Chapter Text
After everything, the months of desperate hope, the agonising days of strategising, the endless hours of stalking the Monster, the fraught moments of swinging the axes...they were down to this.
Eliot, alive, breathing.
But he wasn’t waking up.
And Margo’s heart was still broken as a result.
“Powerful magic, that was,” said the Fillorian healer. “I haven’t seen anything like it.”
The Earth doctors had been equally useless. They’d stitched Eliot up; had him hooked up to the good drugs for a few days, made sure he was healing and free from infection. Margo insisted that he get the best care possible and had barely left his side. She hadn’t slept properly in days but that hardly seemed to matter. They were so close to getting Eliot back, but the doctors couldn’t explain how long it might be before he awoke (they called it a coma) and the Brakebills staff had agreed. No one knew the damage to Eliot’s mind and if he would ever be able to break free of the prison he’d been trapped in for so long. Not even Penny could get through.
“His walls, they’re like reinforced steel,” Penny told the others. “With another 10 feet of stone around that.” Margo was pacing anxiously, Quentin nervously fidgeting until Alice grabbed his hand, and Fen was sitting by Eliot, every so often leaning over him to check that he was still breathing. “I think he spent so long trying to keep the monster out that he doesn’t know the monster’s gone.”
Sighing, Quentin said, “Well, there’s got to be a way to wake him up. We didn’t do all this just to let him go now!”
It was a conversation they’d had over and over. Margo wanted to smack Q; he was like a broken record. She and Quentin had been trading off sitting by Eliot’s bedside, although now that they were back in Fillory, it looked like they had a third volunteer in Fen for that job. Which was … good, in a sense, although she didn’t like to think about how much longer they’d be doing this. She had a kingdom to reclaim. (And, well, she desperately missed her best friend, but he’d been gone so long now that sometimes the pain just seemed normal. Was it possible to become used to grief? Even while knowing she would do anything to save him?)
Glancing over at Eliot again, she sighed. He looked so peaceful and it was so good to see Eliot dressed, well, not as himself, but at least he wasn’t in an abomination of a t-shirt. Even the hospital garments were better than what the Monster had worn.
She shuddered at the memory. She hadn’t been around the Monster that much but from what she’d seen, it had been pretty awful. Q had apparently born the brunt of it. He still looked like a shell of a man, jumpy and twitchy, even though he appeared to be dating Alice again (and that made no fucking sense at all).
The healers waved their hands over Eliot a few more times, but there was no response. Not that Margo expected there to be one. If the opium in the air couldn’t get Eliot to wake up then some weak-ass handwaving wasn’t going to do it. They needed a spell and they needed a good one.
“Fen,” she said. Still commanding, and thankfully, still loved. “You got any more Fillorian nursery rhymes that might help?” Josh (who was busy cooking for everyone) had told her all about the ridiculous game they had to play to unearth the reservoir of magic, which made Margo wonder just what else was hidden in her castle.
Frowning, Fen replied, “I’m not sure. Most of our stories are about battles and dying, not so much about waking up.”
It figured. Some of the stories she’d heard about Fillory made even the worst human fairy-tales seem benign.
One of the healers waved Fen over and whispered something in her ear. Fen instantly brightened up. “Oh!
“Oh?” Margo stared at her.
“Yes! There is something!” Fen’s smile grew wider by the second. “It’s one of the sillier tales but most of them have an element of truth to them.”
“Well, spit it out already!” She couldn’t be the only one waiting with bated breath. Even Quentin managed to look a little interested, but she knew that boy had been burned far too many times to actually hope.
Smiling, Fen continued, “Have you ever heard the story where the princess is cursed by the evil fairy and is only woken up by a kiss?”
Margo couldn’t help it. She laughed. “Are you fucking kidding me? You think True Love’s Kiss is an actual spell that would work in Fillory?” She wasn’t sure if she should admit that “Enchanted” was one of her favourite movies as a kid (until she realised how fake the whole thing was). “Let me guess, there’s a whole song about it and everything.”
