Archive of Our Own

I reach towards the gate with my right hand. The iron bar is cold on my hand (not that my hand can get any colder), but with my left hand around Simon Snow's, it’s easy to tell the difference.

The gate opens for me – like it always does – and we walk through it, both not saying a word and looking over the school grounds. It’s autumn, that means that the students will be back soon and I have to admit that back to school season always makes me a bit melancholy. What it was like coming back every year, to what – to who – I was coming back to.

Coming back with him feels different now. We’re different now. How could we not be, after everything that happened? I like to believe we’re better now.

I look over at Simon, his bronze curls shining warm in the autumn sun. He looks like he’s thinking too hard about what we’re here to do.

I give his hand a squeeze and lead him away from the path to the drawbridge to the old yew tree just outside of it.

We sit down just under it and I pull out the food Lady Ruth prepared for us from the picnic basket. We should have brought a picnic deck too, my coat will be covered in needles after that. Snow doesn’t seem to mind. He just sticks his sword in the ground, takes the sandwiches from me and starts putting them in his mouth. I swear, he inhales them more than actually eating them. Sometimes I wonder if he even tries to chew.

I take a bite from my sandwich, too, and look out at the grounds.

“You tricked me with a letter in Agatha’s handwriting out here our fifth year. It was winter. I was trapped there the whole night with snow devils”, he says.

I smile and look down at my sandwich. “Good times.”

When I look up, he’s smiling too. “Yeah.”

“Now one might call you a snow devil.”

“Why would someone say that?”, he asks, looking confused.

“You’re Simon Snow with devil wings and a tail. I don’t make the rules.”

Snow huffs, like I made a bad joke. Which I did. I just want to make him feel better and let him forget why we’re here.

We eat our sandwiches in silence. They’re so good, everything Lady Ruth makes is so good. It’s like she sold her soul for making only top tier sandwiches. And cake. Don’t get me started on the cake.

She told me I should stop calling her “Lady”.

“Simon, we’re family now. I don’t want you to use my title. Call me Ruth.” She smiled. “Or grandma, if you like. But you don’t have to decide yet. Do what makes you comfortable.” She patted my hand, then.

I don’t know if I can get my head around it. Ruth. Grandma. Like I’m the kind of person who has a grandma. (I guess I am now.) Even after two months it’s a lot. I settled on Ruth for now. Or I try, at least.

Baby steps, I try to remind myself.

Like looking at Baz. At his hair, his long black hair swaying in the wind. I like to look at him like that. At ease, almost. Here, with me. My tail in his hand since after he made that terrible joke and I swear, him and my tail are worse than the mole I have that he treats like a target.

I’ve already finished eating (three sandwiches, I never know how to stop) and Baz just takes his last bite (just one sandwich, he really should eat more. But I guess, I’m not counting the four rats he just had when we left from London). I let him finish and then stand up. My tail slips through his hand; it makes me shiver. He stands, too.

“Let’s get this over with”, I say. Then look at the floor. Ashamed. “I guess, that’s not how I should think about it.”

Baz takes my hand. “It’s okay”, he says and smiles his genuine smile at me. “Do you really want to do this? It’s okay if you’re not ready yet.”

I pick up the picnic basket and put my sword in my belt. “I am.”

We walk towards the White Chapel, hand in hand.

Baz is talking about how one of his uni professors is making them do an extreme amount of extra work (thank Merlin I left university), but I’m not really listening. I don’t know if that makes me a terrible boyfriend, but I have the feeling that he knows and just keeps going. He’s probably doing it to distract me.

I’m going to see my mother’s grave. Or her portrait, at least. Whatever you call it.

Nobody knows where her grave really is, but I’d like to believe it’s here. At Watford. Jamie said she loved it here.

I’d like to believe that the Mage found her somehow and buried her here. (I hope he didn’t kill her, that he found her when she was already dead.) Because he loved her. Who else would have made that painting of her? Who else would have the magic to make that painting weep till this day?

La- Ruth and Jamie told me a lot of stories about her. What she was like. What she meant to them. (They wouldn’t have made me listen, but I asked. I wanted to know about her. I think they were happy that I did.)

They told me so much: she was Headmistress Bunce's best friend (Penny still doesn’t know. She and Shephard went to Omaha when the dust settled, to get everything sorted out. I didn’t feel like telling her then and now it feels wrong to tell her over text. And Baz always says I’m the worst texter in the world), she was kind and funny, a good listener and full of magic. She also played rugby with the boys.

