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Chapter Text

The extended Benedict household had reached something of a crisis point.

Sticky was on break from school, and Miss Perumal had arranged for Reynie to spend much of the week sleeping over at the house with the other children. Not that Reynie wasn’t a frequent presence, but this felt special—like sleep away camp. Sticky had been excited to share some of the games he regularly played with his classmates, but he hadn’t properly accounted for Constance who, it quickly became clear, could not help but get a boost from her psychic abilities.

Sticky’s irritation reached its peak his third night there, and he tried to teach Constance a lesson.

Nicholas glanced up from his book when Sticky dropped a board game box pointedly into the middle of the circle the children had formed on the floor of the study.

“And what is that?” Constance asked with a sneer. She likely already sensed where this was going, though mostly because Sticky was so terrible at keeping his cool with her. 

“This is Chutes and Ladders,” he said. “It is for little babies. Completely strategy-less, pure chance, utterly boring. And it is what you’re forcing us to play, with your cheating.”

“Uh-oh,” Kate muttered, leaning back onto her elbows to watch the scene unfold. In a similar spirit, Nicholas marked the current page in his book and set it aside, trying to figure out when he might need to intervene.

“I am not cheating,” Constance spat. Her ears were turning a tell-tale red, anger likely stemming from Sticky’s implied accusation of childishness. 

“You most certainly are!” 

“No, I am simply following my own objectives!”

“Oh, great, that’s perfect for everyone else playing along. And what precisely are your objectives?”

“To see how much I can bother you, George. It seems I have succeeded.”

Kate’s eyes widened. “Uh-oh,” she repeated.

Nicholas and Reynie moved and spoke simultaneously. Reynie physically inserted himself between Sticky and Constance, and, looking at the latter, said, “Come on, Constance.” Nicholas leapt from his chair and, with a cheery tone that sounded forced even to himself, called out, “What’s going on, children?” 

Sticky looked between Reynie and Nicholas, exasperated, and exclaimed, “What is the point of all those lessons she does if she’s still going to abuse her powers anyway?”

Fair enough, Nicholas thought as he looked specifically at Constance. She stared at him impassively, but he knew she was waiting to see how he responded. This is precisely one of those times where it would be wise to practice restraint, dear, he thought in her direction.

A little voice popped into his head. I do not want to be wise, I want to have fun. 

Nicholas still found himself startled by Constance’s willingness to be open with him. It was a fairly new thing, one which he marveled at, that had started after the adoption had been formally completed. Despite Constance’s original resistance to “papering” things, it was less than a year after the Institute when she offhandedly informed him at dinner that she thought it would be the best and most practical move for her. He was never entirely sure what had changed—maybe something to do with watching Kate and Milligan grow together as father and daughter? In any case, once Nicholas had woken up and extricated himself from his salad bowl, he had agreed (of course), and began arrangements to pull the papers together. 

She would have been his, and he would have been hers, either way; but the weight of responsibility, the acute pang of overwhelming love and wonder at this strange child who was now his strange child—it had blindsided him in the wake of signing that dotted line. It was one thing to understand himself as sharing a family with her, and another thing entirely to be her father.

And here he was, in a real life parenting moment.

You might consider whether it would be more fun to simply play the games your friend has tried to introduce to you. 

At this Constance looked away—an admission of sorts. Messing with Sticky was second nature for her, and part of their relationship. But she had pushed him too far, and so he had retaliated with something that had genuinely hurt her feelings, though she would never admit it. 

The other children had sat patiently during this time, well aware that a conversation of sorts was taking place. Finally, Constance spoke up.

“I don’t want to play games anymore.”

“But?” Nicholas prompted.

“But next time I will play it your way George,” she grumbled. 

Sticky relaxed slightly. “I don’t feel like playing anymore either. Let’s just do something else.”

Kate shot to her feet at alarming speed. “Pillow fort! We should make a giant pillow fort!” 

Reynie turned to Sticky, and the boys nodded at each other. Sticky even smiled a little.

Now all eyes were on Constance. She shrugged. “Sounds like an acceptable way to pass an evening.”

The next day, an unanticipated development in the search for Curtain and his associates: activity that suspiciously resembled that of a Whisperer-like device had been detected on one of the outlying islands in the bay, miles away from the island the bore the institute but nevertheless audaciously close by. Ostensibly, the island was mainly a stop along the ferry tours that ran across the bay during the summer. But during the rest of the year, it was nearly uninhabited, except for the small crew who maintained the dock and cared for the boats that sat unused. There had once been a small town, but it had petered out years ago—what buildings remained structurally sound had been converted to novelty shops for the tours.

It was a perfect place to work undetected. 

They’d had to mobilize fairly quickly, so Nicholas, Milligan, Number Two, and Rhonda were out the door basically the moment that the Perumals pulled into the driveway. The children had been repeatedly and emphatically instructed to stay put, to finish their breakfasts and then do whatever they wanted around the house, to listen to the Perumals. They had been told that everything would be okay, that the adults would be back soon. And then they had, for the twentieth time, been told not to follow them.

It should have come as no surprise to anyone that the children did, in fact, manage to follow the adults to the island. 

The children were, to their credit, patient as they stood and waited for Nicholas to rouse after the shock of seeing Kate drop out of a tree at Milligan’s feet. Once Milligan was certain that he was no longer the only thing keeping Nicholas upright, he turned to Kate with what was supposed to be a stern, fatherly scowl. Only Sticky managed a genuinely apologetic look.

Number Two tutted at the children. “You know this means we’ll have to arrange some other form of transportation off this island—the way we came has no room for extra people, even child-sized people.”

Kate shrugged. “S’fine. We can’t get back the way we came either. We burnt up completely on entry.”

