Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Admit it, you’re a little happy about this,” Titus said from his perch on the passenger seat next to her. Olivia usually made him sit in the back where it was safer, but she’d given in and let him sit up front ‘just this once’. She was getting soft in her old age.

“You think I’m happy about a car bomb?” Liv asked incredulously as she drove through the streets of Manhattan.

Titus thought for a moment as he fluffed out his wings and turned his long and graceful neck so that he was looking at her fully. “Well, maybe not happy about that. But happy that you’re going to miss the ceremony.”

Liv took her eyes off the road to throw a look of consternation at her daemon swan. The truth was she couldn’t lie to him but she could deflect. “I can’t help it that I got called in,” she argued.

“For a bomb? Since when is a bomb an SVU case?”

Titus had a way of pointing out the obvious and forcing her to confront the inconsistencies in her life. Usually that was a good thing but right now it was annoying as fuck.

“We’re here,” Liv said as she parked the car just outside of the crime scene. “Best behavior, Titus.”

And she couldn’t help but smile at the effrontery on his face. Who knew a swan could be so expressive. “Am I ever anything but professional?”

“Do I need to remind you about the time you broke a man’s leg with your wing?” she asked as she opened the door and got out, holding it for her daemon as he hopped over the console and down to the ground.

“He deserved it,” Titus argued. But their bickering fell silent as they surveyed the scene around them.

It was strange that she’d been called out to a car bombing, but with all the protests going on it was possible that there was a bit of short staffing at the moment. But Titus was right. She was a little relieved at the excuse to miss the awards ceremony - or at least to be very, very late for it.

There were a couple of unis at the scene and the paramedics had already arrived. That was what mostly caught her attention. She noticed him before Titus did.

“Maurice?” Liv said softly with a question in her voice. “Maurice, is that you?”

There was a gurney being taken into the waiting ambulance and a woman was lying on it, her head in a brace and her face was hard to see, but she recognized the koala immediately. That was Kathy Stabler’s daemon.

“Kathy?” she called out.

It was Maurice but he was perched by Kathy’s side and looking at her worriedly. He seemed a bit worse for wear, too. His fur was singed badly and he looked like he could barely sit upright.

As she looked around at the scene she was having a hard time taking it all in. Was that why she’d been called, because she knew the vic? She was trying to find the officer in charge but then a voice stopped her.

“Liv.”

She knew that voice. She could live a thousand lifetimes and recognize the tone and cadence of that voice as he called out her name.

But Titus was quicker than her. Her instinct was to reach out for him - to grab a hold of him and keep him close by her side. But he was already swooping - not flying exactly - he was only going a few yards but he opened his full nine foot wingspan and called out, “Mary!”

And Mary rushed to him. For most people a daemon pit bull running at them full force would be enough to make them fear for their lives. But not Titus. Titus kept his wings open and took the full force of Mary’s body running into him. To anyone else it would look like an attack but Liv closed her eyes and gave in to the inevitable warmth that flooded her senses as Titus was reunited with his friend. After ten years they were together again.

The two daemons were embracing and laughing and crying. It was enough to steal the breath from Olivia’s lungs. She didn’t know how to feel as she watched Titus wrap his wings around Mary and she could almost feel the way Mary was licking Titus. Licking his face, his neck, his body - in the sweet caring way that she used to do so very, very long ago.

And if Mary was here then that meant that Elliot couldn’t be too far away.

No sooner had the thought occurred to her than he seemed to step out of the haze of smoke and fog surrounding the scene.

“Elliot,” she whispered.

His feet brought him quickly in front of her but he stopped short of actually being close enough to touch. And all they could do was stare at one another.

Elliot.

She couldn’t place the look he was giving her. She couldn’t read the way his eyes were staring into her soul and the way his whole body was tense, as if he were holding himself back. She couldn’t read him at all.

Anyone else she may have hugged them. Stuck out her hand to shake. Smiled even. Not Elliot. Titus was fluttering in her heart but she couldn’t muster up a smile for them.

“Olivia,” Titus called her attention back to him, “Olivia it’s Mary! Mary’s here.” And the two daemons were still embracing, still laughing and she and Elliot could only stand there gazing at one another in silence.

When she couldn’t stand it anymore she asked, “Elliot, what happened?”

“They tried to kill Kathy,” he said and his eyes looked past her at the ambulance that was now speeding away.

When his eyes met hers again she could barely name the rush of emotions that were flooding through her. Anger, resentment, maybe even a little bit of fear.

But then her eyes wandered back to Mary who was barking happily and jumping around Titus and the two were making a scene that was starting to become a little embarrassing. It was enough to make the unis nearby stop and smirk at the two of them.

But Titus had been so lonely when Mary went away. Mary had left and Elliot went with her. And now here they were ten years later and while their daemons couldn’t seem to stop laughing and dancing around one another in happiness she and Elliot just stood there staring at each other. It was enough to make her want to cry.

