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“Martin,” Jon whispered, nudging him not so gently in the shoulder.
“What?” Martin answered on autopilot, barely awake. “You all right?”
“Did you hear that? It’s nearly four in the morning.”
“What? What is it?”
“She just got home. I just heard her come in,” Jon hissed.
Martin sighed and let his face fall back into the pillow. “Well, she’s home safe. We’ll talk in the morning.”
Jon wasn’t that satisfied. “She’s never stayed out this late. I thought she was just seeing a film.”
“Love, go to sleep. Talk in the morning.”
Jon grumbled his discontent and rolled over. He shut his eyes but before long they popped back open. This was not normal. Ellen was a quiet kid, a homebody, a bookworm, like… Like him. He never stayed out past midnight in his teens, much less until four. Something must be wrong, or at least, something had gone wrong tonight. But…
But yes, she was home, and it was late. Nothing to be said or done at the moment. He squeezed his eyes shut and nestled back closer to his dozing, unfazed husband, trying very hard to halt production on the anxious theories his mind turned out one after another.
He slept restlessly and interrupted until morning, when Martin turned over, kissed his head, and told him to try to sleep a bit more while he got up. Jon stirred about an hour later to some gentle chatter from downstairs and roused himself, slipping on the nearest dressing gown to fight off the chill of the drafty old house.
He made his way into the kitchen to find Martin pouring a cup of tea for Ellen, slumped on the other side of the counter, looking sleep-deprived and snug in her hoodie.
“Morning, did you get back to sleep at all?” Martin asked, punctuated with a kiss on Jon’s cheek.
“A bit,” he said, subtly eyeing Ellen for anything out of the ordinary. She simply looked tired. If anything, her expression read preoccupied but… pleasant.
Martin poured a cup of tea for Jon as well and left it to cool. He leaned back on the counter, unnaturally chipper, and glanced around his little family. “Look at you two zombies. I have a feeling a Saturday afternoon nap might be in order for you both.”
Ellen gave a drowsy smile and pulled her tea closer with a sleeve-covered hand.
Jon leaned back beside Martin. “You were out late,” he said.
She shifted a bit. “Yeah, sorry.”
“What were you up to?” Martin asked, clearly trying to wrest control of the conversation lest Jon turn it into a full-blown interrogation. It was probably wise to let him.
“Just, you know, hanging about,” Ellen said with a shrug. Suddenly, she looked distant and sheepish, her eyes darting away from her fathers.
“Is everything all right?” Jon asked.
She quickly looked back. “Oh! Yeah, yeah. Everything’s fine. I’ve just been, um… I’ve been hanging out with some new people lately. They’re cool.”
“Oh yeah?” Martin said. “Are they… nice people?”
“Yeah,” she said quickly. “Real nice. They’re good. I promise.”
“We trust your judgment, love,” Martin said.
Jon nodded, and added, “Maybe a text would be nice if you’re going to be out that late again.”
“Yeah, I’m sorry. I just… We were just hanging out. Didn’t realize how late it’d gotten.”
“Where were you all that time?” Jon asked.
She looked down into her tea. “Oh, ah… Just--just at a friend’s house, not out and about.”
“Oh, good,” Martin said. “How did you get home at that time of night?”
“My friend, she… Walked me home. She lives not too far, honestly, about a fifteen minute walk.”
“Well,” Martin said. “That was nice of her.”
She didn’t offer any additional detail but before Jon could prompt her more, Martin swooped in. “Breakfast, then? Eggs? Pancakes? Thoughts?”
Again, Ellen declined to respond, looking as though there was more she’d like to say. Jon carefully resisted the urge to fire off demands that she spill what was on her mind, though the desire burned. It had been a long time since questions from him were anything stronger than, well, annoying questions, but sloughing off the identity of Archivist had done little to improve his handle on basic tact. That was a skill he’d had to cultivate on his own, through decades of pointed looks and tuts from Martin.
“Are you sure you’re alright?” Martin asked her after a while of no answers from either of them.
“Um, actually...” she said finally, twisting her hands together inside her sleeves.
Jon’s heart plummeted. “Yes?”
“Can--can I tell you guys something?” Her voice sounded off-kilter, like the beating of her heart was interfering with words leaving her throat.
“Anything, love,” Martin said, while Jon blurted, “What’s wrong?”
She took a deep breath and continued to stare deep into her tea. “So, ah… The friend that I was with last night, she’s ah… Actually… She’s my girlfriend.”
“Oh!” Martin said, sounding as surprised as he did pleased.
Jon’s mouth melted into a relieved smile. “Oh, thank god,” he said.
“ Thank god? ” Ellen said, mortified.
Jon threw his hands up in defense. “No, no! I just meant-- I thought something was really wrong, is all!”
“No, no it’s just...” she said. “After the movie, I went over to hers and we ended up talking all night and sort of decided. Officially.”
“Well, that is really exciting, isn’t it?” Martin said, positively beaming. “I’m so happy for you, love.”
“How do you know her, again?” Jon asked.
“Just from school,” she said.
“So,” Martin said. “What’s her name?”
Ellen smiled, undeniably smitten. “Kira. Kira Lucas.”