Nicholas reached out a hand and grabbed the nearest tree for support. “Good lord,” he muttered. He turned and examined the children. As he suspected, Constance’s gaze was fixed firmly on him. 

Though I commend the bravery of your decision to come, I would have rather the four of you stayed safe at home, he thought to her. He could feel the slightest tinge of remorse coming off of her, as she sensed his distress. But her voice, when it sounded in his head, was firm and resolved.

Why should we just sit at home and wait around, when we could be helping? What am I doing all those stupid exercises for, if not to help you? 

You’re not a tool to be used, dear. 

I’m not a baby. I can make my own decisions. 

Here Nicholas’s heart softened. I know, and I couldn’t stop you from doing so even if I wanted to. But please be careful.

He hated it but there was really nothing to be done at this point. They couldn’t get off the island until they figured out another mode of transportation. The children had gotten what they wanted—they were along for the ride. 

Unfortunately, they were about to walk right into a trap.

Chapter Text

It had seemed like the right plan—send Milligan to speak with the dock workers, have Rhonda and Number Two search the apparently-abandoned labs in the sprawling building that used to be… some strange fusion of a town hall, fire department, and medical center, from what they could tell. Nicholas would stay with the children, keep them away from the more dangerous tasks the other adults would be undertaking. They would track down the transmitter for the device powered by the machines in the lab. It wasn’t quite another Whisperer, but it was doing something. The whole thing reeked of his brother’s machinations. 

They’d seen no one in the building. It appeared abandoned, like something had been set up and the left. So it was a genuine surprise when they opened the door to the transmitter room and found none other than Nathaniel standing there, looking smug and unbothered. 

“Ah,” he said. “I’d wondered when you’d join me. Come in.”

Nicholas’s heart dropped. The children looked at him, unsure of what to do. He wasn’t sure either. But he needed to know what his brother was up to. 

“Children, why don’t you go and—“

“I insist you all stay,” Nathaniel hissed, grabbing Sticky and Reynie by the collars and yanking them into the room before Nicholas or the girls could stop him. Kate lunged after them, and Constance and Nicholas grabbed for her, and then they were all in the room and the door slammed closed with a resounding click that announced the engagement of some locking mechanism.

“What is this, Nathaniel?” Nicholas asked, frightened for the children’s safety but also genuinely curious about what his brother was up to. Once the door had closed, Nathaniel had wandered over to a control panel on the far wall. He fiddled with it nonchalantly, an air of faux casualness hanging over him.

“I know you didn’t expect to find me here, and, if I’m being honest, I didn’t expect for you to get here before I had cleared out. This really is just a way station. My plans are greater than some defunct tourist destination, you see.” He turned to Nicholas, gave him a sickly sweet smile. “I’ve just been running some tests, and this was a convenient spot. We had to go back to the drawing board, you know.”

Now he glared at Constance. She laughed and stuck out her tongue. Nathaniel’s eyes narrowed further, but then he shook his head, as if to clear it.

“Anyway, they’re basically done, so I’ll just collect this data and be on my merry way.”

Nicholas took a moment to find his words. “Ah… no? We… we can’t let you do that.” Could they not let him do that? Nicholas wondered. They weren’t the government, and he wasn’t necessarily doing anything illegal. The children looked at him expectantly, unsure of what the move was.

“Or what, Nicky? You don’t even know what I’m doing. This could be perfectly legal.”

“Could be?” Kate retorted. Sticky elbowed her in the ribs. “Hey, ow! I don’t think people who are doing good things talk about what they’re doing like that.”

“Kate…” Reynie hissed, eying Nathaniel nervously.

Nicholas held his hands up, tried to look non-threatening. “Look, Nathaniel, just let us leave. We don’t even know what you’re doing.” As he said this, he noticed Constance perk up, as if suddenly become engaged in what was unfolding in front of her. “So we can’t bring you any harm if we leave. Please.”

Nathaniel shook his head slowly, still looking awfully smug. “See, the thing is, I don’t really trust you to not get in my way. I don’t intend to harm you, or to keep you for very long. I just need a bit of assurance I can make a clean getaway, that’s all.”

Before Nicholas could formulate a response, Constance called out, “It’s not very original to make the same stupid device again. I already broke your first one. I bet I can do it again!” 

It seemed like an odd thing to say, until it dawned on Nicholas what she was up to: she was trying to prompt him to think about the purpose of the device so that she could read it off his thoughts. And indeed, when he glanced down at her, her eyes were squinted shut.

Nathaniel… laughed. Then he calmly hit a series a buttons on the panel, and addressed Nicholas directly. “I’m going to run a quick errand. While I’m gone, enjoy figuring out one of the exciting new features I built into this device!”

Nicholas tried to rush after him, but his brother was too quick to get through the door. The lock re-engaged almost immediately. They were stuck. “Dammit.” 

I have to find some way to notify the others, he thought, eyeing his brother’s complicated control panel with curiosity and suspicion. And what the hell was that about new features—

A quiet voice broke his reverie. “Constance?” 

It was Sticky, eyeing the younger girl with clear concern. Constance was cradling her head in her hands. Her eyes were screwed shut, and she didn’t open them or even acknowledge that she’d heard him.

“I thought you learned your lesson about trying to change peoples’ minds, Connie,” Kate chastised. 

Nicholas’s stomach flipped as he got a closer look. Something was wrong—Constance looked…pained. He dropped into a crouch and held her by the shoulders. “Constance, my dear, talk to me. What’s going on?”

When she replied, she seemed out of breath and she spoke through gritted teeth. “Don’t know. Feels like the machine is… pulling at me.”

The other children looked helplessly at one another and then at Nicholas. He ducked further down in the hopes of catching her eye. “I don’t know what that means. Can you tell me more?”

