Archive of Our Own ^beta

His apartment is unlocked when Apollo gets home. There was a time when this would have been cause for alarm, but not any more.

"Hey!" Trucy says from the kitchen of his small studio. "You're home early. I just finished making some hot chocolate!" She looks down at the steaming mug in her hands, then suddenly frowns. "I only made one, though. But you can have mine, and I'll make another!"

He waves her off as he divests himself of his briefcase and jacket. "No thanks. I thought you were out with Thalassa this afternoon?"

Trucy's frown returns, and she blows on her hot chocolate, cooling it down before taking a slow sip. "She had to go to the detention center, something with Machi. I wanted to go with her, but she said he'd be too embarrassed if I was there."

"Is everything okay?"

She nods, moving to join him on his old futon. He's had the thing since college, and it shows, groaning under their combined weight. "I think he's got himself a little boyfriend."

Apollo sighs, shaking his head. Trucy has fully embraced her role of the nosey younger sister, and Apollo's heart goes out to the young Borginian. "Why would they call Thalassa in for that?"

Trucy wriggles her eyebrows suggestively, and Apollo groans as she laughs at his pain and mortification.

"They're having some sort of family event next weekend, for the holidays." She takes another sip of her drink, eying Apollo over the top of the mug. "Thalassa said we could come, if we wanted."

The thing about the both of them being Gramaryes is that it's become impossible for them to hide anything from each other, and the more time they spend together, the more Apollo comes to learn what each of Trucy's particular quirks mean. Not that he'd need his skills of perception to pick up on the nervous hope in her eyes.

"We can go if you want," he says mildly, and immediately she pulls her lips into a bright, false smile; that wasn't quite the level of enthusiasm she'd been hoping for.

"I think it would be nice," she says, resting her mug on the coffee table. "We don't get to see him that often."

Which is true, though visiting hours are scheduled daily at the juvenile corrections facility. They've gone to visit a few times, but it's always awkward; Machi is so quiet, and always wearing his dark round glasses, it's almost impossible to get a read on him. Usually Thalassa and Trucy do most of the talking, chirping back and forth about the weather and the news and asking Machi bland, pleasant questions that he's able to answer in five words or less.

Apollo nods, and Trucy's smile pulls even wider. "I'm thinking that for Christmas, I'll learn a new trick for him. I was reading about this one where puppies come out of your cape!"

He laughs, he can't help it. "Uh, I don't think they'll let you bring puppies into the facility."

"Oh. Yeah." She presses a finger to her chin, thinking. Then she shakes her head and says, "Well, I'll think of something. And it will be fabulous!"

"I'm sure it will," he agrees, then steals a sip of her cocoa.

"You'll come though, right?" she asks, taking the mug out of his hands to take a sip of her own.

"Yeah, of course."

"Good."

They fall silent for a moment, and though he can tell Trucy is still buzzing with nervous energy, he's thankful for the quiet. His trial today, though it ended quickly, had been frantic and trying. He loves Trucy, but he hadn't been expecting her, and he'd been looking forward to coming home and unwinding with a book, or maybe some trashy daytime TV.

"Hey Polly," she says, drawing out his name into a question.

"Hey Trucy," he parrots.

"Do you remember Mom? From before?"

He's been sort of expecting this question--or something like it--for a while, but he's still caught off guard. Shaking his head, he says, "No, I was only a few days old when my parents adopted me."

She frowns, and she looks like she might have something to say about that, but then she asks, "How old were you when you found out? That you were adopted, I mean?"

He takes a second to try to remember, but then he just shrugs. "You know, I don't know. I can't remember ever not knowing, so I must have been really young."

"That's good," she says. And then, smiling slyly, she adds, "Daddy told me right away, too."

Apollo rolls his eyes. He's gotten a lot better at telling when Trucy's actually being flighty and when she's just pretending, but that doesn't mean he has to appreciate the fact that she's got her father's sense of humor.

"So, they didn't show you pictures of Mom or anything?" she asks after a moment, that nervousness back in her smile.

"Not that I can remember. It was a closed adoption, so they didn't have any information on her or anything."

"Did you ever try to find her?"

"I thought about it a couple times, but I didn't think anything would come of it, and I was worried it might upset my mom. I mean, she's always said it wouldn't, but I didn't even seek Thalassa out and she seems... weird about it. Like she's trying so hard to be supportive, but she's not exactly sure what she's supposed to be doing?" He shakes his head, frowning. "Not that she has to do anything, but she seems to think that she does."