One night, after we came home from Mayfair, I watched the video I took of her portrait again. I cried; I don’t know why. How can you miss something you never had? How can you miss someone you never knew? (I haven’t talked to Baz about all this, it kinda feels wrong. He lost his mom and really knew her, just three years of his life, but still.)

When we reach the inside of the chapel, we go straight to the catacombs. This time, Baz lights the torches immediately, probably to not upset me any further.

I’m still holding his hand as we walk down, we both know these catacombs so well. We’re probably the world's leading experts on these catacombs. (At least something I can be an expert about.)

Just before we reach our destination, I pull on Baz's hand to put him to a stop.

I close my eyes and breathe.

In.

Don’t think too much about it.

Out.

It’s just a portrait, you’ve seen the family albums. It’s fine. It’s not different.

In.

Baz squeezes my hand.

Out.

I squeeze back.

In.

“Better?”, he asks.

I open my eyes and nod. “Yeah, let’s do this.”

“Do you want me to stay?”, Baz asks.

“I don’t know.” I really don’t. “Yes”, and then, “No”, after a moment, “I don’t know.”

Jesus, I already feel lost. Why can I not manage this simple thing? Why can’t I-

“Simon, love, it’s okay.” When Baz puts his arms around me, I crash into him and bury my face in his shoulder. He holds me close and I begin to sob. “It’s okay, you don’t have to do this. We can come back another time.”

I sob some more.

“You have all the time in the world.”

I look up from his shoulder and look in his eyes. I’m still crying. “I don’t want to come back another time. I just… I just want to do this now. I don’t want to wait.”

“Okay”, he puts his hands around my face and kisses my forehead, just like his mother did back then, “then you are doing this, rosebud boy.”

I cast a quick “April showers!” on the flowers on my mother’s grave. They've faded a bit since I last came to visit. I sit down in front of it, my coat is already covered in yew tree needles, so what’s a bit catacomb dust and rat shit?

I left Snow alone with the portrait after I was sure he wouldn’t break down. We stood there, my arm around his waist, looking at the wall until he stopped sobbing. The flower I left the last time was still there (I suppose no rat wanted to gift it to its partner); I cast a spell to freshen it up at which he smiled sadly at me.

“I’ll leave you alone for a bit”, I whispered and kissed his still wet cheek. “You’ll find me at my mother’s tomb when you’re ready.”

He nodded and I went.

I honestly was surprised when he told me that he wanted to come here; I thought it would still be too much for him, but Simon Snow never stops to surprise me.

“I want to go to Watford”, he said. We were sitting at our bed (we finally went back to Ikea and furnished the flat. I really like it), me reading a book, my head on his chest, him having me in a weird – but very comfortable – headlock-hug situation and staring out our bedroom window.

“Can’t wait to get back to goat herding again? They honestly should have given you the job, not Wellbelove.” I didn’t even look up, I kept reading. (And one may say men can’t multitask.)

He mindlessly played with my hair. “No, not for the goats.” When he reached for his locks, I knew something was up. I put my book down, giving him my full attention, but not looking at him. “I mean, I’d love to see the goats and when we’re there, we should totally go see the goats and Agatha, but that’s not the reason why I want to go.”

He took a deep breath. Something I learned about Simon is that sometimes he needs a good push to get something out of him, but sometimes you have to give him time to express himself and now was such a time.

And another deep breath. “I want to see the portrait of my mother.”

“Oh”, I finally sat up to face him, “of course, we can do that. Are you sure?”

He stared at his fingers as he traced over my knuckles on the hand in my lap. “Yeah, I want to see it again. It’s different now.”

That’s when I took his hand in mine, pulling it up to my lips and placing a light kiss into his palm. He looked up at me. “Of course”, I whispered.

I'm thinking about him (old news) when I can hear his footsteps. Simon looks okay, he clearly cried some more and he has his sword in hand, but he looks okay. That’s all I can hope for, honestly.

“Hey”, I say as lame as I feel right now.

“Hey.” He sits down next to me, his shoulder touching mine, the tip of this sword on the floor and his hands on the hilt near his face.

“Are you okay?”
“Yeah. It was… it was good, I think.”

First, I think he’s going to say some more, but he seems to have changed his mind. Everything has its time, I suppose.

I stare at the flowers in front of me. We sit in silence for a while. I hesitate, but then I ask: “Do you think she’s buried here, your mother?”

“Do you mean if I feel that she’s down here?”

I shrug.

With the torches lit, he can see me as well as I can see him when he turns to look me into my eyes. “I don’t know if I can feel it. But I’d like to believe that she’s buried here.” He’s breaking eye contact to look at my mother’s tomb, “I’d like to believe that our mothers are down here together.”

