Chapter Text
It was a strange feeling, sitting and watching the world go by. The people below were so close, and yet so far, thought Quigley, as he watched towns and villages pass through his spyglass. He sighed and turned away, putting his spyglass securely in one of his coat pockets. It wasn’t like it made a difference what happened below, the self-sustaining mobile air home could do many things, but returning safely to the ground was not one of them.
It was a strange feeling, Quigley thought, to be safe again after so long. Nothing could reach them up here, nothing could hurt them. A month ago he would have given almost anything to be here, away from fire starters and deadly fungi and ancient conspiracies. Now he had achieved everything he had set out to do: the sugar bowl was safe with the firefighters, and he was safe with his family. Then why did he feel so empty?
When they had been younger, the Quagmires had been inseparable, where you found one, the others were sure to be nearby. Adults had rarely referred to them except collectively, as if they were a single, three part being. But now there was distance. Quigley had spent the past few months trying to reunite with his siblings, he had not given any thought to after.
They were different now, all three of them. Isadora was quieter, less confident. She had always been the boldest of them, the planner, the leader. Now that role fell to Quigley, not that there was much leading to be done on airship far from anything else. Duncan had changed too, his features were sharper, his expression guarded. Quigley had had quite a shock on reuniting with his siblings, he had not eaten well in his weeks on the run, but Duncan and Isadora had quite plainly been starved, their weeks with Hector not quite enough to recover. When Quigley had learnt their full story, he had cursed. He cursed Olaf for what he had done, he cursed the VFD for telling him that they had been fine, and he cursed himself for not being there.
Quigley knew that he had probably changed the most. He had worn a mask for so long, he wasn’t sure what was left beneath his projected surety and confidence. Something stopped him from acting like himself again, even amongst the people he loved most in the world. He wasn’t sure he knew how.
Duncan and Isadora sat close now, Quigley noticed, closer than normal people did. They were rarely more than a meter apart these days. They had tried to do the same with him, never leaving his side, until he began to find it exhausting, keeping up his aura of confidence, of infallibility. He often found himself seeking solitude on the observation platform. He spent a lot of time there now, watching the world go by. He wondered sometimes if it had permanently changed him, those months alone. He wondered if it had changed them, thinking he was dead.
He thought back to when he had first climbed the ladder into the central basket, the conversation he’d had with Hector. The world was full of pain and suffering, so they had left it behind. The world was quiet here, but at what cost? He realised then why he had been avoiding his siblings. He was afraid.
He was afraid that they were no longer the people he had grown up with, faced life with. He was afraid of rejection, so he chose not to try. He chose to sit outside, to watch but not to act not to participate. He was physically closer now to Duncan and Isadora than he had been since the fire, but he felt further away than ever. He had survived all the challenges the world had thrown at him, and he didn’t want to be hurt anymore. But it wasn’t living, sitting outside and watching, not really. Perhaps he couldn't return to the world below, perhaps he didn’t even want to; but he could do this, he needed to do this. Quigley took a deep breath, took one more look around him, and went inside to join his family.