Martin’s eyes flicked Jon’s way, begging him to bite his tongue.
“I’m sorry, what?” he snapped anyway.
“What?” Ellen threw back, defensive.
Martin rolled his eyes. “Jon, it’s a coincidence. How do you spell it?”
“K-I-R-A, Why?”
“Her last name,” Jon all but growled.
“Take it easy,” Martin scolded.
“L-U-C-A-S? What?”
At that, Martin swung a superior glare to Jon. “See?”
He slouched back with crossed arms. “Hell of a coincidence.”
Ellen shook her head, confused. “What is wrong with you? What are you talking about?”
Martin put out a consoling hand. “Your dad is just thinking of someone we used to know who… Wasn’t a very good person.”
“What has that got anything to do with me?”
“Nothing, love,” Martin said. “He’s just got some, ah... bad memories attached to that name. We both do. We’ll tell you about it sometime. Right now, we’re just so glad you’re happy.”
Jon knew when he was being boxed out of a conversation by pacifism in this family. It usually did everyone some good. He removed his glasses with one hand and ran the other up through his head of grey hair. “I’m--I’m sorry, dear. Everything’s fine. Don’t worry about it.”
“Okay…” She shrank back, eyeing them both with suspicion.
“Anyway,” Martin butt in. “No one ever answered my question about breakfast.”
Afterwards, Ellen went up to her room to do some schoolwork while they did the washing up. The second she was out of earshot, Martin turned to Jon with a conspiratory smile.
“A girlfriend,” he said, reverent.
“Martin, this is not a good thing.”
“Oh, Jon you--” Martin's smile faded into distress. “It’s nothing. Come on now.”
Jon shook his head manically at his husband. “Nothing? You can’t really think this is a coincidence. She rarely leaves the house until a month ago and then it turns out the girl she’s been out spending all her time with is a bloody Lukas ?”
Martin let out a long sigh. “She’s clearly not. It’s not even the same name.”
“I wouldn’t believe that unless I saw her birth certificate.”
Martin’s eyes widened, pleading.“You can’t be serious. Please don’t-- sour this for her.”
“I’m not--! Martin, we… We rebuilt the world so that she would never have to suffer like--like that. We swore we would never let any of that touch her.”
Martin took a deep breath. “Jon, you have to take a step back and think about this…” He trailed off and Jon knew he’d dropped the word ‘rationally’. “First of all, you know we can’t protect her from everything her whole life.”
“I know,” he said, indignant.
“Second, and more importantly... It’s been how many years since we’ve even heard tell of anyone involved in any of that stuff at all?”
Jon declined to answer.
“Decades, love. Twenty years at least.”
“All right, I know,” Jon said. He let that small victory for Martin sink in for a moment. “But you have to admit this is exactly the kind of thing a Lukas would do.”
“What, date our daughter?” Martin said, incredulous.
“Well-- yes!”
At this, Martin cocked his head to the side with a small adoring smile. Jon heeded this and thought back through his argument.
“All right. It’s a little absurd.”
“Yeah,” Martin said, drying his hands and leaning across the edge of the counter towards him.
Jon conceded. “And… not worth ruining her first relationship over.”
Martin patted his hand and Jon thought he detected just a dash of condescension. “That’s right, love.”
Later that afternoon, Jon jolted awake from his nap on the sofa pillowed against Martin’s lap to the rumble of Ellen bounding down the stairs.
“I was just going to-- oh, sorry!” she said, spotting Jon’s fluttering eyelids.
“I’m awake, don’t worry,” he said.
“I was going to go meet Kira at Costa to do some schoolwork together, is that all right?”
“Of course, love,” Martin said, over his book. “Will you be home for dinner?”
“Should be,” she said. “I’ll let you know if not.”
“All right, have fun. Love you!”
“Love you,” she called back, grabbing her jacket off the coat rack and running out the door.
Martin ran a hand over Jon’s shoulder and said, “Have a nice nap?”
“Quite nice,” he said.
“Did you sleep off any of your conspiracy theories or are they still going strong?”
Jon grumbled and pushed up from Martin’s lap, flopping back against the sofa beside him.
“I think we should invite her over for dinner,” Martin said.
“For dinner?” Jon spat.
“Yeah, Jon,” Martin said. “That’s what you do when your child has a new partner who is definitely not a descendant of your old evil nemesis.” Jon narrowed his eyes and Martin closed his book. “Look, if you’re right, don’t you think we’d be able to tell from meeting her?”
“Probably…” Jon said.
“Then what’s the harm?”
“I don’t know, ah…” He grappled for an excuse that wasn’t based in his theory. “You don’t think it’s a little serious of a, ah-- step to take? They’re young, and it’s so new--”
“She’s 16,” Martin said. “We can’t treat this like a childish thing or she’ll never want to talk to us about it.”
Jon shrank into the sofa a bit at this. Of course, Martin was right to some degree. Alienating her now could only drive her farther away towards what he dreaded most.
“She’s clearly been spending time at the girl’s house,” Martin continued. “I’d like her to feel welcome here, as well.”
“I suppose… I suppose you’re right,” Jon said.
