5 1/2 Temple Meadow - My Tears Ricochet | Rossian

Monday, May 29, 1922
8:45 PM
The McCormick Home
Immediately Following This

The street was quiet, all its occupants settled in for the night. Some were already tucked away in their beds, others staying up to finish their favorite radio programs or a bit of reading. In the small front gardens, crickets sang their lullabies to the stars while the warm spring air rustled the trees.

It was a typical night, made atypical with a rush of wind and a fierce SNAP that saw two teenagers suddenly appear on the stoop of number 5 1/2 Temple Meadow, one collapsing beneath the weight of the other.

Rosalie gasped as she fell onto the stoop, each breath shaking with whimpers as her entire body trembled. From shock, terror, exhaustion - she couldn't feel it. Couldn't feel anything, except Cassian. She cradled him in her arms, his body limp and heavy against hers, his blood taking the place of her own on her clothing, trickling warm and fresh from the gashes on his chest.

"Cass..." his name fractured in her throat as her eyes washed over his face, bruised and broken from the hits and kicks he'd taken. She shifted him in her arms, trying in vain to keep his head from lolling as she strained her bloodied outstretched arm to reach the front door.

He didn't answer. Somewhere between the last apparation and this one, he'd gone quiet and still in her arms, despite his efforts to hang on and fight. The scent of iron in the air was a familiar one, a nightmare replaying itself in real-time as she fought to keep her composure. "Stay with me, love," she begged, her fingertips just missing the front door. She shifted him again, struggling under his weight to get closer, and realizing she was running out of time.

The door loomed in front of her, a soft warm light exuding beneath the threshold, his parents somewhere behind it, oblivious to the state she was returning their cherished youngest child in. She grimaced as she reached again but slipped. She caught herself on the frame, dragged her weight and his forward another inch.

"Help!" she finally begged, not caring if she caught the attention of the entire neighborhood. She clutched him tighter with her arm and finally managed to slam her hand once against the door. “Please!” Her voice tore free of her, raw and hoarse, breaking against the door as she hit it again with the side of her fist, then her palm, frantic now, relentless.

"Mister McCormick," she screamed as fresh tears streaked down her cheeks, mixing with Cassian's dried blood that lingered on her face. "He's-"

She couldn't say it. Wouldn't. She couldn't lose him now. Couldn't breath reality into it.

"Open the door!" The plea rang out, sharp and desperate, her whole body shaking with it as she clung to her husband with one arm, the other still pounding uselessly against the door.

Behind her, the night remained unchanged, but inside the house something was shifting.

5 1/2 Temple Meadow was like any other house on that street. Quiet from the outside, calm on the inside from a day now winding down. Dinner was done, the dishes washing themselves while the occupants sat in the living room. It was Julian's first chance to read the paper all day, and he made use of the relative silence to do so. Across from him, Kari sat in her own world, humming low while she mended a dress that had snagged against a cart during her earlier trip to Diagon Alley.

What could easily have been taken care of with a mending charm, served as substantial distraction by hand, helping to ease her into her night routine. From the corner of the room, the radio announcer stated that they would be going to commercial at the end of the song: "April Showers" by Al Jolson.

It had made it to number one on the charts, and these days, it didn't feel like she could turn to any station without hearing it at least a handful of times.

Now, it filled the space between her and her husband, the two having learned to live with these little silences and everything left unsaid.

"Help!"

The pair startled within a millisecond of each other, their gazes darting across the short distance to find each other. The voice was familiar to Julian, but only in that very vague and almost mistakable way. It could easily have been two...maybe three years since he'd last heard it, and after the year they'd endured, the man dared not hope. Kari's reaction was rooted in instinct. A sudden cry for help in the night, sounding like it was coming from the other side of her door? It was enough to raise every alarm.

The woman was the first one on her feet. Kari tossed the dress into the armchair she abandoned before grabbing her wand from the small endtable that sat between their chairs. It took Julian a moment, his body seizing at the possibility that...on the other side of the door...

But it couldn't be.

Mister McCormick! He's—"

He?

No...no...it couldn't...

"Julian! Julian, get up, dammit!" Kari insisted, yanking the man to his feet and thrusting his wand into his hand. "There's someone at the door," she hissed.

"Open the door!"

She waited only long enough to see him to his feet before bolting for the door.

Julian heard it open, his grip tightening around his wand. The man swallowed roughly, trying to pull himself from his daze. The voice...Rosie's voice(?) had said 'he'. He who? ...Cassian? Was he with her? After disappearing into the world, the man never thought...he dared not believe...

A piercing scream rang into the night, different than the one that had first roused them. His wife. The moment the door opened, Kari let out an ear-splitting scream that sent a violent shiver through him and forced him into action. Julian hurried for the door, horror gripping him at the scene playing out before him.

Somewhere in the time it had taken him to get there, Kari had dislodged Rosalie from Cassian's side and cradled her boy. Bitter sobs clawed their way up the back of her throat, the woman inconsolable as she rocked their non-responsive son.

"Shit!"

He fell to his knees before them, desperately pressing his two fingers to the base of the boy's neck. Barely a pulse, but it was there. Julian's mind raced to make sense of the scene on his front step. Cassian. Them. They were there. But...but...what...

Shit.

Blood. There was blood everywhere, and his son didn't have much time left. The questions would have to come after. Without another moment's thought. Julian grabbed hold of his wife, who still held their son. His other hand grabbed at any part of Rosalie that he could: her ankle. No locking up, no securing the home.

With a pop, they were were gone.

St. Mungo's Hospital
10:05 PM

The waiting room was balmy, thick with the season. With no open windows, there was an absence of any real airflow, and the scent of blood coated her nose and mouth.

She sat still in a chair across from Cassian's parents, her eyes fixed on the clock above the receptionist's desk. It had been an hour already - more than that - since her husband had disappeared behind the hospital's double doors, and she was growing more and more anxious with every click of the second hand.

When they'd arrived to the hospital, Cassian's poor mother wailing in distress and terror for him, Rosie had gone still, trying to make herself small and unnoticeable. As the healers and nurses had rushed for him, they'd asked questions, only about his injuries. Slashes on his chest causing the blood loss. Kicks and punches to his head and stomach. A strike of electricity if she remembered right and...

"The Cruciatus Curse," she'd barely managed to whisper to a nurse who was jotting things down quickly. She didn't want his parents to hear, not yet. When they asked her, if they did, she would tell them.

"You're the parents?" A healer had asked Julian and Kari as Cassian was rushed away from them, and then a quick glance to Rosie. "And you're...his sister?"

She'd hesitated for a moment, her lips parting slightly, looking back and forth from Julian to the healer before she shook her head. "His wife," she'd answered so softly it was barely audible. There'd been no reaction, thankfully, but it caused a churning in the girl's stomach so violent she thought she might throw up.

"We'll keep you informed."

The waiting room had gone silent.

And here she sat, her clothes saturated, dirt coating her knees, remnants of the violence they'd been made to endure still striking through her muscles in slight twitches. She felt none of it. The girl had gone numb to all physical sensations as she curled into herself in the chair. As Kari continued to audibly sob and Julian didn't utter a sound, Rosalie felt every bit the child she knew she was.

Gone was the girl of just this morning with her own home, her own bills, a husband to care for and the idea that she was an adult functioning like any other. Sitting here, knowing that Cassian's parents were in emotional agony fractured something within the girl, far worse than guilt ever could.

She felt like a monster. For years his father had asked Cassian to just leave her alone and find someone else, and they had both been too stubborn and headstrong to see reason for it. She'd clung to him, as hard as he'd clung to her, refusing to let in the words of any of the adults that cared about them.