She could feel Mary touching her soul, the part of her soul that lived inside of Titus and it was enough to take her breath away. And she knew that Elliot could feel Titus, too.

But all they could do was stand there looking at one another. And as they did the thought occurred to Olivia, what the hell do we do now?

Olivia stood inside the hospital waiting room thinking about another moment of Kathy in an ambulance, just after giving birth to Eli. She still remembered little Sophia, unformed, just a haze of light and how she’d flit around the baby she held in her arms. She remembered the ache in Titus’s chest to see that little light and know it wasn’t for them.

“Liv,” Titus said, a note of pleasure in his voice, relief, hope that had been absent for so long. Too long. “Liv –”

But they were interrupted by Elliot walking into the hospital waiting room. Titus was quiet but she could feel his immediate pleasure when Mary walked over to him and sat beside him, their sides pressed together like they used to do. Always touching like they used to. Olivia felt like she could feel Mary’s gaze on her, with a certain gleam in her eyes.

She couldn’t put a name to it but in some ways Olivia felt more wary of Mary than she did of Elliot. Elliot she could be distant with. Elliot she could be furious with. Mary though? Sweet, sensitive Mary? How could she possibly do anything but adore Titus’s best friend?

Finally she was forced to sit down, hating the way she fidgeted in Elliot’s presence. Hating the way she didn’t know what to do. She always knew what to do these days. Always. It was her job to direct everyone.

She could feel Titus though. Could feel his eerie calmness. She briefly wondered if Elliot and Mary could see how fundamentally they’d both changed in the past ten years. Wondered if they could see all the ways they’d broken and stitched themselves together again.

Elliot spoke roughly about what he’d done back at the station. The way he’d disobeyed her direct orders. The way he’d made a promise and broke it three minutes later. The way she’d had to berate him as if he were a uni with his thumb up his ass. It had embarrassed her because she’d allowed him in interrogation even when she could see her entire squad disapproved. She tried to tell herself she felt sorry for him. That if it was Noah in a hospital bed Elliot would let her interrogate the person who put him there.

But this wasn’t the old days where they could play wild wild west and act with impunity. Cragen wasn’t here to cover her ass anymore. Now if she made a mistake, when her team made a mistake, she was the one with her head on the block.

“Olivia, I –” Mary began to say before Elliot said, “Liv, I’m sorry,” just as she was about to leave.

Much as she tried to deflect, the combination of Mary’s sweet brown eyes and the pain in Elliot’s gaze made her give in and sit down across from him.

But inside her chest she could feel Titus. Could feel his wariness, mingled with hope. But more than that she could feel the pain of his broken heart. A heart Elliot and Mary had broken when they left. She could forgive them for hurting her, she couldn’t forgive them for hurting Titus.

“Elliot, we don’t have to do this,” she said quickly even though she very much wanted him to answer for his behavior. Wanted an explanation for why they’d –

But her habit had almost always been to defer to Elliot. Not because he was always right, but because she always trusted him. Even when he was wrong, she trusted him. She’d trusted that he had her back. Trusted that he wouldn’t let her down. Trusted that the world could forsake her but Elliot and Mary would be a constant in her life.

She’d been wrong.

Still, she looked at him and softly asked, “You’re sorry for leaving?” She thought she heard a slight whimper from Mary but kept her eyes on him. “Or are you sorry for walking – for not giving me the courtesy of telling me?”

“Both,” he answered and he was giving her that sorrowful look with tears in his eyes but she was unmoved. If he’d come to her asking for comfort because his wife was in a hospital bed she’d have felt pity for him and done her best to console him. But he hadn’t done that. He’d come with a half assed apology and she could feel Titus and the hope he was trying to keep at bay.

So much had changed and nothing made her realize that as much as seeing Elliot again. She remembered that feeling of hollowness where she’d once felt Titus’s happiness. Remembered the days and weeks when he’d done his best to excuse their behavior, their silence, until even he’d been forced to admit they’d been abandoned by their best friends.

“I think I thought if I talked to you about how I –” he said, and they were sitting impossibly close, their knees almost touching. She’d fallen back into the circle of his presence without realizing it and was at a loss of how to back away.

“You walked away,” she interrupted. Trying to understand what Titus wanted. Wanting to do this for him. Wanting to do whatever would make him happiest but she just felt so much fucking fear and she was tired of her swan being scared. “Cause that’s what you did, Elliot. Titus and I had to find out from Cragen.”

Elliot’s gaze slid to Titus and she wondered how much he felt through Mary. Wondered if they were still connected enough that it felt like he could read her mind through their daemons’ touch. All she felt from Mary was a combination of sorrow and anger.

“Olivia,” he whispered.

“Elliot,” she answered and Titus was telling her to be brave. Titus was telling her that surely if Mary had hurt him she had a good reason for it.

