Work Text:
Lucretia.
If I make it out of this, we have a lot of discussing to do.
Magnus.
Hazily, Lucretia discovers that her heart seems to have launched itself into her throat and made a temporary home for itself there, lending itself to some difficulties in breathing and swallowing. Despite this, she is grateful to have at least this to focus on because her mind seemed to have utterly blanked out as it's been completely overwhelmed by the sheer panic rising up inside of her. She clears her throat a couple of times in an effort to remind herself how to breathe and encourage her heart to go back to its proper position in her chest where it can go back to bruising some abstract pattern against the interior of her chest cavity.
The first coherent thought to break through the white-hot panicked haze is a terrified, Oh Pan. He knows. He remembers.
She dismisses the thought just as quickly as it comes. No. She had spent so much time on those journals, poring over them, adding in every little detail, redacting any unnecessary information, that she still has the contents of those page committed to memory. There was no way she had let the slightest mistake filter through. And no one knew about Fisher’s baby; she had been so, so careful. There was no possible way for him to know.
But still, that dismissal is followed by a wild,
What if-?
Because that truly would be the nightmare scenario, wouldn’t it? For him to remember before she fulfilled her promise of making things right and bringing them back home. She’s been trying so hard to keep them from finding out, just in case the slightest thing could trigger either suspicion or recall. She doesn’t let any of them touch her, let alone give her a fucking back rub, because all she wants is to throw her arms around all of them and never let them go and beg for them to forgive her ( And they won’t, they won’t. They'll understand why she did what she did, but she knows she is already beyond forgiveness and has resigned herself not to even dream of it, even as her heart cries out for the opposite.) Remembering now, before everything is done, and undoing everything she had worked for is the worst possible scenario, but Lucretia finds that she longs for it. Wants it so much that it hurts, because she is so, so tired of being alone and she misses him, misses them all, so damn much.
“-tor? Madam Director?”
She straightens, brought out of her desperation and longing by the voice of the guards.
“Yes, Jerry, what is it?”
“I just wanted to say, ma’am, that I’m so sorry. There were two of us, we should have-”
She waves her hand at him dismissively, cutting him off. “Don’t be. There’s nothing you could have done.” At their embarrassed and shame-faced demeanors, she gives them what she hopes is a comforting smile and not a grimace. “The man battled a bear at one point, I would be surprised if you’d been able to get in his way.”
“Magnus fought a bear?” The guard’s voice becomes incredulous and Lucretia has to fight off a flinch. Stupid. Panic was making her sloppy.
“Magnus battled as a bear, yes. During their time at Goldcliff?”
“Right, right. Of course. Sorry, I must have misheard you, I could have sworn you’d said Magnus fought a bear. Not that I would be surprised, you know, he’s built like an oak shithouse and-“ His partner elbows him sharply in the side, with a sidelong, "Shut up!" and he thankfully shuts up mid-babble and stares bashfully back down at the ground. “Sorry, Madame Director ma’am.”
“That's quite all right.” She tells him dryly. “Now, you and your partner have had a long day. Go to the med-bay and get some healing on those injuries and get some rest.”
They leave quickly, Jerry looking back for a moment as though he wanted to say something else, but he is dragged out of her office by his thankfully more taciturn partner who throws an arm around his shoulders and drags him away with a harried “come on!” She watches them leave waiting for the door to shut before she collapses heavily into her chair, the weight of the world creeping around her shoulders.
We have a lot of discussing to do.
Yes, yes they do.
Just come back and it will all be over, she pleads silently, closing her eyes and pressing a hand against her forehead. Just come back and I’ll tell you everything. Everything. I will give back everything I took from you and happily. Just make it out of this and come back to me.
Just come back.
But he doesn’t.
Taako and Merle come back from Wonderland, but Magnus is gone.
Magnus is gone.
There will be no discussing taking place, ever.
Taako and Merle come back, alone but for some monstrosity of Lydia and Edward’s they’d left…somewhere. In the shadows of her mind, she can still see the shining glint of two animated, identical grins, and it’s all she can do not to break, to bat away the memories of those dark nights where she’d woken with a scream dying in her throat and her palms bleeding from the indents of her nails. It’s over now, they’re far away. They’re gone, and they can’t hurt her anymore, can’t take anything away from anyone. But they did, says a small bitter voice inside of her, turning her heart to ice and blood to tears.They already have.
As she distractedly allows the boys into her office so they can reminisce and mourn Magnus in there and she can try and contain her grief out here, she can’t help but wonder,
What is the point of staving off the Hunger when her own guilt will eat her alive anyway?