The color was starting to drain from her face. She shook her head and then groaned when the motion seemed to make things worse. Nicholas noticed how she was starting to curl in on herself. “Here, sit down,” he said, still maintaining his hold on her as she sat, hunched in a ball with her knees to her chest, her hands still clutching her head. “Please look at me, Constance.”

Constance finally obliged, but he could tell she was having to fight to stay focused on him. “It’s like… when I feel thoughts around me… and I can pay attention if I want. But now…” She cut off with a hiss and she pressed her hands even harder into her head. “They’re pulling me. I can’t avoid them… or filter… or pull back…”

Kate gasped. “Curtain! He did something!”

Nicholas’s heart sank as his brother’s words finally made sense. Nathaniel had made a trap, and Constance had walked right into it. And if Nicholas was understanding her correctly, it was very, very bad. Constance’s powers, like anything else a person did, required energy. What made Constance so sick when she changed people’s minds was that the amount of energy necessary to do so over-exerted her. She could do a lot, but she had limits, which is why he’d had been working so hard to teach her to learn how not to read minds (beside the obvious issues of privacy and politeness). 

If the machine was doing something to prevent her from regulating the amount of energy she was psychically exerting, then she was going to become very ill very quickly. And if they couldn’t figure out how to make it stop…

This thought was interrupted. “Don’t think things like that!” Constance sobbed. Her voice had gone from a tight whisper to a wail. “I can tell… you’re scared… but I’m already scared…” 

Nicholas had barely registered that he had started to sway when she frantically added, “Don’t fall asleep, please!” He fumbled for his plaid square, and tried to regulate his breathing while he focused on the pattern. 

“What do we do, sir?” Reynie asked. He, too, was crouched down next to Constance, a hand resting on her back the only thing he could think to do to help his friend.

“It’ll be okay,” Nicholas responded. He had not answered Reynie’s question. He had no answer to Reynie’s question. 

At that moment his brother marched back through the door, looking terribly self-satisfied. He barely even glanced their way as he headed to the control panel once more. “That should teach her not to pry in matters that aren’t her business,” he muttered, more to himself than any of the other occupants of the room.

Nicholas was speechless—he hadn’t imagined that his brother was capable of being quite so callous. But he also was finding it immensely difficult to string together a response, when half of his focus was on the child squirming and crying in his arms. (She was incoherent, inconsolable. He couldn’t get her to calm down, or focus.) His voice wavered as he spoked. “Nathaniel, please. Stop this—you don’t understand what you’re doing to her!“ His brother turned, regarded him with a cold stare. Then he pressed a few buttons, and pulled a lever.

“Stop your whining, I’ve shut it off,” he bit out. His eyes shifted to Constance, who continued to wail and writhe, uninterrupted. Almost imperceptibly, his expression changed. 

Nicholas caught this shift, but couldn’t process what it meant; he was still preoccupied with trying to comfort Constance. (Reynie was gripping her hands tightly, because she had been digging her fingers into her head so hard she’d drawn blood.) He spoke more firmly this time. “Whatever you did… it’s still happening, look—“

Before he could finish, Constance let out a small moan and then suddenly went limp. “Shit!” Nicholas cried. He cradled her tiny form in his arms, patting her on the face with a shaky hand. “Constance! Come on, dear, say something!” 

She was paper white, and though her eyes were closed, it was clear that they continued to move rapidly back and forth under her eyelids. Her body trembled, as if wracked by powerful shivers. 

No matter how hard he tried, she wouldn’t wake.

Nicholas’s face burned with an unfamiliar sensation: rage. “Nathaniel!” He bellowed, so forcefully that he saw Sticky twitch out of the corner of his eye. “Turn it off right now. Look at what you’re doing!” He clutch Constance even closer, cradling her head protectively. 

He saw it, in his brother’s face. A waver in his resolve. A flash of… doubt, maybe. Not quite regret. A faint whiff of panic.

But Nicholas watched, too, as his brother steeled himself, ready to double down, offer a defense. 

“Well i… if you would just…” He was babbling, flustered, hands flying across the controls, but lacking their usual certainty. A moment more spent biting out half-formed phrases. And then he still, muttered “shit!”, and met Nicholas’s eyes again.

There it was, clear as day: remorse. Nicholas’s heart dropped. 

“I can’t stop it.” Nathaniel’s voice was almost a whisper. He looked helplessly at the device in front of him.

All three children vocalized the obvious response to such a proclamation. “What??” “What do you—“ “You own device?”

But his response remained directed to Nicholas alone. “Something about her… psychic thing—“

“Don’t blame this on her!” Nicholas spat.

His brother raised his hands, appeasing, unusually yielding. This only made Nicholas more worried. “Just listen! It was just supposed to trap her, as long as I had that signal transmitting but… I think there was a… a miscalculation. Now it’s like resonance, between her and the machine and it doesn’t matter that I’ve switched it off. Because it’s drawing energy from her…she and the machine are a self-sustaining loop.” 

“Do you call this self-sustaining?” Nicholas cried, nodding toward the unconscious child in his arms. “It’s killing her!” 

His brother, however, had begun to shove various papers and instruments into his pockets, then grabbed his coat from the back of his chair. He mumbled something, inaudible.

“What was that? What are you going to do?” Nicholas demanded.

But he knew, deep down, what was about to happen. Because he knew, deep down, that his brother was a coward. 

Nathaniel looked at a spot on the floor several feet in front of Nicholas, didn’t even give him the dignity of eye contact, or a glance at poor Constance. 

“I’m sorry.”

Then he ran out the door. It locked behind him with a click.

Nicholas let out a slew of rude and uncharacteristic words, pointedly ignoring how it made Reynie blanch, Sticky gasp, Kate scowl in agreement.

Nicholas shifted Constance into Kate’s arms. “Here, take her for a minute please.” She obliged wordlessly. 

