WHO: Ronan, Gansey, & Blue WHAT: Ronan gets updated to Call Down The Hawk and what's left of the gangsey goes to Lindenmere WHEN: Dec 6, very early morning WHERE: St. Agnes church -> Lindenmere WARNINGS: Alcohol use, mentions of character death (kinda, it's Noah and he's a ghost), some spoilers for CDTH
Ronan had been drunk for a majority of the time since Noah's disappearance. The fact that he hadn't been drunk the whole time was largely to do with Gansey's sobering influence, but even Gansey couldn't keep him completely sober.
Noah was gone. He'd been alive, fully alive, and now he was back in their world, either as a ghost or having passed beyond the veil. Either way: dead.
On top of Adam leaving, Baelfire leaving, Gansey and Blue being gone more and more often, it was all too much for him to handle sober. He managed a few hours of sobriety every day just to do what needed to be done around the Barns, and the rest of the time he was either asleep or drunk or both.
Nights were the worst. Ronan's dreams were not a danger to his life, but they still weren't pleasant, and so he was avoiding sleeping. Which made him feel worse, of course. Sometimes Gansey was around at night. Sometimes Ronan went out for a drive. On this particular night, driving had taken him to church.
St. Agnes was as familiar as it ever was, not just the building itself but the feeling of being at once seen and ignored by God. He had almost died here. He had dreamt Chainsaw here. He had dreamt everything he and Adam had needed to frame Greenmantle and killed a dream version of himself in the process. He didn't have anything in mind to dream tonight, but he didn't want to dream alone. At least here the church was a kind of a presence with him.
On this particular night, however, not even the church could help him. His dreams were, for once, completely out of his control; a series of memories, events that hadn’t happened yet. He was only lucid enough in the dream to realize what they were, and he tried to slow them down, to take them in properly, but they kept coming at him fast. A failed roadtrip to see Adam at Harvard. Bryde’s voice in his dreams, Jordan and Hennessy, Declan. Matthew. Oh god, Matthew knows I dreamt him. The Lace. The sundogs. Adam. Tamquam left unread. Vexed to nightmare. Bryde in the flesh.
Throughout it all, there was a presence at the back of his mind: Lindenmere. He remembered it at the very beginning, in the middle, but by the end it wasn’t a memory, it was a presence pushing itself into his head. It made itself so real, so present that he knew he was going to wake up with it. As he felt himself crashing towards consciousness, he had only enough control to hold it in his mind in a way that it would be more protected in Tumbleweed, and then he was awake.
Paralyzed, as he always was after he brought something back, but still throbbing with the sheer force of Lindenmere’s presence in every fiber of his being. Still mentally overwhelmed by everything that had been shoved in his mind, none of which he could do anything about. Just one sentiment left: goddamnit, Adam, what happened to you?
When he finally regained feeling, disoriented from the dream and the alcohol still in his bloodstream, he texted Gansey.
wake up and come get me at the church bring maggot
--
Gansey had actually been building a maze of piping. In time it would be mounted in/on the walls. However, seeing as that was a noisy process and hopefully at least one person was still sleeping at a decent hour, this quiet activity occupied his mind. He was not truly a plumber. But books from the library, articles online, and a muted youtube video with closed captioning were doing a champion job of bringing him up to speed. And the possibility that he needed at least one different kind of pipe than he had. A problem daytime Gansey could solve, or perhaps Gansey could check online. Amazon sold everything.
His phone buzzed, and Gansey pulled it out and mildly looked at the series of text messages from Ronan Lynch. He could read all of them without even unlocking his phone, short as they were. Something had happened. Something besides Ronan drinking because Ronan had certainly been drinking. Even if Gansey had had the heart to keep Ronan dry, it would have been nearly impossible, and honestly, there were better uses for Gansey’s energy and emotions.
I’m awake, just downstairs in Monmouth. Bought the wrong kind of pipe. Scratch that, I bought not all of the right kinds of pipe. Going to wake up Jane. Then we’ll be on our way. See you soon.
