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The Addams home had been many things in its long and illustriously tragic past: an ancient burial site, an asylum, the set for The Brady Bunch reunion…
Yet it had never been quiet.
Until now.
Morticia had grown concerned for her beloved Gomez ever since their return from Nevermore. The destruction of Isaac Night’s infernal machine had unleashed the energy within — wild, furious, searching. It had found its nearest vessel.
It had found Gomez.
Now that he had reclaimed his Outcast abilities, she had expected something within him to blaze anew. And indeed, something had changed.
He had grown… still.
Oh, he remained the heart and pulse of the household, the adoring father, the devoted husband. But there was a pause now — before he spoke, before he laughed — as though the world itself had caught its breath with him. His eyes, once aflame with mischief, now wandered to the walls, to the shadows… as if he sought the home within his own heart.
Morticia feared the day that searching pause would turn toward their children.
Toward her.
She glided down the dusted hallways — Lurch’s fine handiwork — to the one place she knew he would be: his train room.
There she found him.
Her Gomez.
But the trains were motionless — silent, abandoned upon their tracks. And he sat before them, as still as one of their ancestors’ portraits, his gaze locked upon the rails yet lost beyond them.
“Gomez?” she called softly.
He blinked, and turned. “Tish.”
Ah, the way he spoke her name — as though it were the final, perfect word of a dying poet — calmed the tremor in her chest.
“Unhappy, darling?” she asked.
“Always,” he replied, with a smile that flickered like candlelight — bright, but not warm.
“I’m concerned about you, mon cher,” she murmured, approaching. Normally her use of French would have provoked a passionate hand-kiss, or worse — a public display.
This time, he did not move. The chill that ran through her was one she did not enjoy.
“You haven’t truly spoken to me since you recovered your abilities.”
“Oh, but my dearest! I have spoken aplenty!” Gomez declared, springing to his feet with a burst of theatrical energy.
“No, my love,” she replied gently. “You have talked. You have yet to say.”
He froze. His mouth opened — then closed again, the words dying before they were born.
“Gomez… please,” Morticia whispered. “Talk to me.”
He looked around, desperate for words that would not come. Morticia stood in silence, patient as the grave.
At last, he said softly, “I’ve mastered them.”
“Your powers?”
He nodded and the trains came to life and in the distance, the radio began to sound. “It was like having a limb asleep for years… the tingling, the numbness — and then, one dark and stormy night, sensation returned!”
“Marvelous news, is it not?” she said sincerely.
“I’ve regained what was taken from me so long ago…” He paused, his gaze drifting to a far wall, though his eyes saw something well beyond it.
“Gomez?”
“I don’t need them,” he said at last.
Morticia’s brows arched delicately. “What do you mean, my darling?”
“I don’t need them,” he repeated, quieter now. “After living so long without them… after finding the woman who owns my heart and soul—”
That wasn’t entirely true, of course. Morticia had insisted the legal deed to his soul remain locked in the vault — but his heart she had graciously allowed him to keep.
At least until the children left for college.
“I have friends, family… enemies! I have done as I wanted, I have said as I wanted. I've dared to do all that may become a man make and offered no apologies for it” Gomez cried, a spark of life returning to his eyes. “I am as full as a man can be. More, even!”
Morticia understood then.
“Tish?” Gomez asked, seeing the realization on her face. “What is it?”
“You’ve learned it,” she said softly.
“It? I already know It — he’s in Maine,” Gomez replied, earnest as ever.
She smiled faintly and touched his cheek. “No, caro mio. The lesson every young Outcast must one day learn — that our abilities, no matter how dreadful, are only a part of who we are. Never the whole.”
“Yes…” he breathed. “Yes, you’re right.”
“Are you disappointed, my love?” she asked, though her voice trembled beneath the question.
“Only in myself, darling,” he said, regret heavy in his tone.
“What do you mean?”
“I thought… even after I’d made peace with losing them, I’d dream sometimes that if I ever got them back, I’d become that same reckless young fool again — the one you first fell in love with.”
“Oh, Gomez…” She reached for him, pressing her lips to his — dry, rugged, perfect. “You are the one I fell in love with. From the very moment I saw you at that funeral.”
“You were so hauntingly beautiful, my dark enchantress — pale, mysterious… no one even looked at the corpse. You bewitched me utterly.”
“And you,” she smiled, eyes soft as night, “so solemn and brooding, you took the breath from every soul present… especially mine.”
“Mi amor, could you ever forgive me for being such a fool?” he asked, drawing her close.
“Tu n'auras jamais à me supplier... pour te pardonner,” she whispered into his ear.
(You will never have to beg me... for forgiveness.)
He held her tighter, his eyes gleaming like polished obsidian. “Tish… that’s French.”
“Oui,” she breathed, smiling like the moon through fog.
“How long has it been since we’ve waltzed, mi amor?”
“Oh, Gomez…” she sighed, resting her head against his chest. “Hours.”