And now they were here. Her family having destroyed everything, and possibly murdered the person she loved more than anyone. As her eyes drifted from the clock and back to his parents, an intense amount of shame washed over her. She had caused this. If she had broken up with Cassian when he'd overdosed like she planned to, none of this would have ever happened. Her father wouldn't have done what he did and -

She couldn't think about the rest of it. She couldn't let her mind travel back to the events of just an hour or so ago. She couldn't think about the screams, the look on Thomas's face...

Silent tears trailed down her cheeks again, joining what felt like hundreds that had come before.

She just wanted to be with him. Whatever was happening back there, whether Cassian was dead or alive, she wanted to lie down next to him and be the same.

"Mrs. McCormick?"

Rosie and Kari both bolted to their feet at the same time as a healer emerged from the double doors, and the two shared a look of...unsureness for a moment. Rosie shrank a bit, her shoulders raising slightly as she slowly sat herself back down. Of course they meant his mother.

"Err...Mrs. McCormick, his wife. Next of kin."

Oh. Did that make her his next of kin? Not his parents? Surely his parents were more important.

Her mouth opened and closed for a moment, words trying to form but it only resulted in her face crumpling in on itself as another round of tears burst forward with an audible sob.

She couldn't do this. She wasn't strong enough.

She wanted Julia.

"Err...Mrs. McCormick, his wife. Next of kin."

It was insult to an already grievous injury.

Not her. Not his mother. His wife. A woman – a girl – that Kari had never met. When the woman had first returned home, she found her house scattered and two of her three little chickens gone. Only Cassian remained, her sweet boy who'd kept his wonder but managed to find for himself a bigger personality than she remembered. His father told her how he performed in plays, stealing entire shows in a manner so uncharacteristic of the shy little boy it had broken her heart to leave behind. He'd become a whole man away from her eyes and had no doubt done more growing since he'd run away...with her.

Cassian spoke of Rosalie, of course. Kari hadn't taken any time before she began teasing and prodding into his personal life. There was so much she'd had to catch up on, and how she glowed when she watched that genuine warmth creep onto his face when he described the blonde girl with those 'impossibly blue eyes' and a smile 'that made him forget to breathe'. Julian hadn't been nearly so enthralled, and she'd never been able to understand why.

Until they ran.

Suddenly, it wasn't some cute teenage love affair with disapproving parents on both ends and an enduring love. It was reckless and senseless and had now nearly gotten them killed. Kari wasn't a stranger to impulse and a romantic sense of invincibility. The very thing had driven her from her home, her children and a man who'd genuinely loved her despite her many fleeting fancies.

She'd left, and another woman took her place as most important in her son's life. That same young woman held the privilege of being informed of his medical condition. It was more than she could bear. Fresh tears brimmed at her eyes, overflowing as more sobs broke free. Kari folded into her husband, letting him wrap his eyes around her while she braced to hear the worst.

The healer looked between the three before returning her gaze to Rosalie. Parted lips halted as Julian inserted himself.

We're his parents. Tell us how he's doing." He wasn't asking. Medical decisions they would apparently have to cede – a thought that already had him reeling. Married. Cassian's wife. He'd begged him to leave the girl alone. He'd tried preaching sense. Now, here they were, in the waiting room of St. Mungo's, praying for a miracle after seeing the state he'd come home in. He wouldn't allow them to be pushed out. No. They were his family and needed to be told he would be alright. The man had had enough of these children in their little fantasy playing at being adults and having the rest of the world humour them.

The healer hesitated again before nodding her understanding.

"We've managed to stabilise him and have started him on a regimen of blood-replenishing potions, among others. He's not entirely out of the woods just yet, but...we believe the worst of it is behind him. We'll let you know when he's awake and able to see anyone, but until then, I'm sorry, there isn't much else we can share at this time."

The healer lingered a moment longer in case they should have any questions not directly related to the boy's condition before excusing herself to return to the ward.

A heavy silence fell on the room again, neither parent knowing what to say.

Cassian was stable. Barring a sudden turn for the worst, there was every chance he would recover. They hadn't lost their son.

"What...happened?" Julian asked quietly. It was the second time he'd nearly lost Cassian over the same girl, and while he wasn't sure he was ready for the answer, there was a part of him desperate to know how things had been and how the pair had managed to land themselves in so much trouble.

The man forced himself to look at her, noticing for the first time that she'd had a rough go of whatever they'd been through too.

"Do you need to see a healer?"

"We're his parents. Tell us how he's doing."

Rosalie didn't argue and wouldn't have dared anyway. What right did she have to demand otherwise? She was his wife, but she didn't think that trumped his parents. She would never disrespect them, especially in a time like this by asserting herself and demanding the healers only talk to her.

Cassian's family wasn't the same as hers. He didn't come from a family that forced conformity, obedience and obligation. His family would never hunt them and inflict violence on them the way hers had. Julian had been kind - fatherly even - that one time she'd been allowed to visit. She knew that sentiment had quickly vanished after their first attempt at running off, and she'd never met Kari. Cassian hadn't said much about her, but certainly nothing that would make her think she wasn't anything but a loving mum now that she'd returned.

Maybe Rosalie hadn't been the most cognizant of how their running off would so deeply hurt his mother and father - how could she when she didn't really know them - but she had never wanted to inflict that pain. She certainly wouldn't do that now.

She struggled to pull herself together, feeling the weight of all she had done hanging in the balance. 'Next of kin', the healer had said. That sounded like...that meant...Merlin, how would she survive it? How would she convey to his parents how deeply sorry she was, knowing the words would mean nothing to them. How would she be able to look herself in the mirror?

"We've managed to stabilise him and have started him on a regimen of blood-replenishing potions, among others. He's not entirely out of the woods just yet, but...we believe the worst of it is behind him. We'll let you know when he's awake and able to see anyone, but until then, I'm sorry, there isn't much else we can share at this time."

Rosalie felt like she had been hanging in suspension, when the rope suddenly gave out, plummeting her to the cold ground beneath. It rushed at her as she closed her eyes, thanking Merlin and whoever else that he was stable. He was going to be okay, unless something unexpected happen. Rosie wasn't going to lose him. She wouldn't be a widow at the age of seventeen, having to try and figure out what the rest of her life looked like without him.

She hit the figurative ground, exhaling as though she had been holding her breath for the past hour. Her lungs burned, her stomach turned over on itself and all at once the exhaustion of the day caught up with her. She could feel the searing burns on her hands, the gashes in her chest...and the cramping in her lower abdomen.

Rosie bit her lip, watching with wide blue eyes as the healer disappeared again behind the double doors. She had wanted to ask if she could see him. If she could just sit with him for a little while and hold his hand, but in the fog of it all she'd remained quiet.

Would his parents even want her near him? Would she even argue if they told her to stay away? She...didn't think she would.

"What...happened?"

It was the first time either of his parents - her father and mother-in-law - had said a word to her since she'd arrived on their doorstep. Her eyes raised slowly, not wanting to meet the gaze that she was sure would be hard and unforgiving. After what she'd just endured, she didn't think she could handle more harsh words or anger.

Deserving of it as she probably was.

She swallowed hard as she finally managed to look at them.

"Do you need to see a healer?"

"Um," she said softly, looking down at her hands palms, red and blistered from the fire she'd conjured. "I think I'll just handle it myself." She didn't have any money for a healer and she didn't have a family anymore. She could try sending an owl for Julia, but she didn't know if her cousin...she wouldn't. Rosie knew she wouldn't, but even so.

Julia wouldn't want to help her anyway. Not after what she'd done to Thomas.

Rosalie shifted uncomfortably, but forced herself to talk.