He jumped up, disregarding the strain it was taking to not allow his panic to tip him into unconsciousness, and staggered over to the control panel. The buttons swam with his vision.

Behind him, Sticky was jiggling the door handle, then banging loudly on the tiny porthole window, calling for help.

A small voice came from beside him. “Are you alright, Mr. Benedict?” Nicholas turned to Reynie, who stood heroically ready to slow his fall. He leaned forward, white knuckle gripped the edge of the table, took a careful breath.

“Not really, dear, no.” Reynie only nodded.

“If we can’t get the device to stop, then at least maybe we can get the door open, right? There’s probably a button or something.”

The boy was right. Nicholas tapped his nose, and they began to inspect the panel in front of them.

But they didn’t get far before a figure burst through the door, sending Sticky reeling back in surprise. The scientist, Dr. Garrison. She let the door hang open as she rushed to where Nicholas and Reynie stood with such ferocity that they also stepped back instinctively.

As she began to work, she spoke rapidly. “There’s only so much I can do now that he’s left but I’m going to try. He’s right that the device can’t be halted now but—“

Nicholas’s brain finally caught up with what was happening, and he cut her off, too baffled by this turn of events to care about being rude. “Wha—Dr. Garrison, is it? What is this, your defection from my brother?”

She gave him a hard glare, but then her eyes slid over to Constance. She continued as if he hadn’t spoken. 

“It can’t be stopped or turned off. But it can be destroyed.”

Reynie gasped.

“But you need to get the child out of here. As far away as possible, as quickly as possible.”

“Does distance break the connection?” Kate called out.

“Not really, or not functionally for your purposes. You’d have to get quite far away. You don’t have time for that.”

“Then how will that help?” Nicholas demanded.

She sighed. “Look, I know you have no reason to trust me. But what I’m telling you is this—you are running out of time. You need to get her away from this central point, so that I can overload the signal. It should short out the device before it transmits beyond this room. But if she’s too close when it happens—“

“It’ll short her out too!” Sticky supplied. Dr. Garrison nodded grimly.

“How far?” Nicholas asked. He was once again trying to control his breathing.

“Your man, the large one—“

“Milligan.”

“Sure. He’s at the dock. That should be far enough.”

“Okay, okay.” Nicholas’s mind was racing. “Reynie, Sticky.” The boys perked up, ready for instructions. “Run and find Rhonda and Number Two. They’re in the labs. Get them to that dock as soon as you can. Go, right now!”

The boys threw forlorn glances towards their ill friend, then ran off.

Nicholas turned to Garrison. “How long til it’s ready?”

“Five minutes. You need to get going. I have no way of knowing if you’re far enough so this thing goes at the end of the countdown no matter what. When I hit go, it locks in. That way Curtain can’t undo it.

“Alright.” Nicholas hurried over to lift Constance from Kate’s arms. He focused on the conscious child in front of him. 

“Kate, do you have a good idea of how far the dock is?”

“Of course.”

“And you have a stopwatch—oh, good.” She had already pulled one from her bucket. He patted her shoulder. “Good girl. You’re going to pace us. I completely trust you to do this, and I also trust you to keep Constance safe should I…”

She cut him off, taking his hand from her shoulder and squeezing it. “You got it, Mr. B.” 

He hated to put so much on her, but every word he’d spoken was the truth. There was no one he trusted with this task more. 

“Okay, okay.” He steeled himself, made sure Constance was tucked firmly against his chest. Then he nodded at Garrison.

“We’re ready.”

She nodded back. “I’ll start the countdown when you go through the door.” Kate was already in position.

“Dr. Garrison, I—“

“It’s Molly.”

Nicholas have her a brief smile. “Thank you, Molly.”

Then he crossed the threshold, and set off after Kate.

Chapter Text

By the time they burst out the main door and into the damp twilight, Nicholas’s lungs were burning. It wasn’t an issue of the extra weight he was carrying—Constance was, after all, quite a small child—more just that he was, definitively, not a runner, had never been much of an athlete,  and Kate was setting a punishing pace. He’d asked her to, of course, and knew she was only doing what was necessary. But somehow it only made him feel more tired every time she turned around and—barely breaking a sweat, not even breathing hard—offered some encouragement or an update on the time. 

At this point, all he could manage was a grunt in response, most of his attention on making sure he didn’t stumble or tangle his feet in any of the stray branches that were clawing their way across the path. 

Finally, finally, the dock came into view. Kate bellowed, “Dad!!! Dad, where are you?”

Nicholas didn’t know where she found the breath. He kept forcing himself forward. 

Then they were there, and Milligan was there, bewildered, not sure what to do, who to reach for. “Katie-Cat, what… Mr. Benedict… is that?”

“Ten seconds!!” Kate cried out, shoving her stopwatch in Nicholas’s face.

He was wheezing now, wanted to bend over, rest his hands on his knees, but he still had Constance. He looked up at Milligan.

“Take her… please…” he begged.

Milligan obliged, but before he could say anything, a series of popping sounds carried through the air—a sound like that of transformers blowing—following by the low whine of electricity failing. Kate popped up on her tiptoes, looking at the now darkened building they had just left, then whipped around and peered expectantly at Nicholas.

“Was that it? Do you think?” She sounded hopeful.

Though still completely in the dark about what was going on, Milligan gingerly held Constance out for Nicholas to examine. She looked… still, but different from before: no longer trembling, eyes no longer flitting about under her lids, face far more relaxed. In a moment of panic, Nicholas grabbed her wrist, but her pulse was steady and strong.

It looked all the world like she was just sleeping. 

Molly had done it.

“Kate.” Milligan spoke softly.

“Hm.”

“Be ready to get him.” And Milligan of course was right, because the relief at realizing the hell of the last hour or so was over knocked him straight off his feet and into sleep.