When Ellen came home a few hours later, Martin had a hearty pasta dish prepared. Throughout dinner, Jon kept his eyes on her as much as possible without getting caught. She looked distracted, but… in a good way. Not quite like her mind was filled with ruminations on the futility of human connection... but that could, of course, be the gambit. Draw her in with charisma and cheap, charming lines, then twist her mind slowly, undetectably, towards poisonous solitude. After all, Peter Lukas hadn’t been a particularly dour man. That was exactly the danger.
Jon stared at his pasta lost in thought, vaguely aware of the minor banter he was missing from his family.
“We were wondering,” he heard Martin say when he tuned back in. “Would you like to invite Kira over for dinner tomorrow night?”
Jon’s head shot up just in time to see Ellen’s eyes go wide.
“T-tomorrow?” she asked.
Martin shrugged. “Or whenever, if tomorrow’s too soon--”
“Yeah,” she said. “I--if it would be all right--”
“Of course, dear,” Martin said. “We’d love to meet her.”
Jon noticed a moment too late that Martin had looked over to him for corroboration. “Oh, yes, yes, of course!” he stammered.
“Well… Yeah. I think I’d really like that,” she said, looking pleased and grateful.
“Wonderful,” Martin said.
“I’ll ask her but she was busy tonight, so I might not know until the morning. Is that all right?”
“Sure, darling,” Martin said. “You know we can throw together a dinner on a whim.”
Jon pushed some pasta around with his fork. “What was Kira up to tonight?”
“Oh, she had a family thing,” Ellen said.
“What kind of family thing?” he persisted.
Ellen shook her head. “I don’t know--”
“Does she have a lot of family?”
“I don’t really-- oh,” Ellen said, rolling her eyes a bit. “Is this that weird thing you have with her name?”
Martin shot a warning glance Jon’s way. “I was just curious,” he said, and retreated.
A moment of silence passed.
“Well, does she have any siblings?” Jon asked, innocently.
“All right, Archivist. Easy,” Martin teased under his breath.
“I’m not-- I’m just trying to learn about her,” he said, defensive.
Ellen ignored the confusing quips. “She’s got two sisters, one younger, one older. She was super surprised to find out I’m an only child,” she said, with a laugh. “She said only children she’s met aren’t usually so well-adjusted.”
“Well, I’ll take that compliment,” Martin said cheerfully.
Jon added nothing but an ambivalent hum.
That night, when Jon closed his eyes to sleep, he saw fog. It was anything but innocent, that awful, gentle mist that beckoned and lied and obscured and carressed.
An endless shore stretched out to either side of him, but he wasn’t alone. He saw two figures in the distance, one to his left and one to his right. Their shapes were indiscernible, but he knew. Martin stood on the left, a sickening reflection of a distant memory. He didn’t know if it was a younger Martin, the one he had found here once before, or the Martin he kissed in the morning and slept beside at night, with thinning hair and sweet, shallow lines creasing the curves of his face.
The other was Ellen, wrapped in the hoodie she wore around the house on weekends and on chilly winter evenings. She shouldn’t be here. This was all wrong. She was never supposed to know the hateful touch of this kind of distilled, malicious dread. If Martin was here with her, how could this have happened? How could he have let her… No, no. He didn’t know. Of course not. Neither was aware of the other’s presence, nor did they want to be. That was the nature of the fog.
Both looked perfectly content to stand just where they were, complacent and unobserved. But Jon could see them. That knowledge made him responsible. He shouted their names, but they did not turn. He knew the solution; he had done this before. He would have to rush their space, refuse to let them ignore him, drag them back to him by the force of his own love. But they were both so far away from him and from each other. He had to pick one to run to first.
He didn’t know how or when he chose Ellen, or if it even was his choice. He found himself moving towards her and grabbed her shoulder, pulling her around to face him and finding her expression serene and detached. He grabbed her hand and held tight, pulling her along down the beach like she was five again, trailing behind with implicit trust that Jon would never lead her astray.
Martin now seemed farther away than he was before. The distance should have been closing in as they moved, but it wasn’t. Not only that, but he started to look dimmer, less defined. He was losing his shape, dissolving into nothing, and Jon broke into a sprint, hand tight around Ellen’s still.
It couldn’t be too late. No one said there was a ticking clock. He shouted his name again and again and heard it deafened by the sheer nothingness around them, knew it wasn’t reaching Martin’s ears as the last wisps of the love of his life seemed to become the fog itself, no longer resembling anything close to a human man.
“It’s okay, Dad,” Ellen said. But it wasn’t. She was lying. She always said it was okay when it wasn’t. He should have tried harder.
He continued to shout, kept running into the fog though he knew Martin was gone, and he’d chosen Ellen. Was that true? Had he chosen? How could he choose? He didn’t remember making the decision, his mind muddled with the fog and something else, some nondescript sense of disbelief, that this shouldn’t be happening, couldn’t be happening, not after what had happened, what they’d done.
A firm hand grasped his shoulder and his eyes sprang open into pitch black.
He heard Martin’s voice, quiet and soothing. “Jon. You’re okay. I’m right here. Everything’s fine.”