"Cassian was working late so I headed home without him. We were going to go out so I hadn't started dinner or anything," details they surely didn't care about, but Rosalie needed to rehash every moment so she could understand herself what had happened. "The neighbor, she screamed for me. Like she needed help, so I rushed over and forgot to ward the apartment."

She dropped her gaze again, unable to look at them when she mentioned her father. "My father, uncle and his son broke in and waited for me. When I returned, they asked me where Cassian was but I wouldn't tell them. I tried to fight them off, I promise I did. And I screamed for Cassian to run away when I heard him at the door, but he wouldn't."

Her voice cracked painfully, growing panicked as she continued her recounting. Her chest heaved, her eyes searching the ground as she tried to stay focused, but her father's cold voice echoed in her mind. "My dad's evil," she said, sucking down a sob that tried to escape. "I told him I would go with him. I told him I would go home and do whatever he wanted if he just left Cassian alone but they...apparated us somewhere else."

The clearing. She didn't dare say it.

"They beat him," she said softly, "kicked and hit him. He tried to protect me, but they used sectumsempra on us. Baubilous." She stopped for a moment and took a deep breath. "Crucio." Her words picked up, trying to hurry past the parts that sent another chill down her spine. "He was bleeding so badly. I used incendio to burn out of my bindings." She held out her hands for a moment, before flushing with humiliation and pulling inward again. "And I fought them. I don't remember everything just that I fought them off. And when my cousin tried to go for Cassian - " She swallowed another sob.

"They were going to kill him," she cried, losing the rest of her composure, "I had to! I didn't want to, but I had to." She sobbed. Rosie was shaking so hard that the chair under her vibrated. "And when my cousin was dead, I didn't know where else to bring Cassian except to you."

She waited a beat, but the feelings were all to overwhelming. She bolted from her chair and rushed to the nearest bin, gripping it on both sides as she purged every little thing that resided in her stomach.

How strange the story was to the pair. Their boy, who sometimes needed extra reminders not to leave his books thrown about the living room and to cut his hair... working late. Working. A whole adult life. This baby-faced lamb of a girl...making him dinner. A domestic life somewhere out in the world where no amount of searching had allowed them to find. It sounded so...normal, a stark juxtaposition to the horror that had greeted them at their front door.

How could things have gone so bad? How did children playing at mundane domesticity turn into attempted murder and grievous bodily harm?

The more Rosalie explained, the less it made sense. A screaming neighbour, an evil father. She'd told him to run. Where Kari couldn't imagine why he hadn't, there was a silent knowing within Julian. His son was as stubborn as his wife – whether she realised it or not. It was seldom something she'd witnessed. Cassian had always been sweet for his mother, always hanging around her frocktails, never too far when one of her eccentric moods struck and she needed her own audience. It didn't matter how much he insisted she would make him soft. Kari didn't know the boy who stubbornly stared at the floor, waiting for lectures to end. She'd never met the boy who snuck out of the house and made it clear across the country with a bumbling idiot for a best friend and no good reason between them that either could articulate.

For her.

A lot of Cassian's stubborness began to manifest at the same time that Rosalie had entered the picture. He was convinced he was in love, convinced he didn't need to stay away. When things escalated and her family made it clear they didn't approve of the union, even that hadn't been enough. Merlin knew how hard the man had tried to have him see reason, but, like his mother, reason tended to take a back seat when emotions swelled too high.

Of course, he didn't run. Of course, he'd tried to save her. Nothing else would've been him. The scene explained itself well enough after that. His son thought he had something to prove and someone to protect. It was doubtful he'd bothered to think of himself at any point throughout the ordeal.

"I told him I would go with him. I told him I would go home and do whatever he wanted if he just left Cassian alone but they...apparated us somewhere else."

There was something stirring inside the man, something unrecognisable for the sensible ministry advisor who seldom made waves.

"They beat him, kicked and hit him. He tried to protect me, but they used sectumsempra on us. Baubilous."

They...beat him. Grown men. They'd hunted their son, tracked the pair to the very ends of the earth and, from the girl's account, had reigned down unholy terror disproportionate to the ill-advised and impulsive actions of children.

The words settled heavy and menacing.

"They were going to kill him, I had to! I didn't want to, but I had to."

"Shh, shh, that's enough, love," Kari offered, her own voice a whisper as she rose and crossed the distance. The woman didn't wait for permission; she didn't need permission to wrap her arms around the sobbing child and offer whatever comfort she could. It was only natural for the woman who'd carried three such angels. Whenever they'd cried, even when self-inflicted, nothing could override her instinct to sweep them up in her arms and remind them that everything was still alright. That instinct drove her now. Through her own pain and despite her misgivings surrounding the situation, it would've been fundamentally outside of her character to watch the girl break down so fretfully and offer nothing but stony silence in return.

"You did what you had to do." Whatever that happened to be. In all her rambling, the finer details were unclear, but they were unnecessary.

Kari already had everything she needed. Her son was on the verge of death, and without this girl, they would never have seen him again, not even bleeding and unconscious. Rosie had brought him back to them, and it was enough to earn the girl Kari's gratitude.

She held her tight, allowing her to cry and let go for what the woman imagined could easily have been the first time.

"We'll get you a healer. You don't need to do anything else on your own." Reaching a hand up, she smoothed back the stray golden strands that told their own tale of violence and mishandling. She guided a few more from the girl's tear soaked face. "We've got you. Everything's alright now. Cassian will be fine, and you'll be fine. It's over."

It was difficult to say when Julian had slipped out, but when Kari pulled away, he was already gone.

It was just one thing after another. She narrowed her focus, choosing her battles in the moment. Cupping the girl's cheeks, she offered a soft smile.

"Let's find you that healer."

"Shh, shh, that's enough, love."

The girl flinched at the sensation of a pair of arms wrapping around her, her body still on high-alert and bracing for cruelty. It took her a moment as she released the bin, trying to recognize what was happening, when the soft scent of powder took the place of the blood in her nose and Kari's warmth wrapped around her.

Gentle. Calm. A soft, womanly touch that came in sharp contrast to the anger and judgment she was anticipating. The last time Rosie had felt a mother's care had been nearly a year ago when she'd said goodbye to Julia. Throughout that year, in the harder moments, Rosie had craved the love and embrace of her mother - knowing it had never and would never come. She was meant to be an adult now, a woman in her own right, soon to be a mother herself. She shouldn't need such a thing.

And yet.

The girl couldn't control the sobs that came harder as she melted against Kari, a woman she only knew through the stories Cassian had told. A woman that owed her absolutely nothing and had every right to despise her, was holding her like Rosie was her own child.

"You did what you had to do."

Rosie sucked in a breath, trying to steady herself, trying to hear the words that Cassian's mother so generously offered her. Did she really do what she had to? Was there something else she could have tried? It had all happened so fast she hadn't had time to think of anything except protecting Cassian. The curse had shot down her arm and fell from her lips faster than she could register it. In the moment she had chosen the life of her husband over that of her cousin who she had once held in her arms - just like this - as he cried over someone he loved.

How could she have ever predicted this would be the outcome? It was beyond horrific.

Her sweet husband was lying somewhere behind those doors, fighting for his life, and her once-adored cousin was lying somewhere dead.

How could love lead to something like this?

When Kari tightened her hold, Rosalie let it out, feeling herself crumpling into the feeling of acceptance and understanding. "I never...I'm so sorry." The words came between sobs as her own arms wrapped softly around Kari, their first interaction the gentle soothing between a mother and a girl that wasn't her daughter, but one she loved on as though she were.