He trudged up the stairs, cleaning his glasses on his shirt as he did so. It was dark enough they were not providing the most help away from the circle of light and his computer. He made his way through the open layout of Monmouth easily toward the bed in the middle. Unlike Ronan or Gansey, she was actually asleep… and so peaceful. Gansey almost felt sorry to wake her, but an adventure with Ronan or helping Ronan because he needed it… either way, Blue would want to wake for it.
Sitting on the edge of the bed, Gansey brushed back a piece of her hair. “Jane,” Gansey spoke softly, “Wake up.”
--
Blue had tried, at first, to stay up and help Gansey with projects at night. Especially the remodeling, since it had been in large part her idea. But ultimately it came down to this: she liked sleep, and her body craved it more than his did. Eventually she had to give in and leave the nights to him. It helped that he didn’t seem to resent her for leaving him to it; he just seemed to be glad to have something else to do with the time he spent awake.
Noah’s disappearance had given her a couple of restless nights, and she’d felt again that she ought to stay up for Gansey and to help him babysit Ronan, but on the other end of that, she was exhausted. So she was currently sleeping deeply until Gansey woke her.
He did it so gently that she woke slowly and opened her eyes, blinking up at him. “Hm?”
--
“Good middle of the night,” Gansey greeted her. It was night time, dark and dangerous and full of promise. Ronan’s texts were another promise. It was a night! Happy as he would have been to drive anywhere and nowhere with Blue, this late at night. It wasn’t one of those. It was something more. Something Ronan. And they both knew the wonders that Ronan could dream. And the terrors, too. But Gansey did not feel it was one of those times.
He gave her a few moments. “Ronan’s at church,” Gansey said. “Wants us there.” Had texted. Which, really, had become far less unusual once they had left Henrietta, and that had continued to be true here. But still, it was not often Ronan Lynch called for one to come. And so they always did.
--
Blue sat up slowly, looking around. It was indeed still the middle of the night. Something had happened, but Gansey did not seem distressed or urgent as he would in an emergency. She tilted her head inquiringly at him.
It wasn’t much of an explanation, but she could guess he probably didn’t have more of one. At any rate, it was enough for Blue. She nodded and got out of bed, pulling on shoes and a jacket over her pajamas: a pair of her own sweatpants and one of Gansey’s t-shirts. They were good enough clothes to satisfy a middle-of-the-night adventuring aesthetic, but at the last moment she grabbed her frayed half-gloves as well, as much for vanity as for sensibility (it was cold outside).
“Ready,” she said, only a few minutes later.
--
While Blue dressed, a thoroughly interesting and distracting affair, Gansey had pulled on his yellow sweater and a light jacket on top of that. In the bathroom-kitchen-laundry, he had put in his contacts and grabbed his latest journal while navigating around miniature Henrietta. So far as adventures went, they were prepared.
“Excelsior!” Gansey declared merrily as they made their way out of the warehouse to their rather Virginian habitat situated in Texas. The Pig sat outside, cold as though it dreamt of the stars. Gansey shut the door enthusiastically and coaxed the vehicle into life. Soon enough his feet would overheat in his shoes. For now, it was a comforting sensation.
They drove three miles under the speed limit to St. Agnes church, seeing practically no one else out and about. Nor anything else strange and unexpected and possibly brought about by the portal. Whatever adventure awaited them, it lay with Ronan. Gansey pulled up, parking behind Ronan’s BMW, frowning for a moment. But he smoothed it away with his thumb. Even drunk, Lynch was a miracle worker full of light and life. He believed in it.
--
Ronan stayed in the church, staring up at the ceiling, until he heard the growl of the Pig. In the stillness of the early morning, it was impossible to miss. He got up, and his body felt strange, too stiff and too loose at the same time. It eased as he moved toward the door.
He headed down the steps, opened the Pig’s door and threw himself in the backseat. “Drive that way,” he said, by way of greeting. He pointed towards the north edge of town.
--
It was that kind of night. A driving adventure… to where? Was Cabeswater brought to Texas? Could it have another life of its own here, instead of giving it up for Gansey the way it and Noah had? It had been impossible to forget why Noah was dead now that he was gone (and thus dead) once again. And Cabeswater was as much alive -- if not more than any one of them -- and as worthy of living. Gansey could hope.