“Martin,” he breathed, heaving in the air of their dark bedroom. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine, love. Everything’s okay.”
“No,” he said. He scanned the room, letting reality set in and sweep away the visions of fog and pangs of heartbreak. He groaned and threw an arm over his eyes, and Martin cupped a hand around his cheek.
“Do you want to tell me about it?”
He shook his head automatically, but then removed his arm from his face and saw Martin, hovering over him with gentle concern. “It was, ah… Just the fog. The...”
Martin made a hum of understanding and laid back down. He opened his arms as an invitation for Jon to roll over into them, which he quickly took and pressed his face into Martin’s neck. For a moment, he just felt the beat of Martin’s heart under his T-shirt and the give of his skin under his cheek. “You were both in it, in the... you and Ellen, and I…” He sucked in a long breath, still at a loss for air. “I got her. But you disappeared.”
Martin gave a little chuckle. “Well, I know it wasn’t for lack of trying. You were shouting my name quite a lot.”
“Oh,” Jon said, almost able to laugh back. “Sorry.”
“No need for that,” he said, combing his fingers through Jon’s mussed, sweat-damp hair.
“So it wasn’t-- you weren’t there? It wasn’t--”
“No, love,” Martin said. “Just a regular dream.”
He sighed. “I don’t like when you’re in them like that, it-- That used to mean--”
“I know, love. I bet that’s very confusing." He nodded and Martin pressed a kiss into his hair. “You know I’m not going anywhere, right?”
Jon let out another deep sigh. “I know.”
“Right. Well, if that’s settled, do you think you can get back to sleep? Or does this one call for a cup of tea?”
“No, no, I’ll be fine,” Jon said. He scooted down, pillowed his head on Martin’s chest and draped his arm around his middle. “Can I stay here?”
“Of course.”
“I love you,” he whispered.
“I love you, Jon.”
As they settled back into the quiet, he heard a soft creaking in the hallway outside their door. Ellen had gotten into the habit of standing by until all went quiet whenever she was awoken by one of her fathers screaming in terror in the night. At first, when she was very small, such an occurrence usually left her in tears, leaving the unaffected parent with a weepy, terrified child in addition to an unsettled spouse. As she got older and came to understand, she sometimes would knock to check on them. Sometimes, like tonight, she would simply bolt down the hall and stand vigil until she was certain all was well.
“Wait, sorry,” Jon muttered as he disturbed their restored peace and shot out of bed to catch her. “Ellen?” he called, and she stopped in her tracks just as she reached her bedroom. “Are you okay?”
She squinted, confused. “Yeah, Dad, are you okay?”
“Yeah,” he said, through a heaving breath. “I’m fine, are-- you didn’t… Didn’t have any weird dreams just now?”
She gave a small chuckle. “Are you worried we had the same dream?”
“I’m just-- just checking. No-- no fog or beach, or--”
She shook her head. “No, I just heard you-- I wanted to make sure you’re okay. That’s all.”
“Okay,” he panted. “Yes, I’m--I’m fine. Sorry, sorry. Go back to bed. I love you. Good night.”
She looked a bit more amused than she did concerned. “Love you too, Dad. Good night.”
“All right?” Martin asked when he returned to bed.
“Yes, I just… Just checking.”
“I understand, love,” he said, ever a pillar of compassion, a soft place to rest his head. “Come here.”
Sunday morning brought a confirmation that they were, in fact, hosting their daughter’s new girlfriend for dinner that evening. Late in the afternoon, Martin shuffled into the kitchen to begin cooking and Jon joined him under the guise of wanting to be helpful. Martin gave him some vegetables to chop and he took them gladly. He kept an ear out for movement upstairs lest Ellen come down and ruin his moment with a captive audience.
“Can I just put forth a theory?” Jon said tentatively.
Martin’s eyes remained on his own cutting board. “Is it a different theory from the one you were putting forth all day yesterday?”
Jon narrowed his eyes. “No. But... it’s an expansion on said theory and I’d like for you to just hear me out. In the interest of being prepared, all right?”
“All right.”
“ If, ” he began with grand purpose, “there were Lukases out there who, for some reason, give a shit about their dead god, they might still be pretty dissatisfied with the way things went, correct?”
“Correct.”
“And what is there to do about that today? Not much. Except…” Jon abandoned his chopping momentarily and held up a finger, gearing to unveil the crux of his argument. Martin spared a glance up from his onion. “Get back at the people who killed it. Right?”
“Oh, Jon.”
He pointed that finger straight at Martin. “You said you’d hear me out. It wouldn’t be hard to find out that we still live in London and are now parents, which classically makes for the perfect weak spot, so it’s a perfect plan. Send their weird, charming progeny to enamour our daughter and slowly isolate her from us and her friends and her life just for the satisfaction.”
“Jon,” Martin said. “Love. Can I point out one slightly off detail in all this?”
He bobbed his head from side to side, reluctant. “Fine.”
“Why on Earth would they send her mucking about with the same last name, just one letter different? What exactly does that accomplish?”
Jon carefully avoided eye contact. “I… I’m not sure about that part.”
