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Percy wasn’t good at asking questions. Of people, in the very least, he was fine asking questions of gears and screws and mysterious powders he probably shouldn’t inhale as often as he did, wringing the answers out of them with mathematics and his own burned and calloused fingers.
People, he preferred to let them keep their secrets and their troubles to themselves. He had enough nightmares of his own, he didn’t think himself able or dependable enough to help them leash theirs. He would end up saying the wrong thing or seeming dismissive when he meant to disassemble, tactless as he tried to understand. So when it seemed like someone was hiding something behind their words or actions, he felt safer in pretending he hadn’t noticed and waiting for a more practical opportunity to help.
But this was someone he loved dearly, more than he’d ever thought he was capable of. And simply not asking was becoming impossible.
He hadn’t asked when she hadn’t bathed for weeks after their confrontation with Vecna and that terrible goodbye. He hadn’t asked when she’d stiffened at the sight of any river or stream, even something as small as a puddle. He hadn’t asked when she’d looked like she might be sick at the sight of the icicles that fringed most rooftops in Whitestone. He hadn’t asked when there would be whole rooms in their home in Whitestone that she’d avoid.
Because of course she was hurting. She’d just lost the person who had stood at her shoulder for her entire life and Percy had no desire to try and force his love onto her like it could ever fill that space. He wouldn’t pull her out of her grief before she was ready, he knew only too well how denying yourself the space to properly mourn only left wounds that would fester and break open later. She’d lost her brother and his job as her husband wasn’t to try and stand in his place.
So Percy brought her meals she only sometimes ate, kissed her when she asked him to and slept in his childhood room when she asked for space, he sat by her bath when she’d found it in herself to get in but couldn’t find the strength to get out. In short, he did everything he’d needed someone to do for him when he’d been cut apart by grief.
And it seemed to be working, to his immense relief. His love slowly came back to herself, leaping forward on some days and stumbling back on others, like the spluttering, awkward surges of the first engines he’d tried to build. Fortunately, she never exploded like they had.
But the light was back in her eyes. She stood out on the balcony in the morning, breathed in fresh air and smiled. She would take Percy’s hand as they walked and lace their fingers together. She seemed to stand a little taller.
And Percy allowed himself to relax a little. Until he found the broken glass pushed behind the wardrobe in their bedroom.
He wouldn’t have seen it if he hadn’t carelessly dropped his glasses while dressing one morning, if they hadn’t clattered into the corner and he’d seen the wink of the candlelight on it’s sharp edges as he’d bent down.
Percy teased it out with gentle fingers, wary of sharp edges. He hadn’t even noticed that mirror had been missing from the wall, this was a guest bedroom he’d never used up until now, after seeking out a room with fewer ghosts. But here it was in large, jagged pieces, haphazardly broken and stowed away so he wouldn't see it.
And he knew of only one person who would have done it.
There was an urgency in his nerves that left him shaking, as he walked through the halls as quickly as he could without looking like he was panicking. He could make a fair guess at where his wife would be this time of day, out at the archery butts, but he only realised now that he hadn’t been able to hear the steady, regular thud of the arrows piercing the targets from the open window in their room, comforting as a ticking clock.
Which meant she could be anywhere in this damnably cavernous palace.
On instinct, Percy rose, throwing himself up rather than down. Whether it was instinct or something she’d said that he’d subconsciously noted or just a frantically logical need to search from top to bottom, he was so relieved when it paid off, when he opened the hatch up to the roofs of the palace and heard his wife’s voice.
Though it was short lived as he quickly realised she was crying.
He climbed out so quickly that he stumbled and nearly slid dangerously down, if he hadn’t balanced himself on a slate. Barely stopping to properly right himself, he awkwardly half ran, half stumbled across the flat portion of the roofs, the part that covered the main bulk of the attic, heading for one of the spires where the crying was coming from.
Vex was sitting on the windowsill of one of the lower towers, one that currently faced the sun, looking like a mournful bird. Her feet dangled down into a perilous drop though she barely seemed to be taking note of it.
And, before Percy could call to her, her arm raised. And there was a wink of steel in her grip.
Fear gripped Percy so completely and so terribly that he almost went to his knees. A desperate scream of her name froze in his throat. In the second that stretched into what felt like an hour, as the steel hit the arc of its swing, he realised it was one of Vax’s throwing knives.
But then the slice completed, a sharp, sudden parabola and Vex opened her other hand. Dark curls of long, midnight hair caught on the mountain wind and were snatched out into space, looking like ravens far off in the distance.
She’d shorn her hair off messily just below the curve of her skull, the knife was sharp but never meant for this. It stuck out in odd angles now, like Trinket’s fur whenever he was wet, like a sodden and bedraggled lost little kitten.
And Percy understood then what Vex had been trying to do. For the first time since he’d known her, Vex’ahlia didn’t look like her brother.
He approached slowly, adrenaline leaving a shaky ghost in his hands as he reached out and took her hand. She seemed completely unsurprised that he was there, only going willingly limp so he could pull her to safety on the flat roof with him, holding him as fiercely as he held her once they were in reach. As his arms closed around her, the tears came harder and heavier, loud, angry sobs like earthquake tremors.
“Shh, it’s okay,” Percy murmured, eyes fixed out over the mountains, “Let it out. Get everything out.”
Eventually she was able to speak again, her voice small and scared, “I just couldn’t stand seeing him any more.”
It took a long time to get her back inside, to get her sat in front of the biggest fire he could make in their bedroom to get the shaking out of her limbs. Percy knelt in front of her, stroking his fingers gently through the mess left where her thick, beautiful braid had once been.
Vex gulped hard to get air back in her lungs, hands coming up shakily to rest over Percy’s own, tear tracks sparkling on her cheeks.
“I must look mad,” she mumbled sorrowfully.
Percy sighed gently and shook his head, leaning in and pressing a kiss to her new, ragged short hair.
“You don't. You look like someone who is healing.”