So he drove, still at three miles under the speed limit, away from the center of the town and on toward wherever Ronan Lynch brought them. Gansey wanted to ask. He didn’t want to ask. He needed to see it, and whatever it was, he was bringing them closer. They were on their way. And they would reach it, even if Gansey had to drive until morning.
--
Ronan stayed silent, except to give directions. A dusty dirt road became slightly forested at the sides, and eventually, Ronan told Gansey to pull over.
He got out of the car and headed into the trees. These were ordinary trees, but he could feel Lindenmere nearby. It was close.
“I had a dream,” he offered into the silence around them. “With memories, like the ones the portal gives people sometimes. Except it came with something else.” Unsurprising, really. Dreams were never normal for Ronan Lynch. “Lindenmere.”
--
The night was alive; anything felt possible. Blue’s body hummed with it the whole drive. When they got into the trees, it got even stronger. Her heart beat with the anticipation of the fierce joy of discovery, the anticipation of something more.
Ronan was drunk, or had been drunk; she’d been able to smell it on him, but he was also purposeful and intent, walking the way he’d walked in Cabeswater, as if he owned the place (and in a way he did).
The name Lindenmere rang in her ears. It was as good a name as Cabeswater. It was going to be something incredible, she could feel it.
She looked over at Gansey, her whole face alight.
--
“You incredible creature!” Gansey declared, in awe and wonder. Many people had memories come in dreams. Sometimes it even changed them. Ronan’s dreams changed the world. This feeling -- this forest that was not quite a forest but very forest-like -- was a familiar sensation. It was like walking toward Cabeswater. Except Gansey didn’t have to promise anyone it would only take a minute. He considered whether they needed to tell anyone. Typed a message quickly on his phone and hit send, slipping it back into his pocket.
He longed to be there, to be in there, to feel the trees and impossible things all around him. Gansey longed for a place of wonder and awe, the kind of place he sought out. “Lindenmere,” Gansey repeated with all the feeling in his heart. His fingers brushed against the back of Blue’s hand, against cloth, then also fingers against fingers.
--
Ronan turned and looked back at him, his expression just as fiercely alive and pleased, and somehow other. He turned back and went further in silence, until just ahead of them, the trees visibly changed. They were bigger, stronger, defying the scarce water and nutrients of the Texas soil. Their leaves rustled, not quite audible as words yet from this distance, but as soon as Ronan stepped through the treeline, he heard them. Welcoming him back.
“Lindenmere,” he whispered, gazing around them. He loved it so much. He had missed it so much, even though he hadn’t known it in this form. This dreamed thing that was also a dream in its own right, and as Lindenmere, it was even more of itself than it had been as Cabeswater.
He touched a tree and then, overwhelmed with emotion, pressed himself against it. Not quite hugging; his arms didn’t wrap around it, but his fingers dug into the bark. The tree didn’t change shape, but he felt it reaching for him too, welcoming him back. He dragged in a real breath, an inhale full of dream magic and forest and everything green and alive, for the first time in… a long time. As long as he’d been here, at least. Maybe longer.
--
The walk was a familiar feeling, another sensation gotten lost from time to time, the way driving in the Pig with Blue down long stretches of highway, turning off on little roads not labeled on maps on their phones, had been. Gansey had missed this. He loved it.
Ronan hugging a tree would have been sign enough. But the rustling among the branches spoke to him. The air tasted different. Like wonder and discovery. His journal was stuffed inside his jacket, and one of his hands floated through the air to enjoy the feel of it. And the air flowed across his hand, across his fingers, just the way Gansey remembered the feeling of walking into places like this. And Gansey smiled, fully and wondrously pleased.
It was dark, and the forest was difficult to see, so many incredible aspects of Ronan’s mind blurring into shapes and silhouettes. He hadn’t thought to bring a flashlight. But he continued walking in, taking care not to leave Ronan behind. One hand came up and felt moss on one of the trees, soft and sponge-like. “You’re back,” Gansey whispered.