“I’d like to believe that, too.”

We make our way out of the catacombs and I just want to reach for Simon’s hand, when he suddenly races forward. What on earth is this moron up to now?

That’s when I see it, a fat rat just in front of us and Simon is picking it up at its tail, hurling it against the wall, just like I showed him. He’s getting better and better at hunting. We still do that. I thought he would lose interest in seeing me kill and drain rats after a few weeks, but honestly, I think he’s enjoying it. I mean, look at him now. Holding the dead rat in the air by its tail and smiling the brightest smile I’ve seen on him today.

Circe, I’m in love with an idiot. But only Simon Snow manages to look cute while holding a dead rat.

“Look, that’s my biggest one yet! I think I’m getting a hang of this!”

“Yes, Snow, you’re on your way to be the world’s best hunting dog. Next year, my father will take you goose hunting with him.”

He hands me the rat.

“Thank you, love.”

He smiles. “You’re welcome.” Did I really teach him some manners? I must be a fantastic influence. “Let’s get out of here. I want to visit Agatha and the goats.” He turns and starts walking towards the exit.

“You go, I'll stay here and… enjoy my meal.” He turns and I toast with the rat.

“Right.” He goes on.

I drain the rat with my fangs and take my time on the way out. When I enter the Chapel again, Simon Snow is practicing sword fighting just before the altar. That man really didn’t get the whole “sacred place” concept.

I sigh and make my way toward the door. “Let’s go, Snow. Before you cut the chapel in half and Headmistress Bunce cuts you a head short.”

He hurries after me and we leave the White Chapel – my hand in his, his hand in mine, his other hand holding the sword. (I swear, he won’t let this goddamn sword down, just like the twins cling to their dolls. Although I hope he won’t cry when I take it from him. It’s worse than the sword of mages was back in Watford, at least he could have made that disappear.)

“Look!” He points his sword on the fields where you can see tiny dots of white in the distance. “Agatha!”

He drags me in the direction with him, still holding my hand.

“I’m excited to see how much the little goat has grown! And if they decided on a name yet.” He’s smiling, looking at the goats in the distance.

Who would have thought that Agatha Wellbelove of all people would end up herding goats and enjoying it? Certainly not me. I always thought Agatha would end up with some posh, perfect looking (and probably boring) man with a fortune and a house in the countryside, planning parties and raising beautiful babies. But look at her now, carrying a staff, wearing a white, flowy dress and a cardigan against the cold, to herd goats with her girlfriend, who’s the definition of countryside-worker-girl. This information will probably still blow my mind in ten years.

We pass a few goats that Simon pats as we go by, making (happy?) goat-noises at us, before we get to Agatha. When we are close enough, Snow calls her name and she turns around.

“Hey, Sim-“ The smile on her lips changes to a shocked expression when she sees us. Simon lets go of my hand.

Wellbelove comes a few steps closer, staring at Simon. “Simon”, she starts, “do you…how can you have the sword of mages?!”

Simon, his mouth open, looks down at the sword in his hand, as if he just noticed it. Then he looks up at Wellbelove. “It’s not… That’s not the sword of mages.” Agatha still looks confused and about to ask him to elaborate on that. Without being asked to, Simon swallows and says “It’s the Salisbury family sword.”

Agatha shakes her head in confusion. “Why would you have the Salisbury family sword?”

“Be- because…”, Simon stumbles, unable to make the words leave his mouth. He looks at me for help, I look at Agatha.

“Because he’s a Salisbury.”

If possible, Agatha looks even more shocked and confused at the same time. “A Salisbury? You… found your family?”

He nods.

“Lady Ruth Salisbury is your mother?!”

“No, her daughter is, actually.” He rubs his neck. You can see that he’s not really comfortable with this situation, but I also think he’s relieved that Agatha knows now.
“Lucy”, Agatha with a blank expression on her face, not making it a question. “Who ran off to America.”

Crowley, how does she know all this?

“Y-yeah”, Simon says. “But I guess, she didn’t really run off to America. She ran off with… someone else.”

Wellbeloves shocked face goes sad when she whispers, “The mage… Oh, Simon.” She comes forward and pulls him into her arms, her hands stroking over his hair.

Just before Agatha lets go of me, she whispers “I’m happy you found your family, Simon. You deserve to be happy and loved.” When she does, I think I might be crying a bit again. I never knew you could cry so much. In the last months I cried more in the last 20 years of my life.