Olivia thought of the last time she’d seen them. Thought of the shooting and Mary cowering underneath their desks. Thought about Titus sitting beside Elliot who had blood on his hands. Thought about how Mary had touched her. How she’d felt her soft fur under her hands and the warmth of her body resting against her, seeking comfort after she’d killed Jenna’s macaw.

“You and Mary,” she said, deciding to listen to her clever daemon, “were the most, the two most important people to us –”

Mary whimpered, Elliot repeated her name. Titus was silent.

“ – and you just . . . disappeared.”

“I know,” he said, so low she barely heard him.

“Olivia,” Mary said, her voice full of pain. Olivia wanted to go to her. Wanted to comfort her. Wanted to reassure sweet Mary that she still loved her. Would always love her.

“I was afraid,” Elliot said before Mary could say her piece, “if I heard your voice, I wouldn’t have been able to leave.”

A well of some unnameable emotion welled inside of Titus and she felt more than saw him stand to his feet and leave Mary’s side. He did not approach the two humans but walked to the hallway. He didn’t go very far but he made his opinion very clear. Titus didn’t want to hear anymore. The only thing that kept him from testing their bond was that he was still scared of just how far he could go. That if he started walking away he’d never find her again.

They were all saved by her phone ringing and there weren’t very many things that would have made her leave but Titus’s dismay and Garland’s request to see her combined to give her an excuse to leave.

She still felt Mary’s eyes on her, thought she heard her say her name.

And Olivia hated herself for it, but she didn’t dare look back.

Chapter Text

“This is a bad idea,” Mary said mournfully while still managing to sound pissed off. Elliot thought that being reunited with Titus might have made her more amenable to him since he was her person. But ever since their reunion with Liv and her daemon she’d been even more ornery. Although he knew a good portion of it had to do with the loss of Maurice, too. They were in mourning.

The truth was that Elliot wasn’t sure he’d ever get over Kathy’s death. He’d known her since he was a child. Had loved her, lived with her, raised children with her. He’d given her everything in his power and still felt like he failed her in the end. Maybe if her passing had been different. Maybe if they’d been in their eighties and she’d passed peacefully in her sleep –

His thoughts were cut short as he picked out one particular silhouette and the snow white daemon walking beside her. She was in head to toe black but it made the dash of bright blue running away from her to go to the top of the small hill to sled down that much brighter.

It was a beautiful day if you didn’t mind the cold, though he might have preferred meeting Liv at a diner or even at home or the precinct because seeing her in the wild always had an effect on him.

The distance was too great to clearly see the child or his daemon. He only knew he was a boy because Latieshka had told Mary, who informed him. Apparently Latieshka had been more than happy to answer all of Mary’s nosy questions and she’d been happy and belligerent while informing them about all they’d missed these past ten years.

“What? Who did she date?” he’d asked, his ears pricking on that detail.

Mary almost smiled and looked away. “I’ll let you find out for yourself.”

Now they were standing in the snow on the edge of the park where groups of kids had met to play in the snow. It was Olivia’s idea to meet here. She’d explained that she didn’t have any time to get the files to him, but if he wanted to meet her at the park she’d have them.

He should have started walking towards her the moment he saw her.

What should have happened is he should have gotten there a little late and had a few minutes to watch Liv playing with her son. After a short while she’d see him and look his way, cheeks flushed red, a twinkle of happiness in her eyes. He would have gone to her and she’d proudly introduce them to her son. Titus would preen over his cygnet, Mary would say all the right things . . .

But that wasn’t how it happened. Too late he realized this reunion with Liv and Titus wasn’t going to be what he wanted it to be.

Still, Mary happily bounded towards the two of them once she saw them and he saw Liv raise her eyebrows when she saw just how far his stretch with Mary had gotten. It was borderline embarrassing, to be honest. In the past they’d had a good twenty feet, maybe thirty under certain circumstances. Now Mary had run forward at least forty feet and he only felt the slightest twinge under his rib cage at the distance.

Meanwhile, it hadn’t gone unnoticed by him that Titus was almost always within arm’s reach of Liv these last few meetings. The exception being maybe when the swan was with a friend – or particularly irritated with him.

It was the damned strangest thing about daemons and there was a lot he still didn’t understand.

Mary was thrilled to see Liv and Titus at any opportunity, where he always had to ball his hands into a fist to keep them from noticeably shaking each time they were in proximity. Titus was over the moon to be reunited with Mary and had no problem being vocal about it. In fact, he seemed the most like himself when he was with Mary. Hell, they’d even touched each other immediately. There’d been no wait to reacclimate to one another.

But Liv. Liv was a harder sell. Despite her obvious affection for Mary, she kept her distance and barely spoke to her. She didn’t try to prevent Titus from speaking to her, but she only spoke to her when it would have been rude to ignore her otherwise. Mary held that against him more than anything else.