“If it was in the interest of going undetected, clearly it’s an extremely ineffective choice. You sniffed it out immediately. I just don’t think that’s their style.”
“We don’t--” Jon caught himself raising his voice and dropped back down to a hushed tone. “We don’t know what their style is. There were loads of them. They probably all had their own brand of creepy, insidious manipulation.”
Martin laid his knife down on the counter and turned to him, eyes admonishing yet still gentle. “Jon,” he said. “And don’t eat me for bringing this up, but… Do you remember that time you were so suspicious of everyone in the Archives that when I showed concern for your wellbeing, you thought I was evil and trying to sabotage you?”
Jon hesitated. “What exactly is your point?”
“Just that we both know you have a knack for paranoia.”
“It’s paranoia until I’m right,” Jon rebutted.
Martin gave him a pitying look and held out his hand. “Come here, love.”
Jon begrudgingly took it and was quickly pulled into a tight embrace. He inhaled the scent of Martin’s jumper and it smelled like it always had, clean and warm, safe. He’d had this particular oversized jumper for a very long time, and it had always been one of Jon’s favorites, maybe just for nostalgia’s sake. For a moment, he was transported to a different kitchen in a strange, quiet cottage, from a part of their history that always felt a bit like a dream. He recalled the first time he realized that if they stood front to front at their natural heights, Martin’s lips came to the perfect level to rest at the very edge of Jon’s hairline, as if they were made to slot together in this way.
As he was wont to do, Martin whispered generalized comforts that he was somehow able to present as undeniable truths. “Ellen is safe. I’m safe, we’re safe. Nothing is going to hurt us. We said we’d never let that happen and we won’t, all right?”
Jon let out a shuddering breath. “All right.”
“We’ve taken down a lot more than one meddling Lukas.”
“That’s true,” he muttered.
“I love you,” Martin whispered into his skin.
“I love you, too,” he said. “But I have to say, I’ve never been a fan of just how reasonable you can be sometimes.”
Martin smirked into Jon’s forehead. “You’re just jealous.”
“In fact, I am.”
Martin chuckled and pulled his lips back to place them on Jon’s, hands firmly planted on either side of his face. They had their fair share of old, married kisses in their banal day to day, but this was not one. It was a promise and a comfort compacted into one deep and deliberate joining of lips, communicating something far more complex than a simple I love you. Perhaps something more along the lines of, I would take on the end of the world with you, and in fact, I did, so there’s not much that could hurt us now.
He didn’t even hear Ellen come downstairs but clearly Martin did, as he pulled away and turned to look at her with an arm around Jon’s waist.
She was wearing the jumper he knew she saved for when she was trying to impress, tucked into jeans to maintain a casual air. Her hair was down, framing her youthful face in dark, wild curls. She usually kept it tied up in a messy, matted bun, a bad habit she had absorbed from Jon himself.
“Oh,” Martin said. “You look so lovely, dear.”
She looked away sheepishly. “Thanks, Dad. Do you want my help with anything?”
Martin shook his head. “I think we’ve got it under control, haven’t we?”
“Ah,” Jon stammered. “Yes, I believe so.”
“All right then, I’ll just be upstairs until she gets here, so… Let me know.” She turned to leave but then thought again. “You guys… Are going to be cool, right?” she added with a grimace.
“ Cool? ” Jon said, as if he didn’t understand the meaning of the word.
“Aren’t we always?” Martin said with a grin.
“I don’t think we’ve ever done anything one would describe as ‘cool’,” Jon said.
“I don’t mean--” Ellen stammered. “It’s not that I think-- it’s just that--”
“Oh come on,” Martin, playfully tightening his arm around Jon. “Can you even name cooler parents than us?”
Ellen laughed and retorted without missing a beat. “Georgie and Melanie, for one.”
“Oh,” Martin said, mock-offended. “You will take that back. It’s true, but you still have to take it back.”
Later, when the doorbell rang and Ellen came barrelling down the stairs to answer, Jon looked at Martin with slight panic.
“Just stay in here,” Martin said, setting out a simple plate of cheese and crackers on the kitchen counter. “Let her greet her first.”
They listened to the nervous pleasantries and rustling of shoes and coats. Martin was smiling but Jon was having a hard time fighting the nerves in his stomach, which kept his mouth pressed into a tight line. Eventually, they appeared through the kitchen doorway.
“Well,” Ellen said. “These are my dads. And this is Kira.”
Kira shot out her hand a bit skittishly, though her face was warm and eager. “It’s so nice to meet you, Mr. Blackwood.”
“Martin,” he said, shaking her hand. “We’re both Mr. Blackwood, so don’t bother with formalities. Easier that way.”
Jon took her hand next. “I’m Jon,” he said. “You should, ah... Wel--welcome. Come on in.” He awkwardly gestured at the plate of cheese. The girls moved into the kitchen and as she passed, Martin gently grabbed Ellen’s shoulder.
“I don’t know who’s more nervous, you or him,” Martin stage-whispered and Ellen cracked a laugh.
“I can hear you,” Jon said.
“I’m aware.”