She smiles. “Do you want to see the baby goat?”

I nod and she leads the way.

I let myself fall back behind her, a few goats follow her, although not all of them. Baz comes up behind me and takes my hand. I squeeze it and bump into his shoulder.

We stay quiet the whole way to Ebb's barn. I haven’t been in there since the day she told me about Nico and I ran off to Hampshire to tell Baz. It feels like that was forever ago.

We enter the barn after Agatha and the goats. It looks different these days. Niamh and Agatha furnished this place differently, almost all of Ebbs stuff is gone. I smile a little when I see that the ceramic goat figures I gave Ebb are still on the shelf.

“They are over there”, she points at the other end of the barn, “you go ahead, I just… have to look for something.”

I nod and take Baz with me to the mother and the baby goat. They are both laying on hay in the corner of the barn, one of the mother’s wings around the little goat. She looks suspiciously at us, so I let go of Baz's hand and reach my hand out to the mother goat to let her sniff me. When she seems to approve of me, I pat her head and sit beside them in the hay.

She bumps her head against mine, giving me a little goat kiss and I giggle. I really should have come and helped Ebb with the goats more when I was still at Watford. I forgot how much I like these goats.

I slowly reach out to the baby, to see if the mother has anything against me touching her baby. She doesn’t seem to mind, as she’s making no attempt to bite my hand off, so I also pat her child. She’s really cute, all white with tiny wings. It still blows my mind that the goats have wings.

Why did they never show their wings before? But who knows what the mage would have done with them, if he knew that the goats had wings…

I look up to Baz, still standing a meter before the goats and me on the hay, watching us. He looks a bit lost, it’s kinda cute. I nod my head towards the goats. “Come on, they won’t bite.”

He huffs. “They better should”, he mumbles, but still comes a step nearer. “I’m a vampire, I’m above them in the food chain.”

“That’s nearly everything.”

I take this hand. I hold it up before the mother goat to sniff; she does and turns her head away from him, but overall doesn’t seem to mind. A vampire? Pff, I’ve seen worse.

“See, she doesn’t like me”, he complains and wants to take a step back again. I don’t let him and pull him closer.

“Rubbish.” I pull some more. “Sit down.” He does. Baz Grimm-Pitch, with me in the hay. It’s a dream come true. I smile widely at him. “Go on”, I gesture toward the goats, “pet them.”

“I’m not exactly ‘good’ at petting animals, Snow. I usually kill them and drain them dry.”

“Don’t be such a twat, everyone is good at petting animals.”

When he still makes no attempt to try, I take his cold hand with my own so that mine is on top of his and reach towards the baby goat, which is eying us curiously. I let Baz's hand stroke gently over her white fur. She seems to like it.

“See, everyone is good at petting animals”, I say and smile at him.

With Simon smiling at me like that, his warm hand over my own stroking over the goat's fur, I can honestly say that I like petting animals.

His smile has faded a bit, as he’s looking me in the eyes, his blue ones not so wet with tears anymore. He stops stroking our hands over the goat, resting them against the goat's body. I can feel it breathing.

His other hand reaches towards the back of my neck and I don’t care that it’s probably a bit dirty from the goat and the catacombs. I really don’t; all that matters is how he’s pushing me towards him with that hand to meet his lips.

I lean into the kiss and open my mouth while he kisses me gently. So gently. I swear, I could melt right in this moment, Simon's lips over mine, our hands together still on the warm, soft baby goat, my other hand on his thigh, his other hand now gently in my hair.

I love moments like these with Simon. After the emotional rollercoaster today, he seems totally at ease with me and the goats. I wish I could see this more often.

“After all, I think I changed my mind about goats”, I whisper to his mouth between two kisses.

I feel him smiling against my lips. “Yeah?”

“Yes”, I whisper against his skin as I go to kiss my favorite mole of his.

When I come back towards his mouth, he places his hand on my cheek. Mine moves from his thigh to his tail, which I start rubbing.

He shudders a little – a good one – and now I’m the one who smiles against his lips.

“Baz?” He rests our foreheads against each other. My hair frames us like a curtain.

“Yes, love?”

Just as he’s about to answer me, the mother goat lets out a loud “Määähh”. I jump away from it (and in my shock also from Simon), at which he laughs loudly.

“Yes, very funny, Snow.”

“She’s just a goat, Baz. You’re above her in the food chain.”

I huff and roll my eyes.

He pats the goat on the head and she makes a (much quieter) noise again. Apparently, he's not very cross at her for stopping our little make-out-session. (I know I am.)