The connection between Liv and Mary had always fascinated him while filling him with fear. From the very start the connection between Mary and Titus was there and that was fine. That was even good for work partners who had to depend on each other for protection. But as the years went on, Mary started turning to Liv more and more often for the comfort and affection she’d always been desperate for.

Hell, Elliot still remembered the first time Liv touched Mary. She’d had on thick daemon handling gloves but he’d still felt it in his soul when Liv had scratched behind Mary’s ears and petted her back. He’d loved it. Almost as much as Mary did.

Despite that, it never occurred to him to touch Titus, even when he was wearing gloves. But Mary had always been desperate for Liv’s touch.

Everything was a muddled mess and now he was both happy and anxious to meet with Liv despite the churning in his gut. He hated to think it but he knew he deserved Liv’s wrath. Knew she had every right to hate him, or if she didn’t hate him, to mistrust him. It had been tempered by Kathy’s hospitalization and hardened by her death. Liv pitied him and it was keeping her from letting him have it the way he knew he deserved.

Didn’t matter. Between Mary’s anger and Titus’s antipathy, he’d gladly accept Liv’s pity if it put him in her good graces.

There was the briefest exchange as she handed over her bag of information on Kathy’s case. It had been nice while it lasted but there was no way SVU was going to keep the case. Not when they had other fish to fry. It didn’t just mean that a huge resource had been taken away, it also meant the best detective in New York wouldn’t be looking at it. Well. Captain now. Liv was Captain.

But she’d always be a damn good detective, no matter what her title was.

“Eli’s all about soccer,” he told her, hoping that mentioning his children might thaw some of the ice. He found he was cold, and it had nothing to do with the snow falling around them.

At their feet Mary and Titus were following their conversation, but their sides were touching and he could feel the strangest echoes coming from that touch. He could feel Mary’s relief to be by her friend, but through that he could feel Titus and when he felt Titus he felt hesitation.

The thing about Titus was that he was confident. Elliot had never seen him cower or turn away from a challenge. Elliot knew there was truth to the adage that swans were vicious because he’d seen him in action time and time again.

But what filled him with the most disquiet was that past Mary and through Titus he could feel a faint pulse of Liv’s heart. And Liv didn’t feel angry or resentful or even hesitant. He would have appreciated anger. He deserved anger. Even confusion would have been better. Instead he felt sorrow. True sorrow. The same touch of mourning he’d felt from her when their daemons touched after Serena died. Except he could also tell that this wasn’t mourning for someone else. Liv was in mourning for him.

And he had a feeling it had little to do with his recent loss.

“What do you think, silly goose?” Elliot said with false bravado to Titus. “Can you picture the two of us in Rome?”

Elliot expected a smart alec reply. Maybe even one of his famous quotes. God, he still couldn’t hear Shakespeare without thinking of Titus, even after all these years. But Titus lifted his head, looked at Liv and for an animal whose features were static there was never any trouble knowing what he was feeling. The look he gave Liv was clearly ‘please, handle this for me’.

“Yeah,” Liv said for him, “I can’t believe you lived in Rome.”

It was strange but he answered, “Had this great apartment. Terrace overlooking this 15th century palazzo.”

Titus turned his face away, Liv looked forward, he actually heard Mary whimper. He ignored all three reactions and stupidly said, “You would have loved it,” even knowing it was the wrong thing to say. Maybe he said it especially because it was the wrong thing to say.

But instead of Liv answering Titus quietly said, “Please don’t,” and those two simple words cut him harder and deeper than any amount of anger could have.

It was a tacit acknowledgement that despite how polite and sympathetic everyone was acting and despite the cordiality and his hamfisted response, there was something underneath that had grown into the space where their love for each other had once rested.

Part of him had half hoped, half dreaded that he would reunite with Liv and she would be ambivalent. That maybe she’d smile and shake his hand and say something along the lines of “we should meet for coffee” in the offhanded way you might tell an acquaintance from school. The sort of halfhearted promise you never kept. He’d dreaded that she’d moved on from what had been such a goddamn special partnership. That maybe she’d pretend . . .

Elliot looked down at Mary and almost imperceptably she shook her head, reading his thoughts.

His hand grazed the outside of his coat pocket where he could feel the weight of the letter Kathy had written Liv that he’d put his name on. Well, Maurice had mostly written it, but that was neither here nor there. Mary had grown more and more sullen with each line they’d dictated that he’d faithfully written down until she’d growled at him the next time he tried to pet her.

It was wrong. The letter was wrong. The letter was little more than his own worst fears reversed and seeing Liv, even in the depths of his grief over Kathy and Maurice, he knew that cutting her – them – by saying it wasn’t real . . . Fuck. Nevermind Liv. Titus would never forgive him for it.

Olivia did what she did best and deflected away from the elephant in the room, reminding him that he still needed to hunt down his wife’s killer. There were too many emotions inside of him to land on just one. Kathy. His wife, Kathy. And Maurice who was such a curmudgeon as the years went by but he’d loved him, too. He’d never see them again. At least Kathy had her headstone. All that was left of Maurice was golden ash that had scattered and blown away and Mary’s memories of him.