Fen frowned. “There was a song but it was mostly to warn girls to not let strange men kiss them.” She hummed a few bars and shivered. “My aunt taught me it was far more important to learn about that song than true love’s kiss.”
“Your aunt was a wise woman.” She nodded directly at Fen. “So you think it’s worth trying?”
“Of course!” The mood in the group was a mix of jubilant and sombre as Fen flew back to Eliot’s side. She took his hand and looked lovingly at his face. “Eliot, I know I haven’t been the best wife to you - mostly because I thought you were dead - but I know that what we have is loving and true. You were the first person to ever see me. To ever love me. And know that I love you back.” Her eyes brimmed with tears. “You’re my true love, my husband.” And with that, Fen leaned down and gave him a gentle kiss.
Everyone was quiet. Holding their breath, watching Eliot. Was he stirring? Or was that just the regular inhale of breath? Fen pulled his hand close to her heart. “I love you, Eliot,” she said, and kissed him again.
Still nothing.
Nothing but a room full of people staring at an unmoving Eliot.
“Why didn’t it work? Do you think it’s because…” and Fen trailed off, her eyes wide with guilt. “Is it because I did the mourning rituals?” Margo could see the wheels turning behind her eyes. “I’m still a widow! Oh no, this is all my fault!”
Margo could see that Alice was hiding a smile behind her own hand; whereas Q just looked confused. “Or maybe I divorced us!” Fen continued. “Or…”
“Relax, Fen.” Margo sauntered over to the bed. “I got this.” And she knew that she did, assuming this BS magical spell or prophecy or whatever was actually true. She loved Eliot more than anyone, Eliot loved her, and she knew they would be together forever, especially now that they’d saved him from the monster. If anyone was Eliot’s true love, it was her. After all, weren’t they soulmates?
She looked down at his face. So peaceful. It wasn’t often that she saw him sleeping, and most times, he’d been passed out drunk (and she’d usually followed suit,but that had nothing to do with anything relevant at the moment). He was pale, and still with that godawful hair, but it was the cleanest he’d been in a long time.
“Well, are you gonna do it?” Margo shot Penny a death-glare.
“Way to destroy the mood, 23!”
“What mood?” Penny replied. “The mood where everyone takes their turn kissing Eliot based on some stupid childhood fairy-tale? That’s hardly romantic if you ask me.”
“It doesn’t have to be romantic, it just has to be true.” Margo confidently leaned down and pecked Eliot on the lips.
It was always a little strange, kissing her best friend. Sure, they’d fucked in the past, but that was only when they were drunk, or bored, or both, and it hadn’t happened in a long time. They’d both changed, but it didn’t mean that she loved him any less.
She stared at him, willing his eyelids to flutter. Any kind of sign. But again, nothing.
“Okay, Fen, help me out here. Am I supposed to give a big speech like you did?” Fen just shrugged. “Well, okay then. El, I love you. I can’t imagine life without you and I need you to wake up.” She paused, tears unexpectedly flooding her eyes. “Wake up, dammit. Wake up!”
She would have pounded on his chest if she thought it would make any difference. Margo kissed him again, harder this time, but there was no change. Eliot remained serene, peaceful, asleep.
Turning away, Margo fled the room.
---
“Of all the hetero-normative BS, this takes the cake.” She was bitching to Josh, who had taken it upon himself to do further research and discover that yes, True Love’s Kiss was an actual spell with a historical context that was supposed to work. But apparently it only worked for romantic love, reciprocated on both sides. They were fucked.
“I know, Margo.”
“This is ridiculous. I fucking love Eliot.”
“I know you do.” He held her hand and she was grateful.
“But what, agape isn’t enough? It has to be eros too?” She frowned. “Maybe if we broke up I could get it up for Eliot again.”
Turning pale, Josh quickly said, “But that wouldn’t fix the problem on his side!”
“You’re right,” Margo replied, and Josh visibly relaxed. It was almost funny. “So what do we do now? Go resurrect El’s ex-boyfriend? Like that’s gonna be easy.” She frowned, looking at the tattered pages of old manuscript again and feeling tempted to throw them across the room.