I just want to comment on that when I see Wellbelove coming towards us, a goat following her. She’s become some kind of weird goat magnet, it seems.

“Oh, she likes you”, she says and smiles as she reaches our spot in the hay. “I’m going to call her Ebb, I think.”

Simon smiles at her. “I’d like that.” Then he turns around to the baby goat to pet it. “Right, little Ebb?” He’s rewarded with a small noise from her, at which his smile widens. “She likes it.”

Wellbelove smiles one of those perfect smiles of hers at him, which drops after a moment. She seems like she just remembered something and then drops to sit down on her knees beside us.

“Simon, I wanted to give you this”, she says and hands him a picture.

He takes it, clearly not sure what to expect of something that made her change her mood so fast. I move closer to him to look at the picture.

It shows three people sitting on the grass, what looks like beside the football pitch. They’re all dressed in their Watford uniform, all looking pretty 90s. One of them is – to my surprise – the mage, his arm around Lucy who’s leaning into him with a warm smile on her face, and Aleister fucking Crowley, he’s having a foolish grin on his face and an even more sheepish expression on his face. I never thought the mage was capable of that.

The girl that sits beside them looks a lot like a young Penny with even wider hair, so I suspect it’s headmistress Bunce herself. She’s holding Lucy’s hand. I never knew she’s been friends with the mage, Penny’s mom hates him.

“Penny’s mom gave it to me. On Christmas our eighth year”, she explains. Snow is still staring at the picture. “She was Lucy’s best friend. She thought she ran away to America, like everyone else did.”

After a moment of silence I ask, “How come you have it?”

Wellbelove smiles sadly. “I took it from Professor Bunce, I… I liked that she was able to run away from magic. I thought she was the one that made it out.” After a pause, Wellbelove goes on, “I even named my dog after her.”

We all smiled a bit at that, even Simon, who finally looked up from the picture.

Agatha looks at Simon. “You can keep it, it was not mine to keep anyway.”

“Thanks, Aggie.”

“Anytime, Simon.”

We sit in silence, the only sound being the goats' breath.

“We should probably head back”, Simon says after a while.

I nod at him and we all stand up, Simon petting the goats one last time, then turning to Agatha.

“See ya, Aggie.”

“Bye, Simon”, she says as he hugs her goodbye.

“Wellbelove”, I say and nod my head.

“Baz, have a safe way back.”

“Always”, I say. “Snow, let’s go.”

Baz took my hand as soon as we were out the barn, but I barely noticed.

I keep thinking about the picture in my hand, not the fact that it has my mother on it, but my parents. Together. Smiling and looking happy. The happiest I’ve ever seen the mage…

Today, in the catacombs, I spoke to her. My mother. Or her portrait, at least.

After Baz left and kissed me on the cheek, I sat down in front of it. I just stared at it, at her yellow hair and the tears running down her face. Not looking unhappy, standing in the sun. Maybe she looks wistful, because she lost me, I thought.

“Hello”, I said stupidly. “I don’t know if you can hear me, wherever you are now. If there ever is an ‘after’ for us, but… I just wanted to tell you- tell you that… that I found my, I guess, our family.” I took the Salisbury family sword out of my belt. “I guess, my sword addiction was worth something.” I laughed sadly and I swear, the tears started running faster over her cheek.

“Your mother never stopped looking for you, she always had hope, same as your brother… They loved you very much. They’ve been really good to me, welcoming me into the family. It all feels so strange, to say I have a family. I don’t even really know what that means… I don’t know what happened to you, if you chose to leave the mage, if, I don’t know, you really ran away, but… I just want you to know that I’m grateful to know I had a mother.” I started crying. “I’m grateful all of this – all that’s happened – brought me here. I know that I’m not okay yet, but I start to think… that I really could be.”

I sniffed. “I hope the mage loved you… and that you loved him. And I hope you can rest, knowing I found my family.”

“I will visit you again, if this is where you are buried or not.” I stood up. “Goodbye, mom.”

Now, I’m looking at the picture again.

“Tell me what you’re thinking”, Baz whispers.

I stop walking, holding the picture up for him to see. “I wondered if they were happy… if they loved each other.”

“They look happy here”, Baz says, squeezing my hand.

“Yeah, they do”, I say, a single tear rolling down my cheek.

Baz catches it with his thumb, as he cups my cheek with his hand and then pulls me into a hug.

“She loved you”, Baz says, his voice steady and his grip on me like iron. “She loved you, she’d be a fool not to.”

I’d believe in everything he’d say right now, but I really do. I really do.