--
It was so much like Cabeswater, and yet not like Cabeswater; Blue could feel the trees calling to her, whispering in her ears. She didn’t understand the Latin, but she recognized a few words from before (psychic’s daughter), and she could feel the emotion in the rest of it. They remembered her. They were welcoming her back.
Light, she thought-wished at the trees. I want to see you.
The forest around them brightened, as if the sun was in there with them, the bright light of day. It hadn’t been at all frightening in the dark, but it was even more welcoming in the day, and glorious. Blue stared around her, awed and overjoyed.
--
Ronan pulled back from the tree when the light appeared, startled by it, but not really surprised. Unlike Hennessy -- that name in his mind startled him, he was remembering someone he’d never actually met -- he didn’t have to worry about them and how they would affect the forest. They knew how it worked, and they loved Lindenmere (even if they’d only previously known it as Cabeswater), and Cabeswater/Lindenmere loved them back.
He stepped back from the tree. His face itched from the bark and he wiped at it; his hand came away wet. He wasn’t sure if he’d been crying or if the forest had cried for him. It was the same thing, really.
“It’s the same as Cabeswater,” he said to the other two, in case they hadn’t already guessed. “But it’s more... itself. More dangerous. So that it can protect itself.”
--
Gansey laughed in joy. And he continued to walk, slowly, through the woods around them, running his hands across each tree he passed and taking in their leaves and branches. He wondered what their leaves looked like and looked up to see one floating down gently to him. His hands cupped together, as Gansey gently corrected his position to catch it once it reached him. Then he traced the veined lines and looked at the trees around them. “May I keep it?” Gansey asked. A gift, a memory, a reminder.
The forest didn’t feel dangerous. But Gansey believed Ronan and was, all things considered, glad for it. This place needed to be able to protect itself. The world could be a dangerous place. But rather than get afraid, Gansey reached into his pocket for a piece of mint but found it empty. He had used it up and not refilled it. His thumb rubbed across the bottom of his lip, thoughtful. When he walked past the next few trees, a mint plant grew around the far side of one. “It’s wonderful,” Gansey declared. “It should be itself.” And here with Ronan, for Ronan, for them all. It had wonder the portal couldn’t provide. Not in the same way.
--
Blue thought she could see what Ronan meant about it being more dangerous, more itself. Even though it didn’t have any of the magic of Henrietta here, no strong ley lines, Lindenmere was still more fully present and active around them than Cabeswater had been at its strongest. But Blue did not feel afraid. Lindenmere was dangerous, but she could tell how much it loved them. The worst that could happen was that they would get lost in here, lose time, come out days or weeks later. She might miss work. She was perfectly alright with that. She didn’t want to leave.
She spotted blue flowers here and there, hidden amongst tree trunks and moss, and her heart beat faster. It really knew her, it remembered her.
She whispered, barely audible, so soft she wasn’t sure either of the boys would hear: “I love it so much.”
--
Tree branches brushed Ronan as he walked, soft as fingers. Leaves cascaded around him. There was moisture on them still, the forest reflecting his grief at the same time as it tried to comfort him. He let the sadness be. It wasn’t hurting anything, wasn’t taking away from the things that the others were conjuring for themselves. He wasn’t sure if it was because Gansey and Blue held almost as much sway over the forest as he did, or because they felt a similar sadness somewhere deeper down and their joy overcame it. Maybe both.
He heard the trees whisper an answer to Gansey’s question. “You can keep it,” he translated. “It’s part of...both of you.”
Blue’s whisper, barely audible, broke his heart. But the trees didn’t answer, at least not in words, so he didn’t have to say anything either.
He asked quietly for the balls of light that he’d remembered, but had never really seen. They did not so much appear as the light around them coalesced into more tangible circular shapes and floated around them, maintaining the same brightness. They were warm when they brushed his skin, warmer still when they sank into it. He closed his eyes and kept walking, trusting the forest to move with him and take any obstacles out of his way. It did, although he could feel the ground starting to slope upward beneath his feet. Somewhere out of sight, he heard the sound of rushing water.