"We'll get you a healer. You don't need to do anything else on your own. We've got you. Everything's alright now. Cassian will be fine, and you'll be fine. It's over."

Rosie let her brush her hair back from her face, the same way her mother used to do when she was small, and it touched something in her heart that ached painfully. She didn't understand why Kari was being so sweet and tender with her, but it was so welcome in comparison to what Rosalie had tried to brace herself for.

If she and Julian had wanted to scream at her, accuse her, call her every name in the book, Rosalie didn't think she could have sat through it, already reeling from her father and uncle's cruel words and actions. It had been too much already, and the softness that now took hold of her held her like a warm blanket, reassuring her that somehow, someway, this would end.

Kari cupped her face, while Rosie's blue eyes swam with gratitude and apologies, unable to put into words what the woman's kindness meant to her in the moment. "Thank you, Mrs. McCormick," she said softly. Someday, when this was all over, she'd find a way to thank her properly.

"Let's find you that healer."

"I'm..." Rosie took a soft breath, blinking the last of her tears from her eyes, "I'm pregnant, so if maybe they could check on the baby first? I'm feeling a lot of cramping."

As long as her baby was alright, as long as Cassian would recover, Rosalie could manage the damage done to her without a second thought.

Her little family was more important than a few scars and burned hands.

Tuesday, May 23, 1922
7:40 AM

The morning rolled in bleak and foggy. It was typical of the weather, the sun occasionally peeping out from beneath the clouds before retreating once again into its gloomy cover. For Kari, the morning felt as heavy as the night before, but it bore the signature of aftermath.

Much of the adrenaline was gone, leaving only latency that weighed down the residence at 5 1/2 Temple Meadow. There was a lot of it that still didn't make sense, even after what Julian bothered to explain when he returned late the night before. The pair had lain in bed for what seemed like hours, trying to wrap their minds around the events that transpired.

The man had made his way to a castle across the country and had made his displeasure known. From what he'd said, it didn't seem that all the Laurences had been on board with hunting the children, though how much of that she believed remained to be seen. How couldn't they have known? Families like that...they were built on secrecy and an inner darkness that would repel the wider world if only they knew. Kari was by no means a cynic, but not having any idea of such dark and heavy-handed retribution seemed ludicrous for people who boasted their reputation and, from what she gathered, 'control'.

Only time would tell on that front. Time...and distance. The woman who stood in the kitchen setting aside some breakfast for her daughter-in-law wasn't ready to accept that there were Laurences who didn't mean her son harm. After the way Cassian turned up at their door, it wasn't a risk she was willing to take.

The house smelled of bacon and sausages, remnants of the earlier meal. The porridge simmered low on the stove, adding a hint of cream and cinnamon to the scent palette of the morning's meal. On the counter, there were freshly cut tomatoes and mushrooms, waiting to be added as sides, and the kettle was still warm from the earlier tea she'd served.

Julian had already left for work not ten minutes before, citing a busy morning and too many impossible things he needed to get done. There were always so many meetings; she didn't know how he kept up.

For her part, Kari kept herself busy. She cleaned what remained of their breakfast, then set to making a list for the day's shopping while she waited for Rosie to wake.

The poor girl was exhausted. The healers had prescribed a potion to help her with sleep after tending her wounds, making it clear that what she and the baby needed most was rest.

A baby.

Babies having babies, in her opinion – still learning about the world and themselves while trying to bring another life into the mix. She was taking it in strides, choosing to see the blessing in the midst of the agony. While she didn't know their plans beyond recovery, Kari couldn't help but think it might be nice to have a pair of pitter-pattering feet running from room to room with bright smiles and brighter eyes. A little boy, just like his father, with a head full of curls, or maybe a sweet girl, she thought wistfully, as she scribbled 'bread' onto her list. One that Cassian would lose his mind doting on beyond reason and who would be as gentle as Rosie seemed to be.

She should get something for Cassian. They would be stopping by the hospital in the afternoon to see him and she thought he might like something sweet to lift his mood should he be awake.

Her musings were interrupted by a sudden, shrill scream. Her nerves were already fried from the previous evening, causing her to jolt at the sound.

Kari couldn't begin to imagine what might have elicited such a sound when all signs pointed to the worst already being behind them, but the woman was on her feet in seconds. The quill was dashed onto the table, the inkwell nearly going sideways in her haste as she hurried up the stairs to Justine's old room she'd set up for Rosie.

She knocked to alert the girl to her presence, but the urgency behind the scream left no time for waiting. In a flash, Kari was inside the room, eyes wide with questions.

"What's happened?"

Trigger Warning
The following posts will detail child loss and miscarriage. Please read at your own discretion.

Kari was a blessing that Rosalie hadn't realized she'd needed. When they'd arrived back at the McCormick home after the healers had sent them on their way, Cassian's mother had set to fixing up Justine's old room for Rosie - the same she'd stayed in that August two summers back. Despite the late hour, she'd fussed over the girl, running the bath for her and taking her clothes to wash, before helping her get settled for the evening. Understanding that Rosie was exhausted, she'd reassured her that if they got news about Cassian during the night, she'd wake her, and then gave her the small dose of sleeping potion prescribed.

Blissfully, Rosalie had slept undisturbed, without a single dream or nightmare to take her away from the warm blankets and soft pillows that helped her forget the horror she'd endured.

"Only time will tell," the healers had said, in regards to whether the baby was alright. There hadn't been any bleeding, and the majority of the girl's injuries seemed to be to her upper body. Her uncle dropping her flat on her back...it was concerning, they'd agreed, but again...

Only time would tell. It felt ominous to the girl, but with reassurances that everything seemed find for the time being, she hadn't argued for a more thorough check-up.

A gentle brush of light along her eyelids and then darkness again, as the sun disappeared once more behind a cluster of gray clouds and she stirred slightly, reaching her hand out for him - and finding only an empty space. For one fragile, half-conscious moment, she'd forgotten, frowning against the pillow as her fingers brushed along the sheets as if he might be there if she just searched a little harder.

Her eyes fluttered open, wondering where he had gone, finding herself in a quiet, familiar and yet unfamiliar room. The furniture was washed out in that dim way that morning light softened it, and all at once the memories of the night before came flooding back. Really settled heavily, and the girl sighed, pulling her arm back to herself for comfort and staring at the empty space beside her.

His absence was enough to tighten something in her chest, but before she could fully wake to it, another sensation rose, deep and low. The girl grimaced as another cramp - stronger than the night before - took hold, just below her navel. She sucked in a low breath, remembering the healers had told her that some cramping would be normal after everything, but nothing to be especially alarmed about. Most likely it was her abdominal muscles, still reeling from the Cruciatus Curse and everything else her body had experienced.

Her palms stung faintly beneath the linen bandages as she pressed them into her stomach, and the cuts across her chest pulled as she shifted to lie on her back, and stared up at the ceiling. She should get up. Mrs. McCormick was likely waiting on her to start their day. They were going to head to the hospital in the afternoon in the hopes Cassian was awake.

There was so much she wanted to say to him. So much she wanted to apologize for. So many ways she wanted to shower her love on him and thank Merlin, God and whoever else was out there in the universe for saving him and not taking him away from her before she was ready.

The cramp eased, then returned a moment later, tighter this time, stealing her breath for one horrible beat before receding again.

No.

Rosie's eyes widened, as though there may be an answer in the cold plaster above her than the rising cold certainty in her blood.

No. No.

Rosalie shoved the blankets down and sat up too quickly, a wave of dizziness washing over her at once. Nausea took her and she had to steady one hand against the mattress as she willed herself to look down. Her nightgown clung too tightly to her thighs. Too warm and damp.

