reaching up to squeeze my father’s shoulder. “Oh, that explains it. I knew your memory was good, Lincoln. But not this good.”
With a chuckle, Dad gave a short nod. “The perfect memory isn’t exactly completely perfect while the blood bond isn’t active. Certain very specific details tend to fade over time when I’m not actively Seosten-Bonded. But it’s still pretty damn good. Most of it sticks. Plenty enough to remember how to go through this maze. Which has been pretty useful lately, that’s for sure.”
Shortly after that, we reached the area he was leading us to. It turned out to be a series of staff apartments, one of which he had been granted. And this apartment wasn’t some little hole in the wall either. It was a very nice, three bedroom set-up, complete with a full, gorgeous bathroom, a giant kitchen, and an enormous family room. All of it, every room, was already decorated with all the furniture and stuff anyone would need. Clearly, Athena had gone out of her way to give my dad a nice place.
No, she’d gone out of her way to give my family a nice place, I realized. This was for my parents. And for me. And for anyone else who stayed with them. It was a place for them to live beyond the cabin down at the Atherby camp.
Once Dad finished showing us around and we had returned to the main family room, he pivoted to face us, arms out. His gaze was on my mother. “Okay, so I know it’s not that hard to go between the camp and this station whenever we might want to, but Athena and I were thinking that this would be a good place to live anyway. I mean, Felicity’s going to school still, and there’s Abigail being the principal, and Wyatt. You’d be close to everyone, but still have our own–”
In mid-sentence, Dad was interrupted as my mother stepped over and embraced him tightly. Her voice was quiet, shaking a bit from emotion. “You don’t have to convince me, Lincoln. It’s beautiful. It’s amazing. It’s more… it’s more than I let myself think we’d ever have again.”
Dad went on to explain that Abigail’s own apartment was right next door to one side, while Deveron had one directly behind us. All three were linked together through doors like those motels that had joint rooms, and we could always very easily go over and visit. Even Wyatt was close, with a room on the far side of Abigail’s that would be easy to get to any time.
And, slightly more awkwardly, Dad also added that Mom could always stay with Deveron for as long as she wanted too, given he was her first husband. Yeah, it was clearly still very strange for Dad to say, but he got through it, quietly noting that he knew Deveron had missed her as much as he had. Then he and Mom whispered to each other for a few minutes, while I stepped away and studiously ignored them, because I really didn’t want to hear any of that. They could work out whatever details they needed to without my help, thank you very much.
Either way, we got through it, and then we did something else that all of us had been waiting a long time for. We had a meal together. I mean, sure, it was just TV dinners heated up in the oven, but it was still a meal together. We sat at the table in the family room and just… ate. Well, ate and talked. We talked a lot. The three of us sat there, enjoying dinner while we talked. Not about any life and death situations. Not about what was going to happen next. No. We talked about the years we had missed, the years Mom had missed. Dad and I told her stories about me being at school, about all the reporter stuff I’d gotten into, about everything amusing that came to mind. Dad, of course, had a much better memory for that, given how young I’d been for some of it. But no matter what the story, no matter how few or how many specific details either of us remembered, Mom was enraptured by all of it. She asked so many questions about everything, enough that Dad and I both remembered more than we would have otherwise. Which led to more stories, which led to even more questions, and so on like that.
We sat there like that for a long time after our plates were empty. It had to be hours, where the only interruptions came when one of us needed to use the restroom or get a drink. For the most part, we all sat at that table and talked, laughed, cried, and generally just interacted. It was just the three of us, sitting there together to catch up on things. Not that we were anywhere near catching up on everything even after all that time, of course. It was going to take a hell of a lot longer. But the point was, we started. It was our first real chance to sit together as a small family like that and just talk. And honestly, I’d rarely been any happier than in that moment.
Eventually, however, the discussion ended. I’d seen Dad yawn a couple times, before pushing myself up. “I need to talk to Professor Dare about what happened.”
“I’ll go with–” Mom started.
“No,” I quickly blurted, shaking my head as I looked between them. “You guys deserve alone time without me. I mean, don’t get me wrong, this right here, this has been like… one of the best nights of my life, ever. But this isn’t about just the three of us. It’s also about the two of you, and you’ve been apart for a long–” Cutting myself off, I rose. “I’ll talk to Dare. It’s okay. Mom, Dad, you just… be here, okay? Don’t run off.”
The two of them exchanged looks, then turned back to me, Mom smiling faintly. “I think we can manage to get along for a little while without wandering away.”
“Nope!” Raising both hands, I shook my head. “Don’t need to hear anymore. Don’t need to hear anything. I’ll just–I’ll be back later. Much later.” Pausing briefly, I amended once more, “I’ll knock.”
Both of them started to tease me again, but I was already moving. Stepping over, I embraced my mother first, as tightly as possible. Then I hugged my father. That done, I headed for the door.
“Sure you can find your way?” Dad called after me.
“I’ll figure it out,” I informed him, stopping in the doorway to look back. “I’m glad you’re back, Mom. And Dad, we’ll get your parents. We’ll get Popser and Grandmaria back here. They… they’ll make it.”
That said, I stepped out, letting the door close behind me to give my parents the privacy they deserved, the privacy that had been such a long time coming.
“Felicity?” It was Professor Dare herself, approaching from the end of the hall, where I had the feeling she had been waiting for awhile. “Is everything alright?”
“Yeah,” I quickly answered, glancing over my shoulder to the closed door with a slight smile before turning back to step that way. “Yeah, it’s okay. I mean, nothing immediately life-threatening or whatever. It’s about as good as it gets right now. But I’m glad you’re here.
“We really need to talk.”