--
It continued to awe Gansey that he and Cabeswater, he and Lindenmere now, were made of the same stuff. That explained what he could do at times, making things happen. Believing in things and seeing them happen. But Gansey was small, a person and still a person even as he was made of this. The leaf was a leaf but so much more than a leaf. More than it looked. It felt like it was, pleasing to run his finger over. He felt so small and so large at the same time.
Gently, he removed his journal, opened it not only to a new page but to a new section, and gently lay the leaf between two pages. A safe space. “Stay whole,” Gansey told it. Because it would stay whole because it was something more than a leaf. With equal care, he put his journal away again and followed along.
It was not so much that Gansey had paid attention to where Ronan was going, so much as he meant to follow Ronan. And so he walked. Sometimes he turned to look at a bright spot he had passed or the rich lively leaves, even in December. Still his steps took him uphill, after Ronan. He was so glad and so grateful that it was alive.
--
Ronan walked until he felt the ground change, become softer. He opened his eyes and found that they’d reached the rolling, mossy hillocks where the trees were spread a little farther apart. He could see more of the sky, and the black night seemed deeper, the stars clearer and closer than anywhere else, even with his little balls of light and warmth still floating around them.
He threw himself down on the closest pillow of moss and lay on his back, arms and legs spread like he was about to make a snow angel. He breathed in the night and the forest around him. Everything about it felt incredibly, unbearably alive, and it was bringing Ronan back to life with it.
--
Blue stayed standing a little longer, staring up at the stars. They called to her more powerfully than ever here, or perhaps she was just better able to hear them, or better able to imagine them. She felt more like something more.
Out of nowhere she remembered her conversation with Ahsoka. She had mostly put it out of her mind for the last while; as exciting as the idea of using her mirror magic in a new way had been in the moment, sensibility and reason had taken hold not long after. She doubted it was possible. But something about Lindenmere made her rethink it again.
“There’s something I haven’t told you guys,” she said suddenly, breaking the enraptured, companionable silence.
--
Gansey sat cross legged on the gentle ground, leaning back on his arms and looking around them in awe. Slowly, his attention turned back toward Blue, whose words held as much promise as the woods. They felt heavy with it, like clouds before they released the rain to the land below. It was coming, and Gansey welcomed whatever metaphorical rain splattered them.
“What’s that, Jane?” he asked, speaking softly though there was no one but them and the forest. It felt close, them together -- all and only three of them -- the way Gansey quite often liked them to be. It felt altogether different from minding the Barns with Ronan in the middle of the night or driving down the highway with Blue. It was a sense of togetherness, themness. And the forest was a part of it.
--
Blue felt it too, the themness, the way this forest belonged to them all in different ways, and they to it. It reminded her of when she’d very first walked into Cabeswater and the trees had known her, how special that had made her feel. She was so glad it was here. She hadn’t known how much she’d missed it until she was here again.
Only Gansey had answered her, and Ronan hadn’t moved or opened his eyes, but both he and the trees were still in a way that meant they were listening too.
“I was talking to someone,” she said, and paused, unsure of her next words. Using Star Wars as a description for a universe, especially to describe someone Blue hadn’t previously known about from that universe, felt wrong, and so did the word Jedi. In the end she stuck with the words she knew Ahsoka had used. “Who uses the Force. She thinks my mirror magic might be able to deflect energy, not just reflect it. Kind of like the mirror lake… but not just other mirrors, and more… actively, I guess? Like a shield.”
It sounded cool to say it, but in practice it was probably going to be a challenge. Blue knew how to protect her energy, prevent it from being taken from her, but this was something entirely different.
--
There were all sorts of folks in their community here, ones Gansey had not thought of existing before he came here. Most of them he altogether hadn’t been aware of at all, much less as someone alive and out there doing more than what most people thought possible. But he had believed in there being more for so long it felt impossible to doubt. So long as there was enough to hope. And here… here much of it came together, like part of an interdimensional ley line.
“You astounding creature!” Gansey exclaimed. Having heard it, he believed it. He believed in her and in Ronan and in others not with them. Blue had done so much with her magic, and Gansey fully believed she could and would do even more. What she did depended on what she chose. A shield was a noble pursuit.