Dread shot down her spine as the girl's lip trembled. She looked down slowly, afraid for what she already knew to become real, and there, beneath the hem at her thighs and against the pale sheets beneath her...

Red.

Rosalie's faced drained of color as her lungs seized. The room rushed at her with blinding speed, blurring her vision, nothing else in the world seeming to exist except that flush of red that tore her heart right open.

"No...no...." she begged, scrambling to her knees as she cupped her hands between her thighs, trying to stop the bleeding, trying to keep the baby she already loved so desperately from leaving her. Her eyes clenched shut as she felt another gush, warmth washing over her hands as she gathered the ends of her nightgown in a futile bid to keep the little life that was already gone.

"No," her voice broke as her expressions twisted in agony, a grief she'd never felt before ripping her apart so viscously she was certain her soul had gone with it. A sob rose hard in her throat. Tears spilled hot and sudden over her eyelids. Her stomach cramped again, harder now, and she folded over it, shoulders curling inward, forehead nearly touching her knees.

The warmth between her thighs spread.

The feeling of it broke something final. A scream left her then - shrill and wounded and utterly helpless. It was the sound of a heart shattering, of dreams dying in her hands. It was the sound of a girl who yesterday had everything, and now felt the loss of it all so profoundly she could do nothing but wail her devastation into the room.

It was the sound of a mother losing her unborn child.

Rosalie didn't hear the knock or see Kari come in, but her blue eyes rose when her mother-in-law's voice joined the sound of her sobs and pleas.

"What's happened?"

"I..." Rosie couldn't. She couldn't. Her face crumpled again as she pulled her shaking hands from her thighs. "I can't..." She couldn't breathe. The girl gasped, trying to suck in a breath, trying to make her lungs work as cold panic took hold of her and she sobbed again, another wail breaking her lips and she reached for the woman who she'd only just met.

She’d only been home three days, and already her family was turning itself upside down. The Laurences were in chaos, reeling from the bomb that had just been dropped on them. It wasn’t just a case of miscommunication or misunderstanding. It was a grave betrayal of trust, of family, and of their children. It was the darkest day Julia could remember since they’d buried Edward, her brother a victim of the very circumstances he created.

Leo had not only created these circumstances, he’d annihilated the very fabric of who they were as a family. Secure, unbending, devoted, and undyingly loyal. Though Julia had feared this day would come, an entire year had passed and there was a part of her that truly thought maybe Rosalie had been the one to finally escape.

After Julian McCormick had left, the search for Leo and Arthur had begun in earnest. Benji’s outburst and Edith’s attack on Gretchen had left her brother with no choice but to immediately take Benji and go out in search of the two - to do what, Julia wasn’t sure. All she knew was by morning James and her son still hadn’t returned.

But Rosalie and Cassian were alive.

Thank Merlin, they were alive.

She hadn’t been invited to the McCormick home, but Julia couldn’t sit and wait for it. Her girl, her sweet girl was out there - injured, by the hand of her own father. She needed to see Rosie - and Cassian if they let her - for herself. She needed to reassure her cousin that the rest of the family had nothing to do with this, that their loyalty and dedication were to her, not Leo. That they all loved her immeasurably and…

Julia didn’t remember arriving at the front door. She barely remembered leaving their newborn with Maddox with a promise she’d be back soon.

She hesitated for half a moment before knocking, shame already filling her in a way that she rarely felt. For the first time in a very long time, Julia felt ashamed of her name, of what Leo and Arthur had done, and how it implicated all of them in this horrible mechanism that they continued to uphold.

Something had to give, and maybe that give was finally Cassian and Rosalie.

No sooner had her knuckles rapped softly on the front door, a scream rang out from an upstairs room, audible even from the stoop. Julia’s eyes immediately cast upwards, goosebumps flooding her skin and she realized - it was Rosie.

It was her baby. Screaming in pain? Agony? Fear? Julia didn’t stop and think. She didn’t think about wards, or bursting into a stranger’s home. She didn’t think about the danger it’d put herself in when she had children at home that needed her.

All she thought of was Rosalie.

She burst through the door, wand drawn. “Rosie?! Rosalie!” Stairs, there were stairs. Completely unfamiliar with the layout of the house, Julia followed the wails upstairs to the second floor, hearing her girl’s cries reverberate off the walls in a way she’d never heard. Was she having a flashback? Were Cassian’s parents punishing her? Nothing made sense, nothing.

She found the room - an open door and rushed in to see her girl on the bed, blood across her legs and the sheets beneath her as a woman cradled Rosalie in her arms. Her little cousin clung to the woman like a frightened child, sobbing her agony into her chest.

“Rosie…” Julia breathed as they both suddenly looked up, her eyes making contact with the woman who held her cousin. Her eyes filled with tears as they drifted back down to the blood and she released a breath, her chest filling with grief for her poor girl. Was it what it looked like?

She dropped her wand to the floor, and covered her mouth as Rosie’s face crumpled again, and another series of sobs filled the room. “Oh my Dove,” her voice broke as she took a step towards the two, but Kari held tighter to the girl, turning her slightly away from Julia.

She stepped back again, searching for the right words. “I’m sorry. I heard her screaming and..” Her eyes fell back to her cousin, as her heart squeezed in on itself. She wanted to hold her so desperately. “Can I just see her?”

The longer she stood by the door, the clearer the scene became, and it was...heartbreaking.

These sweet children – it was the last thing they needed.

Kari's heart broke as Rosie reached for her, the woman quickly moving to close the distance as some maternal tug yanked against her. She held her like she'd done the night before, when emotions had become too much for the girl that was still clearly only a child. It had been difficult to fall asleep the previous night, even after she and Julian had spoken and he assured her things would work out. She'd been plagued with thoughts of what the pair must have endured in the last year. Cassian's face was gaunter than she remembered even with his arms having grown with muscle. She didn't know Rosie and had only met her covered in blood the night before, but she would bet every galleon she owned that this wasn't how she'd left her parents' home a year earlier.

Kari wondered whether they'd met people who understood they were just children playing adult roles, people who'd been kind and had made it all a little easier. She didn't wonder whether they'd struggled, only the extent to which they did.

It should already have been enough.

How was any of this fair?

"I know," she whispered, sparing the girl the added distress of having to articulate what was happening to her. "Sweet girl, I know..."

She'd seen it happen a time or two with very little deviation in the outcome and the outpouring of distress. There was usually screaming, though she'd seen a woman accept the fate of her child with unshakeable stoicism that she never recovered from. She saw the devastation and never failed to hurt alongside them despite having lost none for herself. It could've been easier to dismiss, but not with so much blood.

"You're alright; you'll be alright." Maybe not in the moment, maybe not even in a month—in months—but she would be.

She didn't hear the knock at the door or any ring of the doorbell should there have been one. Kari's entire world became the poor girl who understood too clearly what was happening to her. "It'll just be another trip to Mungo's, that's all," she continued softly, but she already knew nothing would soothe a woman who was watching her child slip away.

Julia's entry into the room went entirely unnoticed until the breath of a word filtered in from behind her. Kari turned her head in search of the unfamiliar voice, her muscles tightening at the appearance of the stranger.

Julian warned they might come. After everything he'd said, she thought he might only have been being extra cautious, but there was a vague resemblance that hinted to the Laurence blood shared between them.

The woman instinctively shifted her position, fully placing herself before Rosie in case it should be what her husband had feared. After everything they'd been through, it was hard not to want to protect her.