Jon had only ever met one Lukas in his life, so he wasn’t quite sure what he was expecting Kira to look like if she was in fact one of them. He thought maybe from what he’d read of the family, he’d expected her to be posh and cold, maybe dressed sharp and expensive, maybe sporting a cruel, distant sneer, quietly judging them for their silly familial attachments. He hadn’t quite considered that Ellen would never waste her time with someone like that to begin with. He admitted to himself and no one else that this was a bit of an oversight.
Kira just looked like… a nice person. The kind of person Ellen would get along with. She had colorful style, looking as if she had tried to smooth some rough edges to be presentable but still sported dark, heavy duty lace-up boots. She rarely stopped smiling, though, a gentle pleasant expression touched just a bit by nerves and awkwardness. Jon could feel the knot of anxiety that had been gripping his chest for twenty-four hours begin ever slowly to melt into relief.
Throughout dinner, Jon tried to keep his questions sparing and above board, but Kira answered them all with forthright enthusiasm, sharing stories about her big family that sounded like, quite frankly, an absolute joy.
Ellen kept glancing at Kira with this odd, wobbly smile he’d never seen on her before. He thought it looked a bit like the smile Martin used to save for him when he thought he wasn’t looking, late at night in a dim basement office a whole lifetime ago. Martin managed to only tell one story about Ellen when she was younger, and a mild one at that, still earning a groan from their daughter.
Just as Martin was about to serve dessert, it dawned on Jon how undeniably warm he felt. He glanced between Ellen and this new presence in their lives and couldn’t detect a single shred of anything cold or foreboding about her. Just as Martin had said, if there were something wrong, they’d know. They would have felt waves billowing off of her like dry ice, having been far too familiar and previously affected by the Lonely to miss its hold on someone. But quite frankly, she failed all the tests. When it seemed no one was looking, Jon let out a sigh full of the tension he’d been holding since the day before.
After dinner, Jon and Martin cleaned up while Ellen and Kira went into the living room to hang out. They were separated by just a thin wall and an open doorway, conveniently postponing the inevitable told-you-so indictment that was coming his way as soon as Martin had him alone. Every time they heard a peal of laughter drift in from the other room, Martin broke into a grin, and Jon couldn’t help but find his own mouth quirking upward. Soon, Martin’s drying had slowed a bit and Jon glanced over to catch him in a massive yawn.
“I can finish up down here,” Jon said. “You go get ready for bed.”
“You sure? I’m all right to keep--”
“Go,” Jon said, lifting his damp, soapy hands out of the sink. “Or I’ll--” Instead of finishing his threat, he illustrated by making as if to grab Martin’s face with his dripping fingers.
“All right, all right,” he said, knocking his hands out of the way so he could kiss Jon’s cheek while staying dry. Before he went up, he poked his head into the living room.
“Kira, it was a pleasure. We really hope to see you again soon.”
“Thank you so much for having me, Martin,” she said. “It was lovely.”
“Stay as long as you like, just get home safe. Good night, dears.”
They both echoed his good night and Martin made his way up the stairs.
Jon had seen a lot of things he once thought impossible happen before his eyes. He remembered the bitterness he spent his twenties nurturing and how he had truly come to believe that the kind of love people sought was a delusion and a distraction, and that he was incapable of ever truly giving or receiving it. Then, as his life unfolded as it did, he lost hope that his world, if not the world at large, would never be safe and normal again.
Then Martin loved him, and then they saved the world. And twenty years later, Jon still found himself lost in thought washing dishes, floored by what surrounded him. A doting husband who sometimes still looked at him like a lovesick assistant with a crush on his boss. A brilliant daughter who looked out for him just as much as he did for her these days. He had become a fighter, a monster, a survivor, but now he was the one thing he truly never thought possible - an old man with a happy family. His life was downright bloody wholesome.
He shook his head in disbelief as he set the last glass to dry, turned off the lights in the kitchen, and said his good nights to the girls in the other room.
Martin was already nestled in bed reading on his side, but he sat up when Jon entered and started to change into pyjamas.
“So--” he began, but Jon held up his hand.
“Can the I-told-you-sos wait until I’m settled down?”
Martin smirked. “Of course, dear. Just glad you know they’re coming.”
Jon grumbled, but there was no real contempt in it. He went back to the door after changing, said, “I’ll be back for my ridicule in a moment,” and left the room for the bathroom in the hall.
As he made his way to brush his teeth, he couldn’t help but hear the warble of voices from downstairs and feel drawn to listen closer. By now, this was simply a bad habit, a hunger that no longer ran his life but never quite left completely. Maybe it had always been in him, even before. Maybe that’s how he’d fallen prey to the Eye and let it in so easily.
Much like the Eye, he wasn’t always exactly entitled to the knowledge he craved. Yet, he would not be settled until he acquired it. He was perfectly capable of denying it, but quite frankly, let his judgment lapse. He crept to the top of the stairs which opened up into the foyer and subsequently the living room where Ellen and Kira were sitting on the sofa.
Their conversation was hushed, but it was not a big house. He could hear every word.
“...are funny,” he heard Kira say.
“Yeah,” Ellen said. “You know, they’re still really in love and I never know if that’s weird or nice.”