"Your mom's really nice," Trucy offers. "Your dad, too."

"Yeah, I like 'em," he agrees, smiling easily now. "They were pretty happy about meeting you, too."

Trucy blushes, which is ridiculous, because she knows very well that Mr.and Mrs. Justice were completely charmed by her when they met last month. They've been asking Apollo if it would be okay to invite her and Thalassa and Phoenix over for Christmas, but he hasn't decided yet.

When he looks back over at her, she's frowning again, staring into her mug of hot chocolate.

"What's up?" he asks, leaning forward to pay close attention to her cues.

It turns out he doesn't need to, because she comes right out with it. Still looking into her cocoa, she says, "I didn't recognize her."

"Thalassa?" Trucy nods, and he says, "Well I mean, she was wearing a veil when we met her. And she didn't even know she was Thalassa Gramarye."

He expects this to ease her mind, but instead her frown deepens, and she gets those little worry lines at her eyes that only he can ever see. She says, "I remember when I was little, she would pick me up in this little ball, and I'd be all curled up in her arms, and she was so warm. Not like other people are warm, but like moms are warm." Her nose scrunches, and she knows she's not making a whole lot of sense, but she continues, "She felt different, you know? Like, I could always feel when she entered the room before I actually saw her."

Apollo nods, thinking of his own mother, how her hugs are so much better than anyone else's, and Trucy says, "I didn't feel her, Polly. And I had this picture of her that I looked at every night before bed, but the first time I saw her without the veil, I didn't think it was her."

"You thought she was dead," Apollo says gently. "How could you have thought it was really her?"

"No, that's not it," she argues, shaking her head vehemently. "She didn't feel right. She didn't feel right, so I didn't think it was her."

"Does she feel right now?"

"Yeah, once I hugged her, I knew it was really her. But I'd forgotten what she felt like."

"You hadn't seen her in years," he points out.

"You shouldn't forget things like that," she says quietly. "What if she hadn't come back? I thought I remembered, but I didn't, and I wouldn't have even known I wasn't remembering it right."

"But she did come back."

"Yeah..." she trails off, then takes another sip of her cocoa. When she pulls the mug from her lips, she's smiling again, sheepish and shy. "I know, I'm being ridiculous."

“No you’re not.” She raises an eyebrow at him, and he amends, “Well, maybe. I mean, the whole thing’s been so complicated. There’s no right or wrong way to feel about it.

“You sound like my guidance counselor,” Trucy says, leaning into him so her head is resting against his shoulder. Apollo snorts, though he doesn’t actually feel particularly offended, and then she asks, “Are you glad she’s back?”

It takes a long moment for him to come up with an answer for that, and Trucy doesn’t push, just waits quietly while he works his way through it.

“I don’t know. Mostly I am, I guess. It’s brought up a lot of stuff I thought I’d gotten over, but ultimately yeah, I’m glad she’s back.”

“Stuff?” she prompts.

Apollo sighs, leaning forward and away from her, wanting a little distance. “When I was old enough to really understand what it meant to be adopted, I started wondering who my biological parents were, why they’d given me up. I love my parents, and I’ve always known they love me, but I couldn’t help wondering, you know? It wasn’t, like, some huge trauma or anything, and as I got older I realized that whatever the reason, it didn’t have anything to do with me as a person, but having her show up and learning what really happened...”

“It’s been weird.”

He nods, laughing a little. “Yes, definitely weird.”

“But, good weird, I think,” she says, and at first he thinks she’s looking for him to agree with her, but then she’s nodding and saying, “Yeah, definitely good weird. I mean, my family has gotten, like, three times bigger. And I have a brother. Two brothers!”

Apollo smiles and resists the urge to ruffle her hair. “It’s kind of cool having a sister, I guess.”

At that she puts her mug down on the table and turns to face him, arms crossed over her chest. “You guess.”

He gives in and ruffles her hair, and she ducks away from him, rolling her eyes and laughing. She jumps off of the couch then and bounces over to the kitchenette, picking up the phone and ordering them some pizza. Apollo listens to her order Hawaiian pie with extra pineapple, and when he thinks about all of the strange and unexpected ways his life has changed over the last few months, he has to agree that it’s definitely turning out to be good weird.