Christ, what a mess. What a goddamn mess he’d made of his life. If Kathy were here things would be clear. No matter how much Mary pouted, Elliot had made his choice and picked Kathy. He’d picked the promises he’d made over what Mary wanted with every fiber of her being. But Kathy was gone.

And Liv was here.

And everyone was pissed off about something. Mostly about him.

“When they, uh,” he began to say, making Mary stand to her feet, the hairs on her neck and back bristling from more than the cold, “had us RSVP for your award ceremony, they asked me to say a few words.”

He watched her eyebrows rise high on her forehead in surprise at the thought of him giving a speech.

“But you know how I am with public speaking.”

“Yeah,” she said with the faintest trace of a smile and a shake of her head.

“Elliot –” Mary began to say.

And he felt how heavy the letter was in his pocket. Could feel it like it was burning a hole in his side. They weren’t his words but didn’t he owe it to Kathy and Maurice? Didn’t they deserve this last act of . . . of . . . of . . . loyalty?

Or had he done enough?

Had he, with his decision to cut ties with Liv and Titus, had he done enough?

His hand was in his pocket, clutching the white envelope but just as he was pulling it out to give to Liv, Mary lunged forward and bit his hand.

“Ow, fuck,” he said, grasping his throbbing hand close.

“Oh, Mary!” Liv cried at the same time Titus said, “Dearest!”

“Jesus, Mary,” Elliot said, flexing his hand as he inspected it. She hadn’t bit him hard. She didn’t even tear the skin. There was a slight red mark but even that was already fading. “Alright, alright. Calm down.”

Mary was standing on all fours, her lips were curled back and a drop of saliva fell from her mouth as she let out a low growl aimed at him.

“Alright, you win,” he repeated, holding up both hands in surrender. “We talked about this.”

He straightened up after giving her one last glare but kept his hand far from his pocket. When he finally looked at Liv her mouth was dropped open in surprise.

“Mary . . . bites . . . you?”

Elliot flushed red.

“Oh, just . . .”

He could feel his face burn crimson and despite the falling snow it became insufferably warm under his heavy coat.

“She’s . . . more bark than bite.”

“Elliot –”

“Mommy! Mommy!” called out a little boy, making Liv turn and despite not even knowing his name, Elliot felt a deep well of affection and gratitude towards Liv’s son for pulling her attention away at such an awkward moment.

“Did you see that one, mom?”

The little boy’s face was flush with happiness and his grin had Liv’s name stamped all over it.

“I did, yeah,” she said, but Elliot frowned when Titus’s first action was to spread his wings wide and turn away from him and Mary to walk towards the little boy and his daemon who was in the form of a fennec fox, her large ears jutting from the sides of her head. As soon as she saw Liv’s daemon she playful jumped at him, landing gracefully on Titus’s back.

There was only the briefest of goodbyes between him and Liv and he could feel Mary’s desperation to join the two daemons and people but she stayed put beside him, letting out a whimper so faint, only he heard it.

“I’m sorry, Mary,” he said once they were out of earshot as he watched Liv run down the slope, her little boy beside her. “I’m so sorry.”

He didn’t expect her to answer. These days she spoke to him as little as possible. But maybe she could feel that watching Liv run off with her son, without introducing them, made him feel as shitty as she felt.

“I’m sorry, too.”

Chapter Text

Mary had grown to become a good actress over the years. It started at home. It started when she had to learn to pretend that her heart wasn’t broken the longer and further she roamed away from Titus. Maurice had once accused her of being obsessed with the swan and his human. She didn’t think it was that at all.

It was only that there was something about Titus that felt like home. He was her friend. Her partner. Titus understood pieces of her that no one else had even thought to look at.

Elliot insisted on making it messy. He’d ruined everything for them when he went from seeing Olivia as a partner to seeing her as someone he’d like to kiss, hold, maybe even join in bed. It was possible she knew some of his more intimate dreams in the past few years. There were many times she’d wake up in the middle of the night to find Maurice studying her.

Daemons were incapable of lying. It just wasn’t in them. Mary didn’t want to lie. She didn’t want to hide. She wore her heart on her sleeve. All her emotions bubbled at the surface and she’d never understood why that was a bad thing.

But when it became obvious that her pouting was hurting her family, hurting Maurice and the kids’ daemons – well, she’d become adept at putting on a smile and pushing through the pain of being away from Titus.

It was useful when they went undercover which was happening more and more these days. And it was easier when she wanted to slip in under the radar. People could look at her and see an aloof and dangerous pit bull. They could look at her and see hard muscle, sharp fangs, long claws. They could see that she wouldn’t be intimidated.