Only after the stranger lowered her wand did Kari's muscles loosen, but even then, she never took her eyes off her. She clung to her silence as the two shared a soft exchange, thinking the woman's reaction to be genuine. Julian had said they were as stunned – if not more so – and there was a part of her that was desperate to believe that so much evil couldn't be spread throughout an entire family. Her heart wanted to share this ache with the stranger; it wanted to trust the devastation that travelled from Rosie's to the other woman's face with just one look. It was so much easier than accusations and anger in such a harrowing moment.

“I’m sorry. I heard her screaming and.. Can I just see her?”

"Of course," Kari said quietly, easing up just enough to allow her some room. "But we have to get her to the hospital."

They'd already waited too long.

Rosalie clung to Kari, her only anchor in the turbulent sea that crashed her against sharp and jagged cliffs. She wanted Cassian. She wanted her best friend there to hold her, to share her grief and anger. She wanted to feel anything, anything but the thick despair and loneliness that clawed at her, taking bits of her little by little.

Kari's warmth and softness tried to penetrate the cold that held tightly to Rosalie's body, but it was futile. There was nothing, the girl knew, that could make this better. There was nothing anyone could say, nothing they could do to make this make sense or to take away the pain that was quickly reaching into every small corner of her body.

It was visceral.

Would she be alright? Kari said she would be, but in the moment, when everything was so fresh, it felt as though she'd never know happiness again. Never feel love again. Hope, anticipation, joy...it all felt so foreign in this moment when she felt nothing but darkness.

She'd trade places with her baby in a moment if she could. If she could have somehow saved him and given herself instead...that was what a mother was supposed to be able to do. She was still here, and her baby was dead. It was the worst sort of agony, to know she had to go on breathing before he'd ever had a chance to take his first.

She had failed.

“Rosie…”

It was a hushed call of her name, familiar and delicate. One she had longed to hear the night before, but now as her body betrayed her, stealing what joy she had had left, it was a hush that made her tense, her muscles tightening and recoiling.

She raised her eyes at the same time that Kari turned and another sob broke through her lips at the sight of Julia. A woman she loved and admired, had trusted for so long. Had she known? Did she know that Leo was coming after them and let it happen? Was her cousin partly to blame for the loss of their baby?

It was too much for Rosie to try and work through. She didn't hear the women speak, lost to the overwhelming emotions that tore at her psyche. She didn't let go of Kari, even as she shifted to give Julia space. Rosie's eyes followed her cousin, tensing a bit as Julia eased herself down on the edge of the bed, and for a moment she thought she felt her devastation shared.

"Oh Dove."

Rosie choked on another sob, trying to hold it in as her face crumpled again.

"Mrs. McCormick's right. We have to get you to the hospital." Julia's hand came carefully, gently and as she ran her palm along Rosie's face, the girl melted into it, hot tears coursing over Julia's hand. She still held tightly to Kari, not wanting Cassian's mother to let her go just yet. "Okay," she managed, but it was all.

Julia nodded and stood, trying to hold herself together as she took up her wand and wrapped an arm around Rosalie and extended her hand to Kari.

In a flash, the women were gone.

Only a small red mess remained against stark white sheets.

Wednesday, May 24, 1922
4:10 PM

The darkness that had taken him in the clearing gave way to the sterile lights of the hospital room. It was too bright, assaulting his senses the moment his eyes flickered open. The boy woke to the feeling of his head swimming in water, the grogginess brought on by the many potions he'd been administered waning as his nervous system came back online.

His muscles ached and his throat was dry. Cassian couldn't understand why. His mind struggled to process his surroundings. Nowhere he recognised...nowhere he should've been. The confusion hastened his return to a more alert state, his brain twisting itself in knots to make sense of what he was looking at. Cass never noticed the pair sitting nearby. His peripheral vision was still too blurred for that.

Where...was he...?

What happened?

One moment, that was all he got as his eyes struggled to focus on the white ceiling before the images returned. The ceiling gave way to the canopy of the trees that had surrounded the clearing; the light dimmed, staining the room in shades of sunset. He could smell the damp earth and the blood. Lights flashed, spells shooting. Screams. His screams? Cassian's chest constricted, recoiling from phantom tears as if his chest were being sliced open anew. In the middle of it all, one image shone the clearest: Rosie, bound and bleeding.

Hands reached for him. Bloody hands coming from places he couldn't see.

The boy bolted upright, sticking his hands out before him in a vain effort to keep the spectres away. His wand, where was his wand? Try as he did to pat himself down, he couldn't find it, which only exacerbated his quickly rising panic. Cass's vision narrowed to pinholes, a darkness encroaching from the blinding pain that shot through him.

"Rosie? ROSIE?!"

Had they already taken her? He...he couldn't...

Cass pushed through the throbbing pain, trying to stagger his way off the bed when two hands grabbed him firmly by the shoulder. They forced him in place, his own strength not enough to throw them off. They'd gotten him. They'd gotten Rosie. He had to...he had to get up. The boy flailed, trying to get them off him, fighting to return to his wife – to save her.

"CASSIAN!"

....

"...Mum...?" he asked, unable to believe his own ears. What was she doing in the middle of the clearing? How had they gotten her? The stabbing pain in his chest grew worse, bending him forward as he struggled to breathe.

The hands moved from his shoulders to cup his face, blue eyes anchoring him. They weren't Rosie's eyes...but they were familiar, warm...a safe harbour in the midst of the storm he'd woken to. His own dark eyes widened as his mind shifted and the world around him began to open up. Eyes became an entire face, the face of the woman he'd barely had time with before running off into the world. "Mum!" he cried a second time, lunging forward to pull her to him as desperation and relief flooded him in equal measure.

He didn't understand how she'd gotten there – how he'd gotten where he was – but the boy clung, afraid she might disappear the moment he let go.

His mother kissed the top of his head, his forehead, every inch of his face that she could get to. Tears flowed freely from her, her own relief overwhelming.

He didn't...he didn't understand.

He'd been there...the men... – "Rosie!"

The boy's head whipped around, returning to its earlier search. He found her on her feet and by his mother's side. His hands fell from Kari, reaching for her instead. "Rosie—shit—" He was interrupted by a sudden stab of pain that forced him to suck in air. He tried to look at her, his eyes squinting as they fought the impulse to shut despite the way the rest of his body clenched against the agony. "What...where...are you alright – are you hurt?"

The smell of the hospital was one she would never forget.

In the absence of earth and iron and even the soft powdery scent of the McCormick home, Rosalie was overcome with that of antiseptic and bleach with the softest underlying hint of decay. It was in every corner of every space, lingering, reminding as much as the ticking of the clock on the wall did.

It was the smell that had greeted them when Cassian was taken, and again yesterday when they’d informed her that her baby was gone; a cold harsh truth that she already knew. It was the smell that waited with her as she sat by Kari at Cassian’s bedside, waiting for something to change.

On one hand, she wanted him awake, so she could have her best friend back, so she could reassure him and love on him and seek the comfort she needed from him.

On the other, she felt perhaps his unconscious state was less cruel. Wherever he was, there wasn’t pain, or fear or grief. Where he was, their baby was still alive, and their lives hadn’t been turned upside down and inside out.

Kari had been kinder than Rosalie had ever dared hope she would be. The sweet woman had gone out of her way to care for the girl, to make her comfortable and to reassure her in the moments when Rosie couldn’t hold it together. It was a tall order for a woman who was waiting on the life of her own child, caring for the one who had caused his predicament, and Rosie couldn’t help the guilt she felt for it.

Julia had told her she could come back with her, but as long as Julian and Kari would allow Rosalie to stay, she couldn’t imagine being anywhere else.

Nor was she ready to be.

Rosie sighed softly, turning the page to her book and trying to focus on the words. If she could just get her mind off of everything, she could begin to settle.

