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Everything was normal, too normal.
Too normal for them, that is.
No one was arguing. Scaramouche hadn’t come to Childe’s room screaming about some minor inconvenience yet. Dottore hadn’t sent Childe a letter asking to experiment on him again.
Actually, Dottore hadn’t even been seen in a week. He’d locked himself in his lab the second they all got the letter and no one had seen him since. According to rumours among the skirmishers, occasionally, if you strayed far enough into his chamber, you could hear agonized screaming. Whether that was Dottore’s grieving or some poor child he’d gotten his hands on, no one knew.
Childe couldn’t sleep. He’d been trying for the past hour and a half to no avail. Every time he shut his eyes, he remembered her. He was never particularly close to her, he never really cared much about her, but somehow the silence of her absence was too much to shake.
His bare feet hit the carpet in his room with a soft thud. Childe couldn’t stay in his room any longer, it was far too stuffy in there for his liking. And so, he took a jacket from its spot by the door and draped it over his shoulders, before exiting the room.
Before he knew it, he was outside Signora’s room, staring at the open door blankly. Childe’s chest ached, but it wasn’t one of grief or anger or any normal emotion. He just felt… empty.
The moonlight shone through her unnecessarily large windows and highlighted the figure of a certain doctor, crumpled on the ground. Dottore’s head was resting against the edge of Signora’s bed, his mask still on but tilted to the side enough to reveal his full mouth. Childe didn’t need the moonlight to see the tears staining Dottore’s cheeks.
He didn’t know what compelled him to open the door further and slip inside the room. He didn’t know why he chose to sit beside Dottore, carefully, as if he was trying to avoid getting his head chopped off. But Childe did it anyway, listening to whatever made him do this.
Dottore didn’t acknowledge him for a long while. Childe didn’t say anything either, merely staring up at the wall.
“She was a bitch,” Dottore finally whispered.
Childe laughed bitterly, harshly and void of humour. “She was,” he agreed.
They were quiet for another few minutes. Childe was busy recalling fleeting moments that would no longer be, his time alone with her when they would feel safe in each other’s arms. When the world seemed a little less cruel, when Childe believed it would all be okay as long as they were all together. Oh, how naive he was.
He wondered if Dottore was that naive. If Dottore shared those memories too, if he had hoped for a brighter future with her. Or was he smarter than Childe, able to recognize that a brighter future was never a possibility in the first place? Maybe they were all delusional.
“You loved her.” Dottore’s voice cracked with emotion, the words not accusing but rather offering Childe a place in their shared pain.
Childe shook his head, not quite accepting the offer. “We all did, ’Torre. We all loved her.”
Because that was simply the truth. They all loved her. Signora wasn’t nice to any of them, not all of the time, only when it mattered most. But sometimes, on nights when everyone was a little less sure, Signora would step in and be the person to make them feel better. She knew how to make them happy again.
And Childe didn’t know who would do that anymore. Maybe that was something for him to do.
Childe was the one to break the silence this time. “Do you know if Pierro is going to have her room cleared out?” His voice trembled.
He didn’t want to think about the fact that Signora would be replaced. Soon, there would be a new 8th, and Childe hated that thought. He didn’t want there to be a new 8th.
“I asked him not to,” Dottore said softly. “I don’t know if he agreed or not. I think he wants to sort her stuff out for all of us to have instead. But Pantalone and I both want it all to just… stay here, untouched. I don’t know about the others.”
Childe closed his eyes and laughed softly, despite the lack of humour once more. He didn’t say anything.
He wasn’t sure how long the two of them sat in silence.
At some point though, Childe looked up when the door opened again. There stood Scaramouche, looking at them with a dull sort of surprise in his eyes. One that suggested he didn’t expect them all to be here, but that he really truly did not care. Neither of them said anything as Scaramouche came in and sat on the other side of Dottore.
No one said anything when Dottore lifted Scaramouche up and placed him in his lap instead, burying his face in the crook of the puppet’s neck. Childe took the hint when Scaramouche looked at him expectantly, leaning over and resting his head on Dottore’s shoulder.
“I’m sorry,” Scaramouche whispered, sounding less like he was running on autopilot than he’d sounded for the last few days since he was brought back home. “For not being able to protect her and for running away like a coward.”
His hands shook. “I’m so sorry.”
Dottore muttered something incoherent and broken, sounding something along the lines of “don’t blame yourself”. Childe just lifted one of his hands and gently brushed Scaramouche’s bangs out of his eyes, watching as those eyes closed and a single tear shed from them, falling down his cheeks. The first tear Childe had ever seen Scaramouche let out.
It was the last one that night.
“Don’t let me forget her,” Scaramouche said a few minutes later, Dottore was now asleep in his arms and he was staring Childe dead in the eyes. “I can’t forget her.”
Childe smiled a little. “I won’t let you forget, I promise,” he responded, reaching out with his hand once more so he could hold Scaramouche’s. “I won’t let you forget.”
And then they stayed like that, until the sun replaced the moon and they were all stirred from their sleep. The trio unfurled from each other, left the room without a word, and went about their days.
But for each night for months, they met there again, occasionally with the others stopping by and joining their grieving.
Until, finally, Pierro gave the order for her stuff to be passed around the Harbingers. And Signora’s room was emptied, the shell of what it once was.
No one met up after that.