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Squall disappeared before Jupiter could get to him, not that he could grab him through the Gossamer anyway.
“Ow,” he groaned trying to pick himself up from the ground.
Morrigan froze, looking at him, looking at where Squall had been, looking at the ground, looking at the door, “Um,” she said.
“Morrigan,” he said gently, standing up again, pushing his hair back. It was too gentle. It was more than she deserved. “Why- what’s happened?”
“I-” she started, and then paused, not knowing what to say, with no idea how she could possibly say it, and tell him what she had done, what she had agreed to. The agreement had been made in a flurry of victory, and relief, and wanting, yearning really, for power. She hadn’t thought about the part where she might have to tell Jupiter when she signed that contract with Squall, and she hadn’t thought about a single consequence. How could she when she finally understood what she could become, what she, as a wundersmith, was genuinely capable of? What Squall could do, what he really could teach her. Her throat was closing up, a lump forming, too large for her to speak through, and she gave up, massaging her neck with her fingers.
“Morrigan,” he said again. “Did Squall force you to do this? Were you coerced? What did he blackmail you with?”
She didn’t look at him. She couldn’t. She couldn’t bear this conversation, this situation. How could she have expected to keep this a secret for its whole duration, and thereafter. It was ridiculous when she considered it. But she hadn’t, when it had mattered, “I wasn’t coerced.” Anything but. He had fulfilled their deal without tying her to anything. She wanted to say that it was for the sake of honour that she had agreed but she didn’t believe that. No one else would either. “I chose to be his apprentice.”
Jupiter blinked, his whole upper body recoiling, “You- what? Why? Why on earth would you do that? What could possibly be gained by working with him.”
“I’m not working with him,” she put her hands out, stepping back. “I promise I’m not.”
“How so?” he said, and it was the coolness of his tone that made her throat run dry.
“I’m not- I’m not-” she started, trying to catch herself, trying to make some sense of all of this. She wasn’t working with Squall, that much was true. She had made it clear from the beginning that she was his apprentice only in the sense that she would learn the Wundrous Arts from him and absolutely nothing else. It was true that she had turned her head, and deliberately stopped listening when he spoke softly about the inefficiency of wunsoc, that all they did was distract and distract and slap salve on the tumour, and never deal with what was ever the root of any problem.
The root of the problem was a concept so nebulous and vague that she had no idea what he was really talking about, and she wasn’t interested in finding out more either. For his problem, that was. Hers was pretty clear, and a lot worse.
“I’m not helping him do anything,” she said. “I’m not doing anything for him. You know he helped me with destroying the hollowpox, Jupiter, but… he also helped me cure it.”
Jupiter gnawed at his lip, muttering, or at least making the shapes of words with his mouth but no sound emerging. “I should have asked more questions,” he finally admitted. “I thought- you almost died after destroying the hollowpox, Mog. I saw you wasting away on the bed in the Teaching Hospital, suspended between life, and well- there was no way you could have done it but I didn’t want to see it. But that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t have. And it doesn’t mean I don’t now.”
The sigh of relief that had almost escaped her crawled all the way down her oesophagus and settled somewhere in her small intestine. “I can go,” she said. “I know what trust means, and I know I have to leave the Deucalion now.” Where she would go was technically beyond her but she could figure it out. Maybe she’d be allowed to stay at Proudfoot House like some senior scholars did? Not if she had to resign her place there. It wasn’t exactly like she could weave a house, but if she had nowhere to go, then she would find somewhere. It wasn’t like she had much of a choice.
“What?” his voice cracked. “Morrigan, you’re not leaving.”
“I have to,” she said, mentally working out what she could take with her. Jupiter had bought all her clothes, would she be allowed to take them? There wasn’t much anyone else could do with them. And her books? It wasn’t like she could take more than a couple. And they might get wet. “I broke your trust.”
“That doesn’t mean you have to go,” he said, crouching down and taking her hands. “I mean, it means we’re going to have a few serious conversations, and you’re not going to see Squall ever again if I can help it, but you’re not going, Morrigan. Where would you go?”
That only opened the floodgates further, actual, real tears pouring down her face. She had to wipe her hand against the back of her nose to keep it under control. “I don’t know,” she gulped.
She felt strong arms come around her, pulling her in, and Jupiter’s beard tickled the side of her ear, “You are going nowhere, Morrigan Crow, unless you want to, and if it’s safe. You can stay here for as long as you want, no matter what you do. Alright?”
She squeezed her eyes together, trying not to think about how she was ruining the shoulder of Jupiter’s coat or that she wasn’t going to learn from Squall anymore, or that she wasn’t going to have to hear him muttering things she almost believed in now, and just let herself be held for the time being. They could deal with the rest of it later. Together.