Nicholas woke on the ground, but not uncomfortable. Kate must’ve slowed his fall, or caught him, and someone had propped his head on a jacket. 

“Hey.” A warm hand on his shoulder. He looked up and into Rhonda’s friendly eyes. “Wanna sit up?”

He allowed her to help him upright, surveyed the scene.

Constance was laid out on the dock, wrapped in Milligan’s giant cloak. She, too, had a makeshift pillow—it looked like Number Two’s cardigan, judging by its sunny hue and by the way the aforementioned person had her arms wrapped tightly around her torso, shielding the cold air as she carried out an official-sounding conversation with a man on a boat. 

Milligan was sitting watch over the child, but there was no urgency or concern in his gaze. Nicholas hoped this was a good sign. The other children sat nearby, feet dangling off the side of the dock, glancing over at their friend occasionally, but mostly talking quietly among themselves.

Nicholas cleared his throat—it felt scratchy from before. He would positively kill for a drink of water. “How’s she doing?” He asked.

“You can help me say for sure,” Milligan said. “I didn’t see her before. But she seems… okay, I think. Or I don’t see anything imminently wrong.” 

Nicholas shuffled over closer. Again, he noticed that none of the agitated movement from before remained—she seemed much more at ease, peaceful almost. He swiped a finger across her cheek. “I think this is… that it’s over. That whatever is happening now is just the fallout.”

“Like when she makes herself sick,” Rhonda mused. 

Nicholas nodded. “Probably best she stays like this for as long as possible. She’s going to feel miserable, I imagine.” 

“She may be running a slight fever,” Milligan added. Nicholas rested his hand more fully on her forehead.

“Hmm, yeah. That’s unsurprising, all things considered. We’ll watch it.”

In all honesty, he didn’t know why he felt so… calm. It wasn’t bothering him, the way he thought it might or even should, that their assessment of Constance’s improving well-being was ultimately conjecture. And yet. He was surprisingly not fretful, not panicked. Maybe it was shock. Maybe it was…a runner’s high from his recent exercise.

A slightly deranged giggle burst through his lips at that thought. Rhonda and Milligan gave him looks that rode the line between perplexed and concerned. Okay, definitely shock. 

“I… can’t imagine how stressful this must have been,” Milligan said softly. “But it’s over. She’s safe now.”

And then, just as suddenly as the urge to laugh had hit him, Nicholas found himself crying.

“Oh my,” Rhonda hummed sympathetically. She wrapped an arm around his shoulder, and the warm embrace made him realize that he had grown cold. The night air was clinging to his skin, to his clothes, still damp with sweat. He felt all around clammy. 

He shivered, sniffled.

“What’s our, um, next move, I guess?”

It was Number Two who answered, walking over to join the others with a triumphant air about her. “We’ve got ourselves a lift! Captain Mulligan over there has agreed to ferry us all back to the mainland!”

Rhonda snorted. “Mulligan? Really? Is he our new backup for when Milligan can’t pull something off?”

Number Two rolled her eyes so hard they disappeared completely. Milligan smirked. Nicholas fell asleep. 

The trip home was a subdued blur. Constance remained asleep the whole time, slightly flushed and sweaty from her fever but overall seeming blessedly okay. Kate chatted the ferry crew’s ears off, plying them with question about how the ferry worked. Reynie and Sticky helped Number Two sort through and catalog various papers and instruments seized from Curtain’s lair. Rhonda sketched quietly on the deck, while Milligan sat, equally silent, next to Nicholas, meticulously cleaning his dart gun and keeping watch over Constance. Nicholas, for his part, spent much of the trip asleep—not because of his narcolepsy, but simply as a result of the post-adrenaline rush crash that hit him once the ferry took to the calm waters. 

Home found Milligan corralling the three older children into the kitchen to make them all late-night grilled cheeses and receive a stern lecture from Miss Perumal, while the other adults took care of Constance. Her fever had broken somewhere around the end of the trip, which was a promising development; but it also meant that Rhonda was insistent that Constance not stay in those same, sweaty clothes. And so Nicholas found himself perched on the edge of his bed while Rhonda and Number Two gave Constance a bath in the adjoining bathroom. Before he knew it, he wasn’t perched, but was laid out flat, knees still at the edge of the mattress so that his legs partly hung off the bed. 

How is it possible to feel this exhausted, he wondered as he used the bed frame to scrape his shoes indelicately off his feet. 

A voice interrupted his reverie. “Hm?” He lifted his head just enough to see Number Two holding a small pile of Constance’s clothes.

“Were Constance’s pajamas in with the clothes that got washed? Or are they still in the hamper downstairs?”

Nicholas propped himself up on his elbows. “Uh… I don’t remember.” He tilted his head toward the door to the hallway. “Everything that’s folded is in the basket by Milligan’s door.”

Number Two nodded and walked away. Nicholas resumed his studies of the ceiling. 

He may have nodded off—really, he had no clue—because he had no concept of how much time later it was when Rhonda emerged from the bathroom carrying Constance. It seemed they hadn’t washed Constance’s pajamas, because she had been clothed simply in a giant, black t-shirt (“Milligan’s,” Number Two supplied). 

“Want her?” Rhonda asked. Nicholas nodded, finally finding the motivation to move himself, though only in order to slide more fully up onto the bed so that he was propped against the headboard. He slipped his legs under the covers, then drew them back so that Rhonda could get  Constance settled comfortably. 

“Did she wake at all?” Nicholas asked, pulling Constance close—to keep her warm, of course, but mostly because it was a tactile reminder that she was safe. 

Rhonda shrugged. “A little bit. Fell back asleep while Number Two was braiding her hair.”

“I wonder how much longer she’ll sleep.” 