“Why would it be weird?” Kira asked, sounding amused.
“I don’t know, don’t old people normally fall out of love and just live together out of convenience?”
For god’s sake, Jon thought. He had hoped she at least might have inherited Martin’s sense of romance.
“I don’t know, not everybody,” Kira said. “I think it’s real sweet that your parents are like that.”
Ellen huffed a laugh, a familiar deflection of acceptance. “They, ah… Went through some shit when they were younger. I don’t really understand it all but I think it had to do with… You know.”
“The Horrors?” Kira said. “My parents talk about that too.”
“Yeah, but… I think they were really in it. Like, really in it. I just don’t quite get how. I… I wanna know more. Someday.”
“They probably don’t like to think about it, you know?”
“Yeah.”
Jon’s heart was beating like it wanted out of his chest. He leaned against the wall of the stairs, terrified to move an inch lest he give up his presence.
“They must be really strong,” Kira said. “I can see how you turned out so great.”
He quietly scurried back towards the bathroom, brushed his teeth, and joined Martin in bed.
“So, what were they saying?” he asked, eyes still trained on his book.
“I--what--nothing, I--” Jon stammered.
“You took a suspiciously long time to brush your teeth. I thought perhaps you were doing a little ill-advised spying.”
“How could you-- fine. Maybe I was.”
“And?”
Jon sighed, as if put out by it. “She’s very lovely, isn’t she?”
Martin nodded, a bit self-righteous. “She is.”
“And she’s just… normal.”
“I believe she is.”
Martin said nothing else.
“Hm. I feel like I got off easy. I was expecting much more gloating,” Jon said.
“I think I’ll spread it out instead of doing it all at once,” Martin said.
Jon sunk down under the covers and stared at the ceiling. “You must see what I was thinking, right?”
Martin shrugged. “You were scared that something we put behind us a long time ago was coming back to take what you hold most dear,” he said, as if it was nothing, a simple fact of life. He was a little too good at knowing how Jon’s brain worked.
He nodded. “Yeah.”
“I get it, love. I worry about it all the time, too. Doesn’t mean it’s actually going to happen, or that it’s anywhere near probable.”
“Yes, I--I know. But…” Jon said. “I have to admit this one was, ah… Just a bit stupid.”
Martin closed his book and set it aside. “Come here,” he said.
Jon wasted no time slithering up to wind his arms around Martin’s neck and kissing him resolutely. Martin pulled away to look at him with that fond, pitying grin that Jon so loved and hated. “I love you, you stupid little man,” he said.
He groaned and buried his face in Martin’s shoulder.
Not too long after, he heard Ellen let Kira out the front door and then bound up the stairs to her bedroom. He suddenly sat up.
“Martin, I…” he began softly. “I think I want to talk to her.”
“About what?”
“You know, the… Everything. That we went through. Back then.”
Martin nodded and took his hand. “I think it’s a good time to start, if you do.”
“I do,” he said.
“Would you like me to come with you?”
Jon hesitated. “I think… If it’s all right, I’d like to talk to her alone. For now.”
“That’s perfectly fine, love,” he said, and Jon slipped into the hall.
Ellen’s bedroom door was ajar, but he knocked anyway.
“Yeah?” she called.
“Just me,” he said, taking it as a cue to enter. She was reclining on her bed, not yet changed into pyjamas. She tossed her phone down on the bed as Jon came and sat down on the edge, giving him her full attention.
“I just wanted to say,” Jon began. “She’s very nice.”
“Yeah.”
“I like her. A lot.”
Ellen smiled. “Thanks, Dad.”
“I’m very sorry I acted so strangely at first,” he said. “I was… letting a very old fear come back and get the best of me. It was probably very confusing for you.”
“A bit,” she said.
He laughed. “Well, I’m sorry for that.”
“No need,” she said.
He swung his legs up so that he was sitting cross-legged facing her. “You know, that’s what your dad always says, but… You don’t have to. Sometimes people do need to apologize and that’s okay.”
She considered this, her face twisting uncomfortably. “Dad, I… I get that, but really, this is one where you don’t.”
Jon nodded with a smile. “Okay. Well, I was wondering… If you had any questions you might want to ask me.”
She grimaced. “About dating?”
“Oh! No, no, actually-- actually I wouldn’t have very much to say on that subject whatsoever,” he laughed. “I was thinking more… You know. About our past. I know we’ve teased a lot of, ah… mysterious stories.” He splayed a hand out on her duvet, feeling the ridges of stitching beneath his fingers.
“Oh, um...” she said. “I don’t want you to feel like you have to talk about it if it’ll… I don’t want to upset you.”
He realized he hadn’t been looking at her at all, fixated on the details in her duvet. He reaffixed his attention to Ellen. “It--it’s been a long time. It’s all right. And you’re getting older and I think there are some things you should know. Maybe not all at once, but we should… start talking about it. I want to.”
Ellen nodded, unsure how to proceed. Jon gave her a moment of quiet to decide what she wanted to know.
“Well, can you tell me what… Who did you think Kira was?”