"Rosie? ROSIE?!"

Cassian’s scream tore through the room so suddenly that Rosie jumped from her chair, her book flying out of her hands and landing somewhere on the floor. In a heartbeat, Kari was up, her hands on her son’s shoulders, calling his name to get him to settle.

Rosie froze, her eyes widening as she watched him thrash and flail, fighting against a force now invisible but just as real as it had been to him two days ago. Her lips parted, sharp breaths rushing in and out as her husband called for her, but she didn’t dare move, not while his mum had a hold on him.

It took him a moment, but when he finally recognized Kari, Rosalie felt her heart twist on itself, his call for her sounding every bit like a frightened boy finally safe in the arms of his mother. It touched her in a way she hadn’t expected, watching Kari get to love on the boy she still saw as her child, while Rosalie only saw the man she loved. For that moment, Cassian was just a kid again, clinging to his mother in relief while she showered him with her love.

"Rosie!"

He reached for her, and she waited a moment, looking to Kari to ensure it was alright before she took a step closer to him, her hand closing within his. She tried to be strong as she felt the warmth of his skin against hers, and she let out a small shaky breath. “There’s my love,” she said softly, a sad smile painting her lips as she sat down on the edge of his bed.

When he took a painful breath, her hand immediately went to the side of his face, “Don’t move too fast. I’m not going anywhere.” They’d have to peel her from his side now that he was awake. Healer Montreaux would have to come and remove her forcibly himself.

"What...where...are you alright – are you hurt?"

“Shhh,” she hushed him leaning in to kiss his forehead before resting hers against it. She was hurt. She wasn’t alright. But he didn’t need all of that now. He needed to be reassured and calmed so he didn’t hurt himself further. “I’m fine,” she murmured, her hand still stroking the side of his face. “Your mum has been taking wonderful care of me.”

Her eyes filled with tears, as she pulled back slightly, her lip trembling as she pushed his curls out of his eyes, wanting to take in every inch of him. “She’s got me in your sister’s room and…” she paused a moment. She couldn’t do this. It was too simple, too casual. “I’m so relieved you’re alright. Cass - I was so scared.” She kissed his forehead again, letting her lips linger as her tears fell over her cheeks. She missed the scent of cinnamon and books, the hospital having taken their place, but he was here. Awake. Alive. She could touch him, hear him, see him.

“I’m so sorry love. I’m so sorry.”

“There’s my love.”

There he was and there she was, but an explanation remained elusive. Despite the many thoughts firing, none could connect the gap between the clearing and this... Cassian realised it was a hospital. They hadn't walked there; they hadn't stumbled in. Sound reason told him that if her father had gotten to the brink of annihilating them, then he wouldn't have sheathed his wand and told them to have a nice day. Try as he might, his memories ended with the searing pain that wracked his body, infilitrating every nerve and setting it on fire.

But he wasn't here. None of them were. The trees had vanished. The ground was made of cold concrete, freshly cleaned, rather than of dirt and muck. Rosie sat at the edge of his bed, and he tried to pull her closer. His muscles wouldn't cooperate; they barely managed to tug her.

“Don’t move too fast. I’m not going anywhere.”

Cass heard the words, but they were difficult to accept. They'd been there, in France. He'd been working late. It should've been a day like any other. They were going out to a show and would grab dinner somewhere in town, then they tried to take her away from him. They came into their home, grabbed and abused her. They'd...they'd taken him, too. The boy could feel a pulling against his limbs, as if his body were still in motion.

"I don't..." he looked about the room, trying to orient himself to this new reality. "I don't understand," he confessed. His brows furrowed as dark eyes found her deep blue again. Cassian felt the kiss, the same way he felt the warmth of her forehead against his, but every inch of him cried out, adrenaline forcing its way through him and forcing him to believe that they weren't safe staying still. Like the night Rosie had been attacked and he packed up everything they owned, the boy felt like they needed to already be clear across...

Across...

“Your mum has been taking wonderful care of me.”

His mum...in France...?

"How did she...?" His lips were heavy, making it hard to get out even the smallest sentences. The new information made his head spin worse, his brain finding it difficult to reconcile the mother he knew to be back in England...somehow taking care of his wife in France. They'd been so careful to keep their location hidden, but in one evening...both sets of parents had found them. The odds of such a thing were astronomical.

“She’s got me in your sister’s room and…”

...Huh?

"Justine's...room?" It wasn't possible. Unless. He looked back to his mother. Kari was barely holding herself together, too many expressions crossing her features to keep track of. "Where are we?" Even as he asked, he dreaded the answer for fear they'd been dragged home. It wasn't safe. Now, his mother might not be safe. While the boy didn't truly know how long he'd been there, it already felt like too long. Not France – anywhere else. There had to be somewhere they could go. The wards – he'd have to start looking for stronger ones.

The tears slowed him. In the middle of this new panic, he felt his focus zeroing in on the way they streaked down his wife's face.

"Rosie..." His heart was breaking. "You've got nothing to be sorry for. I'm...this is my fault. I couldn't...I should've been there. I should've..."

Should've what? Was it inevitable? Had they always been on borrowed time?

He tried to rise again, ignoring the way it twisted something sharp in his chest and caused his vision to darken. "We gotta go. We – I don't know where, but we—" Cass pitched forward, the world going blank for a couple seconds.

"You're not going anywhere but back to bed," Kari said firmly as she nudged him back onto the bed. Cass winced as he made contact with the mattress. "You've got nowhere else to be, and the healer said you need rest. Please."

The woman looked to Rosie, hoping she might get him to see reason when he was still so obviously in fight or flight, thinking their lives still depended on it.

"I don't understand."

Of course he didn't. When she'd taken him in her arms and apparated them out of the clearing, he'd already been on the edges of his consciousness from what she'd noticed. By the time they'd arrived on his parent's stoop, death had nearly taken him. She could still feel how cold he felt in her arms, how pale his face looked against the stark red of warm blood, how heavy he was as his body gave out.

There had been no time for him to assess the situation as it changed. He was waking, still thick in the moments where her father and uncle had rained their hatred down on him.

"How did she...? Justine's...room? Where are we?"

She didn't want to overwhelm him with too much information before he'd had a chance to catch his breath. With her hand on his face and her fingers brushing against his neck, she could feel his pulse thundering beneath his skin. "St. Mungo's." Far from France and the life that had been theirs. "Your dad brought us here after I got you home."

There were so many details, small and large, but none that seemed important enough in this moment. All that concerned her was the look in his eyes, and finding a way to calm and reassure him. She couldn't afford for him to go tearing at his stitches and reopen his wounds or spiral into a dark place of nightmares that she couldn't save him from. She knew, just like the healers had told her, that all of this would take time to recover from, to come to terms with.

But for now, she wanted him to settle and rest.

"You've got nothing to be sorry for."

But she did. It was her father that had hunted them, not his. It was her father that had tortured them, mocked them, and tried to killed them. Had she been anyone else, this would have never happened, but as fate saw fit, she was the daughter of a man who would go to evil lengths to punish those who he believed to have wronged him.

"I'm...this is my fault. I couldn't...I should've been there. I should've..."

"No," she insisted firmly, boring her eyes into his. "No." She shook her head, knowing it was all she'd say for now. There was no need for more. It was not his fault, and she'd never stomach him claiming otherwise. He didn't victimize her or himself.

"We gotta go. We – I don't know where, but we—"

"Cassian..."

She sat back as he suddenly lurched himself forward, ready to apparently spring out of the bed, but Kari was faster.

"You're not going anywhere but back to bed. You've got nowhere else to be, and the healer said you need rest. Please."