Number Two checked her watch. “It’s so late at this point, I wouldn’t be surprised if she just slept straight through the night.” 

Probably for the best, Nicholas thought. He was trying his best not to be anxious to see her awake, to hear her little voice say something sharp and clever, to know for sure that his brother hadn’t done something terrible and lasting to his kid. 

“Well,” he said, pushing down those thoughts. “Perhaps you both should follow her cue. I can watch her.” He received two raised eyebrows in response, Number Two’s at the implication that she should go to sleep and Rhonda’s at the idea that he would be doing anything but going to sleep. But they didn’t say anything. Truth be told, he didn’t mind that Number Two would probably spend the night poring over his brother’s papers, or that Rhonda would probably end up checking in on him before she finally settled in bed—and she would almost certainly find him asleep. Those were the rhythms of this household, and it was precisely that rhythm, and the knowledge that all of the people he cared about the most were safely under one roof, which bore him gently off to sleep not too long after Number Two flicked off the overhead light and pulled the door closed behind her. 

Chapter Text

Nicholas woke to a small movement, originating from the sleepy figure still in his arms. He felt stiff—this hadn’t been an ideal sleeping position, propped halfway up against the headboard, and he could feel in his neck the strain that resulted from a prolonged time at an unnatural angle. One of his arms was asleep, and moving it slightly resulted in a flood of pins and needles. And he still felt bone tired. But he peeled his eyes open nevertheless, his gaze inadvertently landing directly on Milligan, who was stoically observing him and Constance. 

Nicholas looked down. Constance was starting to stir, brow furrowing and lips twitching as she shifted slightly in her blankets. Finally, the blue of her eyes appeared, dulled some from their usual brightness, but alert nonetheless. 

She squinted up at him—she looked so unsure that it bordered on upset, and Nicholas tried to sound as soothing as possible when he finally spoke to her. “Shh, hey dear, you’re okay,” he murmured, still holding her tightly against his chest.

“I… don’t feel good,” she said blandly. “What did I do?”

“You did nothing wrong,” Nicholas responded as Milligan slipped silently out the door. “My brother. He, ah, his machine hurt you."

“Oh.” Constance chewed on her bottom lip as she thought about this. “I think I remember… something happening. Like when I change people’s minds, but worse.”

Nicholas hummed. “Precisely. I imagine you’re feeling the same sort of wiped out that you usually do after that, though maybe even more intensely?”

Constance nodded.

“You just need rest. You’ll be okay—you’re safe now.” 

Constance kicked off some of the blankets with restless limbs, but she made no effort to move away from her position leaning against him. She took stock of her surroundings, recognizing that the room they were in wasn’t hers. She picked curiously at the shirt she was wearing, also not hers.

“My hair is all wrong,” she whined, waving a hand vaguely toward one of her loose braids. But she didn’t have the energy to mount a fuller protest, and made no effort to do anything about it. Nicholas took her in, as much as he could from his current angle. She looked nothing like her usual self, all tight braids and tight lines, pulled together neatly—collared shirts, pressed dresses, socks brilliantly white, shoes polished and clean. Now, though, Milligan’s black shirt swallowed much of her body, leaving exposed only pale limbs. The two low braids in her hair contributed to her overall limp appearance. He tried to swallow down his worry, told himself she just needed some time and then she’d be her usual sharp self. 

“Maybe Rhonda can fix it for you later,” he suggested softly, tucking a stray piece of hair behind her ear. Constance made a noncommittal sound, and seemed to sink even further into the mattress, and into his side. 

“Hey,” Nicholas said, “can you stay awake for just a few more minutes? I think Milligan is bringing up some food, and I want you to try to eat something.” 

She looked up at him with bleary eyes. “Okay,” she mumbled. 

He wished she had protested, said something rude in response, bit out a quick rhyme. She’ll be fine, she just needs to recover, it’ll be okay. 

It took a couple of minutes for Milligan to show back up, during which Constance was so quiet and still Nicholas was sure she’d fallen back asleep. But she sat up a little when she saw him come in, and Nicholas helped further situate her upright among the pillows. He made idle chatter with Milligan while Constance nibbled on the crackers he’d brought up. At first she only took cautious sips of the apple juice, but at some point she clearly decided that it was making her feel better because she began to gulp it down so vigorously that Nicholas felt the need to tell her to pace herself. 

She squinted at him and then drew the cup away from her mouth. But there was a glimmer in her eye, a spark of obstinacy even as she complied and slowed down. 

“Did you get enough?” Nicholas asked, once she no longer reached for any of the food left on the plate.

She shrugged. “I don’t feel very hungry.” 

“That’s okay,” he reassured her. “That can be it for now.” She nodded and then began to slide back down under the covers. Milligan gathered the dishes and left with a nod, pulling the door shut behind him.

The door didn’t quite latch, and was soon swinging open again—one of the characteristic quirks of an old house. But Constance needed some peace and quiet, so Nicholas got up to close it. The bed creaked as he stood up, and behind the sound he heard Constance speak. He paused. “Sorry, dear, could you repeat that?”

She turned her head to look over her shoulder, and cracked one eye open. “Are you leaving?”

He smiled down at her. “No, I’m just closing the door.” He paused. “Unless you prefer to be alone, of course.”

Both her eyes were closed again as she let her head fall back to the side. Her response was quiet but clear. “I do not prefer that.”

“Alright,” he said mildly, studiously reminding himself that he could only fall asleep after he made it back to his space on the bed. And by the time he did, Constance was already snoring lightly, and it wasn’t long before he too was out again.

Chapter Text

It was a blessing that the other children were still at the Benedict household for the first few days that Constance genuinely felt better; the moment she was well enough not to sleep all day, she grew so antsy that Nicholas feared she might overexert herself and slow down her recovery. But Reynie, Kate, and Sticky were remarkably astute, as always. They came up with endless games and activities that kept her both engaged and, for the most part, appropriately sedentary.