Which was why she’d been raring to go when Elliot told her the game plan for the man who’d threatened Noah and Ophelia and by proxy, Liv and Titus. They were hers. They were her people, hers to protect. And if Liv was going to call them to show off her muscle, to show that she had a vicious canine at her beck and call . . . well, she could do that easily.

“You might not know me,” Elliot said as he stepped up to the urinal, leaving Mary sitting behind him, looking neutrally at Hayes’s daemon. They’d done their research and she was a babirusa, also known as a deer pig, named Molly. Sure, they looked intimidating, almost like a miniature boar, they were known for being feral, but that didn’t intimidate Mary. She’d taken down worse before. “But I know you. And not in a vague kind of way.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” asked the man.

“Mueller Hayes you joined the academy in ‘95 –” Elliot went on with his little monologue of all the information he’d accumulated but Mary kept her gaze firmly on Molly. Molly was sitting on her haunches behind Hayes, probably confident that her thick skin protected her. Confident that nothing could touch her. Well, that was because she’d never met Mary before.

“I see the patterns in your life, even if you don’t. Fast forward a few years, well, here you are –”

Quick as a flash Mary lunged forward at the same moment Elliot pushed Hayes against the urinal wall. It had been years since they’d been so in tune with one another but over something like this, there was no debate over what they were going to do, how they’d do it, what the outcome would be.

Mary grasped Molly by the neck, making sure her sharp canines dug into the tender flesh that covered her jugular, relishing the way she struggled futilely, the panic flooding through her as she let her teeth sink down further. She placed one heavy paw over her rump to hold her down, relishing the terror that ran though her as she let her claws dig in ever so lightly.

“If you ever go anywhere near my friend or her son again I won’t take you down,” Elliot said, his voice hoarse and gruff, mad and uncompromising, “I’ll take you apart.”

Mary let Molly struggle in her grasp, her harsh pig noises coming out in little squeals as she struggled before she unceremoniously dropped her to the floor.

“Tell Gomez to watch his back,” Mary growled at her, for a brief moment relishing the fear in her eyes before she walked away. “And you come near my swan or his cygnet again . . .” She lowered her voice until it was little more than a growl. “It’ll be the last thing you do.”

For now that would be all they did. Hayes was a weakling. A follower. A lackey. But he’d send the message to Gomez and he damn well better pay attention.

“I feel real good about that,” Elliot said, reaching over to pet Mary as they walked out the courthouse restroom. Behind them Hayes silently left, rubbing at his throat as Molly’s feet moved quickly to keep up with him as they ran away.

They could have left. They’d done what they came to do and that was enough for now. They’d keep an eye on him but they were both confident they’d gotten the message across. Still, they wanted to see Liv and Titus. To reassure them. To let them know that, despite all the ways they’d let them down in the past, they were here now.

“Mary –”

They caught sight of them at the same time. Across the lobby Liv was speaking on FaceTime, looking at her phone with a frown but her sixth sense perked up and when she looked up and their gaze met she smiled with relief as she ended her phone call.

“You got here in record time.”

“Anytime, anywhere, partner,” Elliot said with a grim smile.

“You okay?” Mary asked Titus, lowering her voice so only he heard her.

“Yeah. Yeah, it was just. You know – better safe than sorry.”

Mary let her gaze dance lightly over the patch of synthetic skin on Titus’s back, dropped down to look at his prosthetic foot and grimaced. Titus had been very vague about what he’d gone through at Lewis’s hands and Mary’s imagination went wild thinking about it. One of her regrets was that Annabelle and Lewis were dead and out of reach of her teeth.

“He won’t hurt you, Titus,” she promised. “And he’ll never touch Ophelia or Noah.”

Titus looked relieved and his ruffled feathers settled closer to his body. “Well, not with my Mary by my side.”

He said it lightly, almost as if he were joking but Mary felt the gravity of the situation. Olivia hadn’t called Elliot when BX9 had been after her. The trust hadn’t been there quite yet. But they’d worked on it. They were slowly getting to a place where they were rebuilding that trust and now Mary knew it would never go back to what they’d once had, but she was hopeful that it would become something more.

“I’ll always be here when you call me, Titus,” she said, fighting the urge to nuzzle her nose against his cheek. “I’m here for you. Always.”

Above them Elliot and Liv were having their own conversation but Mary could tell it echoed hers with Titus.

“I know that, sweet Mary. Nothing bad can happen with you watching over us.”

Chapter Text

“Don’t forget your lunch!” Titus called before Noah could shut the door. He gave Ophelia a little nuzzle and a reminder for her to take care of Noah. This week she was a Japanese Spider Crab and he thought she looked particularly pretty like this with her long limbs and graceful movements. Sure, she wasn’t a bird but that didn’t matter. All Titus cared about was that she was happy and healthy and . . . oh, please, don’t ever turn into a duck or goose. The week Ophelia had been upset with him and turned into a chicken would have given him gray feathers if it was possible. As it was, it caused him to molt early.