His smile was wide and believing. “I am sure you can… you will, if you put your mind to it,” Gansey said. He supposed it likely Blue did wish to do it, as she had raised it. But it was her decision, not his. And it was incredible enough simply to be with her.
--
“Badass,” Ronan agreed, without opening his eyes. He held out his hand toward Blue for a fistbump.
--
“I haven’t actually managed it yet,” Blue said, but she was pleased by their belief in her. She knocked her knuckle’s against Ronan’s. “Maybe… maybe I can practice it here.”
--
Gansey smiled. “Lindenmere is a wonderful place for that,” he said. Because it was true. Because it felt like anything was possible when inside this forest. Like they were more because they were here. His hand ran across the mossy ground, still in awe to the way it felt beneath his hand, the way it looked…
He looked up at her, wondering. “Would you want to practice it now?” Gansey asked, with no expectations. Such a clearly new idea and feeling sometimes needed to settle, to sink in. Other times one needed to rush ahead.
--
“No,” Blue said, after a moment. “I need to think about it more. And I probably need a proper night’s sleep.”
She sat down next to Gansey, then, and pulled her knees in against her chest. She wrapped her arms around them. “I only know how to do things with visualizations. I don’t know if that’ll be enough.”
--
He nodded. It was, after all, the middle of the night, much as Gansey had forgotten that. And sleep had yet to come for him. Both Ronan and Blue had slept for some amount of time, but Gansey had reached that stage when exhaustion abandoned him. The last week or so had been a wreck of his sleeping schedule, and the times of day felt more arbitrary than real.
Blue knew how to do more with her mirror magic than Gansey knew how to do… whatever it was he did. It was something like Lindenmere, but in the forest all it required was a thought. A whim. A stray image. “You are more than enough,” Gansey said. “You are only learning to be more yourself. More you. It may just be a different way of being in touch with yourself.” Whether it worked the way she had before or not, Gansey believed in her.
--
Blue leaned companionably against his shoulder. She didn’t know if she necessarily believed it any more than she had before, but it meant a lot to her that he did. She didn’t know if Ronan really believed in the same way, but he was at least hopeful.
Mainly, Blue supposed she was avoiding hoping too hard because her hopes for something bigger, something more had already been crushed multiple times in her life. If she expected it not to work she wouldn’t be as disappointed. But she’d be lying if she thought it would help her avoid disappointment entirely.
So she didn’t say anything else, but turned her attention back to the forest and the night around them.
--
It was already a night for sharing secrets. Ronan had a lot more secrets in his head now than just Lindenmere, but he wasn’t sure he was ready to share them. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to so much as he hadn’t fully processed them himself yet, they had all been crammed into his mind as memories in the span of a few hours’ sleep.
The trees murmured in his ear; they wanted to help, but he wasn’t sure how they could. They could reenact things for him, perhaps; show them to him at a slower pace so that he could take it in better, but there was a lot of it that Blue and Gansey didn’t need to see. He tried to sort through what he should or shouldn’t tell them, but it just made his mind feel more jumbled.
“I got a lot of other stuff in my head tonight,” he said after a moment of silence. “Not just Lindenmere. I don’t know how to tell you about it yet.”
At least if he said that, it wasn’t like he was keeping a secret. Even if he didn’t manage to fill them in any further.
--
As much as it was a night where they had felt most like them, as a group, and that their experiences were had together, something in common, as much as that made it easier to share things, to put a voice to quiet things that hadn’t been said, it didn’t have to be the night everything was done or said. It was a place where time eddied and pooled or rushed over falls. And they could simply exist as a part of it. And that was enough, already more than day to day life.
“Tell us when you do then,” Gansey said. He lightly punched Ronan in the shoulder, a reassurance. They were good. Gansey trusted him. And he was there for Ronan. Even when the mood ring wasn’t screaming bright color at him.
He looked back up at the night sky, imagining constellations that reminded him of their friends. Of the sense of being at home they had there. And ever so faintly he could trace them in the night sky through the trees.