Rosie's eyes drifted from Cassian to his mother, catching the look that asked her for her help. She thought for a moment, before slipping out of her sandals and pulled back the blankets to climb in next to him. His warmth met her, washing over her in that familiar way that lurched through the girl. Gently, she settled herself on his pillow with him and pulled the blanket up over their shoulders.

"Look at me." Her voice carried softly over the cotton fabric as her hand rested lightly at his collarbone, wanting him to focus on her and the sensation of her next to him. If she could distract him, even for a moment, it would be enough. "You're safe now. I'm safe. Your dad saw to that." Julia had told her only bits and pieces, but it was enough to know that Julian had done what only a good father could have.

"Rest." She offered him a pained smile, nestling against the pillow as she held his gaze, not wanting him to look away. Her fingers traced his collarbone in the same way it used to when they'd sit up on the roof at Hogwarts and stare at the stars for hours, whiling away the time with their stories and dreams. "Want to play a game?" she asked softly, reaching for something familiar that would calm the pounding in his chest.

"You love me, real or not?"

St...Mungo's...?

The name didn't sound real as it hit his ear. It ricocheted around inside his brain with the rest of the chaos that overwhelmed him. How had his dad gotten them there? What happened to the fight and the clearing? Rosie answered his questions, but it felt like he was only left with more of them. Surely, he couldn't have been the only one missing the link between what had happened and what now was, but the pair of them stood there like nothing was wrong. Like...like they didn't understand that the men could be back at any moment and that none of them were safe. If they were prepared to do what they'd done to Rosie, Cassian knew they wouldn't hesitate when it came to his mother, and he couldn't protect them both.

He could barely move.

Under such circumstances, Cassian couldn't understand how he was the only one filled with urgency.

"No."

Cass knew what the word meant, but even after the second time Rosie said it, blue eyes boring into his, they didn't make sense either. He wasn't asking whether it was his fault. Sweet as his wife was, he knew she would try to change his mind and assure him that she didn't blame him. This time, the evidence spoke for himself. He'd let her go home alone. When he got there, he was already too late and not strong enough to make a difference. As her husband, providing wasn't his only duty. He was meant to protect, and, on that front, he'd failed miserably.

There was much he had to make up for, and it started with getting them to somewhere safer than a public hospital where anyone could walk in. Did Cass think they would attack them there? Truly? He didn't know, but after everything else, it wasn't a chance he was willing to take.

The first step was getting himself out of this room, but that became all the more difficult when hands that were stronger than him nudged him back down. His head hit the pillow while he was still working on his protest.

This was wrong; it was all wrong. They couldn't afford to lie down. They...they...

"Look at me."

The hand at his collarbone grounded him, forcing his attention to remain on the girl who'd just crawled into bed with him. He was looking at her. All he could see was blood...and fear...and terror. Cassian had been beside himself when he'd found her beaten and bloody in their living room in Allonnes. He'd told himself that he would never let anyone hurt her again. That promise had been broken so quickly that it may as well have never been made.

"You're safe now. I'm safe. Your dad saw to that."

He swallowed roughly, pushing past the discomfort in his throat. Safe. Rosie said they were safe. There were many times they'd been 'safe' before shit hit the fan again. "For how long?" he asked in earnest. "Rosie...they'll come back."

"Rest."

How could he? Cassian couldn't shake the feeling that something was still...not right. Rosie's smile all but confirmed it. Not knowing what that was left him in a state that made it harder for him to let go. Soon, the choice was removed from him. His limbs melted into the mattress. The boy had worked himself up in the previous minutes, and it took a bigger toll on his body than he'd first realised. He felt like a battery that had lost its charge, unable to do more than lie there, relieved to have his wife – relieved he could feel her warmth – while a quiet dread remained with him.

"You love me, real or not?"

The corners of his lips tugged upward until they nearly resembled a smile. It brought him back, in the middle of his pain and the anxiety that wouldn't release him. Whenever they played this game, it was his favourite question.

"Real." He reached for the hand at his collarbone, hanging onto it in search of further reassurance.

He was quiet for a moment, trying to fight the return of sleep. "We really are safe now, real or not?"

There were so many promises broken; so many hopes and dreams they'd shared that had never come to fruition. Rosalie understood now how reckless they had been, how naïve they'd been to believe that the forces that wanted to see them separated would back down simply because they had run away.

She'd always heard running away didn't solve problems, and in their case it had only created more. When Cassian had asked her to go with him, she hadn't foreseen all the heartache and terror that would fall upon them; rather she had only seen him and those warm brown eyes that looked at her as the love of his life.

Had she known, could she say she'd do it all the same? She didn't know if she could, knowing this was the outcome. It sent a cold chill through her, as she wondered what she would have done, if not said yes to him on that lookout tower.

"For how long? Rosie...they'll come back."

She shook her head slightly, "They won't." Aside from standing her ground and showing her father that she wasn't weak, that she wasn't afraid to wield her power when it mattered most, Cassian's father had gone to Arundel. While she didn't know what all had been said or done, she felt assured enough that her father and uncle - and anyone else who had been in on the attack - wouldn't come back to try again. "We don't have to worry about them anymore."

She felt him sink into the bed as her eyes held his, unsure if it was exhaustion, resignation or both, but either way it settled her. He wasn't fighting.

"Real."

Emotion took hold of her, but she didn't crumple or let anymore tears fall. As his hand closed around hers, she felt an overwhelming sensation of gratitude. He was still here. She was still here with him. Hatred, violence, terror - it had torn them apart and broken them in unspeakable ways, some of which Cassian didn't even know yet. But it hadn't destroyed them, or the way they looked at one another.

"We really are safe now, real or not?"

She nodded. "Real." They were. They didn't have to run anymore or be afraid. They could just be, if that was what he wanted. If he still wanted them and whatever life they could rebuild after all of this. She didn't know what it would look like, or if it was even something they could fathom at this point.

"Go to sleep, Casanova. I'll stay right here with you." She leaned forward and kissed the tip of his nose, her hand, still healing from all they had endured, nestled safely in his.

"They won't. We don't have to worry about them anymore."

They...didn't...?

Cassian searched her gaze as if those beautiful oceans would reveal something that her words hadn't. Soft as her voice had been, Rosie's words seemed...sure. She wasn't hoping they wouldn't come back, nor was her body filled with the same taut tension that made his muscles ache. His wife, whether she liked to admit it or not, was a worrier. That she could lie there with him and tell him the fight was over did more for his nervous system than either of them would understand.

It dangled a small thread of peace before him, one he wanted to grasp and hold onto while he grappled with the feeling that the rest of the world was bigger and more terrifying than he had ever given it credit for.

Cassian wasn't naive. He didn't think, when he'd asked her to run, that they'd be in perpetual bliss. He knew it would be rough, but his upbringing hadn't prepared him for all that adulthood had thrown at him, away from the protection of his parents and predictable systems he'd spent a lifetime learning. Julia had told them that her family would be on the hunt. It had been terrifying but also...abstract. The monster under the bed, the bogeyman in the closet – a threat that loomed to keep them on their feet, but it was never meant to find them. The demons that had driven them from their homes and families were meant to be just that: shadow fears they could name in hushed voices but nothing that would actually try to destroy them.

Perhaps that was the naivety. Someone more mature would've understood that at any moment, they well and truly were looking death in the face.

He saw that now and the lesson etched itself into his bones.

"Real."

Real.

They were safe.

He exhaled a soft sigh of relief.

"Go to sleep, Casanova. I'll stay right here with you."

Sleep. His hand gripped hers tighter as his eyes closed. She said they were safe, but now that he'd awaken to her, he couldn't stand the thought of letting her go.