If anyone found it odd that the children were actually able to get through these games without Constance psychically cheating, no one mentioned it. 

Not too longer after Reynie headed back to the Perumals and Sticky to Boatwright, Milligan returned to the island and was able to recover the machine—his brother must’ve felt the need to get out fast, or simply didn’t care to take it with him after whatever Molly did to it.

(Nicholas hoped that Molly was okay.)

He meant to spend a significant amount of time examining the machine, but once he took a close look at it he knew this wouldn’t be possible. For it was quickly apparent that the machine drew an immense amount of power to function, and that the reason Nathaniel couldn’t switch the machine off once he linked it to Constance was that he had, inadvertently, made her its power source.

This underscored two things Nicholas had already begun to realize. First, that the machine could have easily killed her. And second, that Constance was perhaps even more powerful than he initially thought, and it was his responsibility to somehow ensure the well-being of such a child. Both thoughts overwhelmed him terribly. After he woke on the ground for the third time in an hour, he called Number Two in and delegated the task to her and Rhonda.

The whole ordeal proved hard to fully escape, however. The next weekend Milligan brought Kate over so that she could visit with Constance and he could check in on a few ongoing matters. When Nicholas answered the door, he was surprised to find Milligan holding a giant flower arrangement.

“Oh, hello! What—“ he paused as Kate ran past him so quickly that he swore her perfunctory “hi Mr. B!” was subject to the Doppler effect—“What do we have here, Milligan?”

“Unclear. They were sitting outside the gate.”

The arrangement was nearly the size of Milligan’s torso, held in a white wicker basket lined with pink and white gingham. The flowers, likewise, were pink and white, with seemingly every possible hue of the former. A wide, magenta ribbon was tied to the middle of the handle, attached to which was a folded piece of gold-embossed card stock.

Nicholas detached the card, and opened it to find looping golden type. 

It read: “Wishing you a felicitous convalescence.”

There was no signature.

They left the flowers on the front steps and called Rhonda and Number Two in for an emergency meeting in the kitchen. They all gathered by the window, eyeing the arrangement with unease, as if it might do something if they looked away.

Nicholas speculated that perhaps this was a sign of life from Molly, but Milligan informed him otherwise.

“My people were unable to track your brother very far, but have been able to get a line on Dr. Garrison. She’s holed up in a yurt in the Swiss alps—hardly a position from which one might place an order for delivery.”

“Oh,” Nicholas said, perplexed. “I’m glad she’s alright, in any case! Thank you for the intel, dear friend.”

Rhonda cleared her throat. “Do you think… maybe they’re from…” 

Oh.  

Number Two and Milligan both watched him expectantly as he mulled this over. Now that she’d mentioned it, there wasn’t really anyone else outside the household who knew about what had happened. Except for Nathaniel. If that were the case, Nicholas didn’t know what to make of the arrangement’s appearance, so clearly tailored to match Constance’s fashion choices. Or the strange message. Were they a taunt? Or a misguided attempt to show that Nathaniel cared? (Was it possible that he cared?) 

“Maybe he, ah, feels bad?” Milligan offered, clearly not believing himself. 

Number Two scoffed. She was of characteristically strong opinion. “We should dispose of them. They could be poisoned! Or bugged! We don’t know what sort of trickery he’s up to. A fire should suffice.”

Whether it was a half-assed and insufficient apology, or a dastardly ruse, Nicholas was more than happy to take her suggestion. If they were from his brother, he didn’t want them in his house, and he didn’t want Constance to know about them.

“What if it was sincere?” Rhonda mused later as the flames began to die down, only loud enough for Nicholas to hear.

He sighed sadly. “He nearly killed my child, Rhonda.”

She took his hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. “I know. Just a thought.” 

The child in question continued to seem fine, but only just that. Fine. She was as brusque, grouchy, and petulant as ever, and still ate well over her quarter of the household’s food at any meal, an impressive feat for a small child. But even as she recited poetry so rude and humorous that it rendered Nicholas inert in his armchair, there was something missing. A spark, maybe. She seemed oddly subdued. Anyone who knew her less wouldn’t notice any change at all. But Rhonda was too perceptive, Number Two too observant, and Nicholas too attentive for it to get past any of them. They all worried. And after a few weeks of this, Nicholas realized that he was going to have to broach the subject with her; but he wasn’t sure how, not when he felt dizzy with stress every time he thought about how she had been hurt fighting his battle.

It turned out that he didn’t have to bring it up. The situation came to a head one day when Constance loudly bemoaned her boredom, prompting Rhonda to suggest that they consider resuming her lessons.

Nicholas caught it, how Constance’s face fell; instead of her usual, gleeful smirk she simply chewed on her lower lip, avoided meeting their eyes.

“I… no. I don’t want to.” As if realizing that she could use her contrariness as an alibi, she crossed her arms and scowled. “You can’t make me do homework like this. You’re not… the government?” 

Rhonda scratched her nose to hide her smile. 

“Be that as it may, dear, you’ve enjoyed these sessions in the past… delighted in them, in fact.” Nicholas, of course, knew exactly what was going on, what the difference was now. But he also knew that she needed to be the one to say it. 

Constance’s brow furrowed. “Well see, I’ve been thinking that maybe… maybe I’ll get a new thing. Or just focus my energy on my poetry. I should be more dedicated to my craft.”

Rhonda’s and Nicholas’s eyes met. “I’m going to help Number Two shift the library books,” Rhonda murmured, slipping out of the study before Constance could protest. Nicholas settled more deeply into the couch cushions, and beckoned for Constance to sit next to him. 

She obliged, but only grudgingly.