“Love you!” Olivia said through the closed window as he gave a cheerful last wave before running into his school.

Before either of them could get a word in, Elliot was tapping on the passenger side window and in a flurry of feathers Titus hopped over to the backseat. Elliot opened the backdoor for Mary to climb in out of the cold while Elliot sat up front with Liv. It was so much like how it once was, except now there was a dull ache in Titus’s heart and there were days he couldn’t tell if he was feeling Liv’s confusion or if it was his own. Perhaps they were just that in tune these days.

“Hello, Titus,” Mary said, tail in the air, ears pricked up, posture upright. She was truly beautiful with her brown and white fur. Titus was surprised to see that Mary was wearing dog boots, something Elliot had flat out refused to get her back in the day. It wouldn’t have caused any permanent damage for Mary to be cold, but certainly she’d be more comfortable if her delicate paws weren’t touching the icy sidewalks. At least one of Titus’s legs didn’t have that problem anymore, though sometimes his joints hurt when the air pressure changed.

Titus didn’t think he’d ever seen such a beautiful daemon in his life, with perhaps the exception of Ophelia. But of course Ophelia was his cygnet and maybe he was biased. He didn’t think he was biased but Latieshka told him she felt the same for Makeda. She told him that it meant queen of greatness and while Titus had only met Ken’s daemon briefly he had to admit she had a flair, too.

“Good morning, sweet Mary,” he answered. But where in the past he would have immediately approached her and settled down wing to hip he now kept himself back.

Up front their people were making small talk. Elliot had brought Liv coffee and he could smell that it was the sort of coffee she drank a decade ago before Ed had introduced her to his stock of flavored syrups and gourmet creamers. Thinking of Ed and Hypatia always brought a pang of sadness and he quickly shook the thoughts of them away.

“He’s a lovely boy,” Mary said, looking out the window where Noah and Ophelia had run off to. “What’s her name?”

“Ophelia,” Titus said proudly. “She’s the sweetest girl in the world. So delicate but tough. Graceful but boisterous.”

“She sounds lovely.”

Titus tilted his head to the side. “When they were three and Noah had a bad cold she changed into a White Bellbird. Their chirps can reach over 125 decibels. That’s about as loud as the Whitesnake concert Liv went to when she was a teenager. She cawed all night long despite our best attempts to comfort her.”

“Oh, Titus.”

“I love her more than anything in the whole wide world.” It was something he told her all the time. Something he enjoyed telling her. Losing Benedick and with the fresh loss of Simon and Sara and his daughter Olivia so far away, he really was their only family now. But it wasn’t just that they belonged to one another. Titus still remembered meeting Ophelia in that dirty motel room. She’d been so small she hadn’t even made her first form but she touched him and it was like the world exploded into a beautiful garden full of fresh flowers and colors he didn’t realize existed until he met her.

“And . . .” Mary said, sitting down and resting her head on her front paws. She took up most of the seat but that was okay with Titus. He wasn’t actively avoiding her touch. But he could feel how hurt Olivia was and ever since their torture he did his best to minimize her pain in any way he could. “And . . . who helped you pick out Ophelia’s name?”

Daemon names weren’t picked out by the child’s parents. Some families had traditions, like the Bensons choice of Shakespearean names. He knew the Stablers liked solid, common names. But either way, the child’s daemon’s name was typically something their parents’ daemons agreed on, though it was custom to defer to the mother’s daemon. Titus thought this was on account of the mom doing all the work in terms of pregnancy and labor, but that didn’t count for Olivia.

Titus wasn’t naive and he’d never discouraged Mary’s jealousy of other daemons. Secretly it pleased him to know he could inspire that emotion. He knew she would never begrudge him the love of his cygnet but she’d always been interested in who he allowed to sleep in his nest when Liv had sexual partners.

“I suppose Elliot asked you to find out the details on Noah’s paternity?” There was only amusement in his tone. He tilted his head to the side to see if the people were listening in on their conversation but they were knee deep in Liv’s concern for Elliot’s welfare and him doing his best to obfuscate and pretend he wasn’t suffering from PTSD.

Mary was incapable of lying. “I would have asked even if he hadn’t.”

“Well, it would be simple enough for you to find out, I suppose. It’s no secret. Noah is adopted. We found each other when he was an infant.”

“Oh,” she said, full of surprise. “Oh, I’m so glad – that is . . . we were happy to hear you finally had your cygnet. I know it was your deepest wish.”

“Oh, Mary,” he said with a sigh. “I never knew love could feel like this. I was so aflutter when he came home with us. I rarely slept because I just wanted to sit beside their crib and watch them rest. You know, when we met she came up to me and settled underneath my wing. She didn’t even know us, but I like to think that Ophelia knew she was home the instant we did.”

“Love at first sight,” she said with a happy sigh.

“Oh, yes. Yes, exactly.”