Jon heaved a heavy sigh and looked away as if Martin would be there to bail him out. But no, he had taken this conversation on his own. Intentionally, even. Maybe he should have thought about what he wanted to say or not say before he embarked on this, but of course, he’d simply jumped in the deep end without a plan. Not the first time.
“Well. You know your dad and I met through work. Nobody knew what they were getting into when starting that job and we ended up involved with some very terrible things and… very terrible people.”
She looked at him like he was absolutely mad. “I thought you guys were like, librarians.”
Jon had to laugh. “That’s… Well, that’s sort of true, but… Would you believe me if I said we were very high risk librarians?”
She raised an eyebrow. “You’re going to have to explain that one.”
“Ah, well… It’s… I don’t want to get bogged down in the details of the job. It’s not all that important. Well--” he stammered. Maybe it was a mistake to do this alone.
Ellen was patient, staring and waiting for him to continue, occasionally glancing away to minimize the pressure on him.
He began again. “How much do you know about the Horrors?”
“I mean, just what we learn in school,” she said. It was an odd, tenuous subject for kids her age. Their parents had lived through an unexplainable, otherworldly apocalypse. They were being raised by a generation of people grappling for normality in a world that had almost ended but didn’t.
“Well,” he said, expelling all the oxygen possible in one sigh. “Your dad and I were kind of right in the middle of it.”
“I know,” she said. “Well, I guess I know. But also, I don’t know that much.”
“Basically, ah…” His eyes returned to the embroidery on her duvet. This was probably the wrong angle to approach from, but he didn’t know where else to go now. “We sort of started it. Well. I did. I started it.”
Ellen’s face twisted into a knot of acute confusion. “ What? ”
Jon took a deep breath. “Yes, well. It wasn’t my choice, I… I was used. As a conduit for… all that came forth, but we did everything we could to stop it.”
Ellen shook her head in disbelief. “I always thought… So, when you say you stopped it, you don’t just mean you were out there fighting, you mean…”
“We were the start and we were the end,” he said. “For the most part. On the very frontlines. I’m sorry that was never more clear to you.”
“No, it’s okay,” she said. Her face looked pained, as if she was afraid one false move could ruin this, like the wrong words could hurt him beyond repair.
“It doesn’t have to be okay,” Jon said. “You might not really forgive us for keeping this from you for a long time. Or ever. And you don’t have to.”
“Dad,” she said. “You don’t need to be forgiven.”
It was the unmistakable Martin in her. Constant forgiveness where forgiveness was not due. He could try to rebut but he knew he would just meet the same ever-dissolving wall that always crumbled at the sight of him at his worst.
“The number of times I’ve heard that when it’s not entirely true,” he said with a sad smile.
“Dad, come on. It’s not like you’re evil.”
Her words uncomfortably echoed words he heard from Martin so many times back then. He shook his head in disbelief.
“What’s the deal with the name ‘Lukas’, though?” she asked.
“Oh,” he said. “Sorry, that was your original question, wasn’t it? Well... There was a man named Peter Lukas who hurt your father very badly. And… it wasn’t quite until Peter Lukas tried to take him away from me that I realized how much I loved him.”
She tilted her head, enamoured.
“He was, ah, aligned with one of the powers that… He and… his ‘god’ thrived on loneliness and isolating people from each other, and the world, and… ”
“Is that what he did to Dad?”
“Yes,” Jon said. “Almost.”
“How did you, or… How did Dad…”
“Well, I, ah…” Jon hated to make himself out as the hero of this story. He simply did what he had to, what anyone would have done. At least, that’s what he thought, despite years of being told otherwise. “I just went and got him.” He could return to that moment like it happened yesterday. The fog, Martin’s words, the look in his eyes as Jon came into focus, the feel of his hand in his for the first time. “It’s a bit funny, isn’t it?”
“What?”
“That the apocalypse brought us together.”
She laughed and Jon smiled at the absurdity of their peculiar love story. “We… actually had to run away together after that. We were trying to avoid things getting as bad as they did. So we whisked away to this terrible little cottage in the highlands that belonged to Daisy and…” Jon hesitated, awkward. “That was where things really started for us.”
“On the run and hiding out in the middle of nowhere, sounds incredibly romantic,” she said with a familiar sarcastic tone.
“I know it doesn’t sound it, but it genuinely was,” he laughed.
She smiled and rolled her eyes. “And then you went ahead and saved the world together.”
Jon laughed. “That we did. That’s normal, right?”
“I don’t know,” she joked. “Sounds like you took things a little fast if you ask me.”
“Ah, but it was a different time,” he said. “You kids are in no rush to face apocalypses together these days.”
They laughed together at this and a silence fell between them. Jon looked up to find Ellen staring at him, her expression a cocktail of sympathy, relief, and somehow, admiration.
“Dad,” she said. “Um… thank you. It’s… It’s a lot to think about. But I’m glad to know.”
He nodded. “We can talk about it more, but… That’s probably enough for tonight.”
All of a sudden, Ellen launched herself at Jon and hugged him tight, nearly knocking him backwards off the bed.
“You guys are amazing,” she said, muffled by his shoulder.
His eyes began to prickle and he took a deep breath to steady himself. “So are you, my dear.”