“Constance, I—“

“I’ve quit completely!” She exclaimed, startling him. “I don’t listen to anyone anymore. I don’t let myself hear it.” 

It took Nicholas a moment to fully comprehend what she was telling him. “Wait… nothing at all…? You don’t mean that you can’t, you just… don’t, is that what you’re saying?”

She nodded. For a second Nicholas had thought she was telling him that she’d lost her abilities but…this was almost certainly worse. She was terrified of them.

“Oh no. My dear.” He reached out, took her small hands in his. She wouldn’t meet his eye. “You must be so tired.”

He had noticed. He had noticed how the dark circles under her eyes hadn’t abated even though by all accounts she was no longer feeling the effects of what had happened. And she’d been sleeping—he knew so, had checked in on her almost every night, multiple times a night when his own attempts at sleep failed, or when he woke in a cold sweat, chased back to consciousness by terrifying visions of what might have been had Molly not helped them escape. And sometimes she had even spent the night tucked into his bed, while he read quietly or got his own paltry moments of sleep.

Actually, she’d been sleeping a lot. He’d thought this was what she’d needed to recover, but now he realized…

Constance once told him that her abilities were like sitting in a crowded coffee shop—there was a consistent, low level thrum of ambient chatter. Usually it was just extra background noise, or even served as a comforting backdrop; but sometimes things would catch her attention, or she could choose to pick up on one thread of conversation, and then she could focus fully on hearing that one “voice.” When she was close enough to people, this brown noise was her normal, and it bothered her not one bit. If he was following her though… if he was understanding what she was saying, then not only had she been avoiding honing in on any voices (something they had, in fact, made her practice in the past), she was actively suppressing all of the voices. Constantly. 

The irony of course was that her fear of her gift was driving her not to avoid it, but to overuse it so that she could create the illusion that it didn’t exist.

No wonder she was exhausted. She’d been mentally stiff arming everyone for weeks now. 

“I promise you, we will do everything we can to make sure nothing like that can happen again,” Nicholas blurted out. 

“You couldn’t stop it the first time. You didn’t even know that it could happen,” Constance shot back at him. 

Her words were like a knife, and made Nicholas feel awfully sleepy. He pushed through it as best he could. “I know, I know,” he choked out. “I’m so sorry.” 

Constance released a shaky breath, glanced up at him, cocked her head to one side and studied him. She looked almost remorseful. 

Finally she spoke. “I don’t blame you. Obviously.” Here she glared at him pointedly, as if to say, and neither should you. “But it just seems safer…”

Nicholas hummed as she trailed off, let that thought hang. “I wish I could tell you there was something we could teach you to guarantee that you’d always be safe but… I don’t know, I just don’t know what that would be. Doesn’t mean there’s nothing that could help, but I won’t lie to you.”

He wished it meant something—anything—that his brother hadn’t even meant to harm her, or at least, do anything more than temporarily incapacitate her. But it didn’t. Nathaniel was a selfish fool, his brilliance matched only by his inability to see past his own nose. In a much better world he might have wanted to get to know his niece, not endanger her because he considers her gift a threat. 

“So then what’s the point of these lessons?” She was angry, but not at him: angry that this thing she enjoyed and felt pride in had been tainted.

“Because your gift is a part of who you are, and I want to help you figure out how you want to live with it. Not how you think you need to live with it because of something someone else did to you.”

Constance didn’t respond, but didn’t object either. He continued.

“I want to let you decide what you do and don’t feel comfortable doing, but I do have to insist that we at least get you where you are no longer actively suppressing your gift at all times. That’s unsustainable, and no way to live.”

Something in Constance finally yielded. She curled up more fully onto the couch and leaned into his side. Nicholas smiled, and put an arm around her. 

“And then what?” She asked after some time, voice slightly muffled from how her face was pressed against his jacket. It seemed she still trusted him, Nicholas thought with some relief.

“Then we go from there.”

Chapter Text

It took about ten days, until a Saturday when all the children were gathered at the house together again. Finally Nicholas heard the sound that he hadn’t realized he’d been waiting for.

Sticky’s voice, indignant, carried from the dining room. “Constance, that’s cheating!”

Nicholas set down the basket of laundry he’d been bringing up to the study to fold, and casually wandered in to witness the drama.

A small pile of cards were scattered in front of Sticky, clearly thrown down in a fit of frustration.

Reynie was, of course, trying to diffuse the situation. The sweet, sweet boy—he was part of how they got to this important milestone, as it was his special bond with Constance that made him the first person beyond Nicholas that she had allowed herself to interact with psychically. 

Now he was caught trying to appease Sticky’s justified annoyance without letting on too much how excited he was that Constance was back to some of her old tricks. Nicholas could see it on Reynie’s face as he carefully intoned, “Constance, if you do that, we’re going to have to put games of chance back into the mix, and you know that none of us enjoys those.” 

Constance huffed in annoyance. “Why is it a problem when I cheat? Kate’s been replacing her cards with ones from her bucket this whole time!!”

“Hey, snitch!” Kate exclaimed.

Constance stuck out her tongue. “I mean seriously, Reynie, you should’ve put that together. You have five jacks in your hand!”

It was a miracle that Nicholas didn’t completely drop out at the incredulous look on Reynie’s face as he checked his cards. As it was, he merely announced his presence to the children by knocking one of the empty chairs over as he grabbed for the table to steady himself.

Sticky peered at him with some concern. “You okay, sir?” But even he was fighting off a smile, and as the howl of Kate’s laughter rose, Nicholas felt it best to just go ahead and lay down on the ground so that he could let himself laugh too.

And so, probably only a short moment later, his eyes opened to four happy children looking down at him—the smallest of whom crossed her arms and smirked when she saw him awake.

That smirk morphed into a wide, confident smile, and Constance declared, “I knew that was going to happen!”