“And . . .” Mary had never been one to hesitate before but she was stepping as if there were landmines now. Titus decided to give her a break and puffed out his wing just enough that the tips of his feathers touched her haunch. “And Fin mentioned to Elliot that . . . that there was a relationship . . . a serious one . . .”

There’d actually been two but Titus knew Fin and the rest of the squad had never quite understood his fascination with Michelle and Liv’s soft love for Brian. They were an odd couple to be sure and Michelle didn’t come out of her shell for anyone.

Until they came along.

There were days he missed Michelle and her secrecy, the way she was such an enigma that he wanted to unwrap. He missed Brian’s jokes about birds of a feather. Missed swimming with Michelle in the park pond on Sundays. He missed a lot of things about them. But they’d been on different paths and he understood that as much as he wanted a cygnet, Michelle, for her own reasons, did not.

But that’s not who Fin would have been speaking about. No, there was only one person he’d have counted as serious.

“You actually knew them.”

“Oh?” Mary said. She’d always been a terrible actress. Most daemons were. Perhaps Titus was good at sleight of hand due to his acting skills and penchant for quotes.

“Hypatia, Mary. We dated Hypatia and Ed Tucker.”

Mary sat upright, fur slightly bristled, body tense. “Hypatia? But . . . but I thought . . . you never liked her. You never . . . you never showed the slightest interest in her.”

“No,” Titus agreed. “No, I didn’t for a long time. I know these things can start in various ways but Liv . . . warmed up to Ed. I know we have our past experiences with him, most not so pleasant. But getting to know the two of them . . . it was solid. It . . . could have been a good foundation. We were happy, Mary. We had our cygnet, Hypatia seemed to understand me in ways I never dreamed of, for a while we were truly happy.”

Titus couldn’t lie but he could keep secrets and he wouldn’t tell her about the way he’d felt every moment Ed and Liv conjugated. He couldn’t tell her that resting in his nest beside Hypatia while the humans expressed their own love had been divine. Titus knew he would never ask about Mary’s feelings when she and Maurice cuddled while Elliot and Kathy were together in bed. Some things were private.

“But . . . it ended,” Mary said softly. “Why did it end?”

Titus looked forward at Liv. Their gaze met in the mirror before she turned back to Elliot.

There were some things they weren’t ready to talk about. Some things that . . . they regretted and could barely admit to one another, let alone someone as biased as Mary.

“Oh, Mary. I’ve never asked you what your differences with Maurice were.”

Mary, who was always expressive, looked ashamed by her nosiness. Titus could only lean forward and nuzzle her muzzle with his beak.

“There are wounds,” Titus said, “and then there are wounds.” After a moment of silence he added, “Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds, or bends with the remover to remove: O no! it is an ever-fixed mark that looks on tempests and is never shaken.”

Mary tilted her head to the side.

“We were shaken,” Titus explained. “We let ourselves be shaken. It was wonderful and then it was over and . . .”

His gaze met Liv’s once more and he knew she knew who he was talking about. She’d have to forgive him though.

“You know, he took the four of us to Paris,” Titus said, trying desperately to remember the good times. “We walked along the Seine, Ed snuck me escargot and it’s as delicious as I always thought it would be. Caviar and champagne. The Eiffel Tower and Arc D’Triomphe and Champs Elysee . . . it was so much more than we dreamed it would be.”

Mary put her head between her paws, resting on the seat and looking up at him with the most beautiful brown eyes. There was no jealousy in that moment.

“I’m glad, Titus. I’m glad you had so many dreams come true.”

And because she was Mary and because she was his best friend and because he didn’t think there was anyone else in the whole wide world he could say it to he quietly added, “They died. Not . . . we’d been over for years. They moved on and found someone else. And then they were gone and . . . and it was the end of something sweet. The end of . . . the way hope can live in your chest that maybe what was once the right person at the wrong time might turn into the right person at the right time, do you understand?”

“Oh, yes. Yes, I know that feeling exactly.”

“Death is . . . I suppose you understand better than most.”

“Dearest –” Mary began to say but there was a cough up front and both daemons turned to find that their people were eavesdropping.

Titus knew Liv resented the exposure of their hearts but he wanted to argue that however she felt for Elliot, his own feelings for Mary had never dimmed or changed. He still trusted Mary above anyone else in the world. Yes, new people had come into their lives and the love was real. The love endured. The love was even still there.

But Mary was and always had been. From the moment they’d met in Cragen’s office so so many years ago. It had been Mary from day one and Titus felt that, barring Ophelia, Mary it would always be.

“Liv,” Elliot said, breaking the silence. “Liv, I’m so sorry to hear that.”

“It’s been a long ten years,” she said quietly. “A lot has happened since you left.”

“I want to know,” Mary said. “I want to know everything.”

Titus could feel Liv’s reluctance. Still, she didn’t stop him when he said, “In time, we’ll share it all.”