There was a hesitant knock at the door before Penny23 walked in. She still wasn’t used to this new Penny, having been in Fillory most of the time he’d been around. The Penny she knew wouldn’t have knocked. And even that thought gave her pause. There had been so much loss. Sure, magic was back, but was all of the sacrifice really worth it?
“So...uh… I might be out of line here, but since you’re Eliot’s best friend I figured I should check with you first,” Penny said.
Margo raised one perfectly manicured eyebrow. “What, you want my permission to kiss Eliot?” She waved a hand. “Be my guest.”
Shaking his head, he replied, “Sorry, he’s not my type. But I can’t figure out why Quentin didn’t try it.”
Josh laughed. “Quentin? He’s with Alice; totally in love with her. Never even looked at anyone else.”
There were times that Margo really loved Josh’s innate innocence and ability to dance through life on the surface. And other times, well, there was a reason Margo cultivated several close relationships because just one person could never be enough for her. She patted Josh’s hand in what was hopefully a comforting (but was probably a little condescending) manner.
“That’s not what I saw,” Penny disagreed. “The last few months, Quentin was completely and utterly obsessed with saving Eliot. I figured they were together and no one was mentioning it because…” and he trailed off, unable to actually formulate a good reason for the oversight. “Because they figured I already knew? Because they didn’t want to remind him what he lost?” He shrugged.
“Maybe I’m wrong.” He seemed defeated. “I just thought that it wouldn’t hurt for Quentin to try the spell. But instead he took off right after you left.”
Margo frowned. “You’re not totally wrong,” she allowed. “Quentin and Eliot...they do have a history.” Involving me, her inner voice added, but that really wasn’t relevant at this point in time. “I know Eliot had a crush on Q the moment they met - this isn’t a secret, by the way,” she added. “He was very blatant about it.”
“I don’t think that would work,” interrupted Josh. “This spell makes it clear that true love has to be on both sides. Otherwise it would have worked for Fen.” He grabbed the pages back from Margo, re-checking the passages. “Q and Eliot were always really close but didn’t Quentin and Alice just get back together?”
“That made absolutely no fucking sense to me,” Penny said, shaking his head. “It’s like ever since Quentin went to Brakebills South he turned into a different person.”
“Well, did anyone actually ask him about what went down?”
Silence in the room.
And Margo felt suddenly guilty.
She had been Q’s friend. Back in the early days. And then everything got so crazy with Fillory and she’d been elected - elected! - as High King and the truth was, she just hadn’t had the time to invest in any friends who weren’t in her immediate surroundings. With Quentin on Earth and her in Fillory, she just hadn’t...noticed that their friendship had drifted. He was Q, and he was always there, and would always be the same. Right?
“You guys know he almost died destroying the Monster, right?”
Margo actually didn’t know that. She’d been consumed with nursing Eliot back to health. She looked at Penny, feeling twinges of guilt. “But he was fine, right?”
“Only because of Alice.” Penny stepped further into the room, lowered his voice. “Look, I’m just saying that Quentin didn’t try very hard to stay alive in the mirror world. If Alice hadn’t taken charge, Quentin would have died right along with Everett.”
The silence in the room was heavy.
“Shit, I had no idea.” That was Josh. “He seemed fine when we got that amazing cake!” He paused, seemingly lost in the memory. “That cake ruined me forever.”
Sighing, Penny continued, “Look, I don’t want to talk about the dude behind his back. But I know that he cares about Eliot; hell, all of us care about Eliot. Even me and I barely know the dude! But all of you seem to love him so I figure he must be at least as cool as the Eliot from my world.” He took a deep breath, challenging Margo. “So if there’s a chance that Quentin can do something then why the fuck doesn’t he try it?”
Stepping closer to Penny, Margo stared directly into his eyes. Looking for the truth. “You’re that sure that you saw something?”
He nodded.
“Then leave this with me.”