Caradoc Dearborn (forgetmedoc) wrote in cultureic, @ 2016-07-08 15:04:00 |
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Entry tags: | caradoc dearborn, suz dearborn |
WHO: Caradoc & Suz Dearborn
WHEN: Over the course of the last two weeks, and today.
WHERE: Various
SUMMARY: What the Dearborns have been up to.
WARNINGS: Imperius curse, references to various deaths/attacks.
Two weeks earlier… It had been almost 48 hours since Benjamin Fenwick had been confirmed dead. 24 hours since Caradoc had cussed Death Eaters out in his journal and accidentally let slip his Order involvement to his boss. He felt like a ghost of a person, calming draughts forcing his thoughts from spiraling completely but also causing him to lie on the couch like a hopeless lump for most of the day. When he sensed Suz nearby, he hardly moved, but he did take a breath and glance her way. “Suz…” he started, too numb to be afraid of the question he was going to ask. “... do you want to go with Mari when she leaves? Back to Japan?” Even Suz was too numb and too tired to panic, to wonder if already her marriage was falling apart if her husband wondered if she wanted to leave him. “It’s tempting,” she admitted, perching herself on the edge of the couch next to him. “But no, I don’t think so. I couldn’t leave you. Not now.” There was more to that ‘not now’ than Benjy’s death, a question mark that’d been hanging over her head for the past few days, but she couldn’t tell Caradoc now. Or yet. Caradoc mulled over her answer for a moment before deciding that it was a relief. To an extent. He didn’t want to be without her, but… he did want her to be safe. For her and selfishly for himself. He sat up enough so that she could scoot onto the couch if she wanted and looked over at her wearily. “Okay… if you ever do though… I wouldn’t blame you.” He rubbed his face. “I’d be tempted to go with you.” “I’d want you to go with me,” Suz said as she settled in next to Caradoc on the couch. There was only one way she’d even hypothetically leave without him and that was if he’d died. She didn’t want to give that idea power by saying it aloud, so she reached for his arm instead and hugged it to her chest, her cheek pressed to his shoulder. After a moment, though, she asked, “Why? Are you thinking about leaving?” “Not without you,” he assured her. The marriage had been their promise, after all. “But… I…” Caradoc sighed, feeling a little sick to his stomach. He was an Order member. He’d signed on to to fight this. And yet… “I’m scared. Like… if this is what it is to lose Benjy, if Emme’s next or anything happened to Cyn or you…” He frowned. There weren’t assurances that it wouldn’t, no matter what Broderick tried to say the day before. “I don’t know how much more I can handle, Suz…” He’d said it before, but with the idea of leaving on the tip of their tongues, it had so much more weight this time. He meant it. What had started as a hole in his chest ever since Emyr now was starting to spread, like he was fraying at the seams since Benjy. “Well,” Suz said, drawing a hand soothingly up and down his arm while she processed his words. With arrangements to get Mari to safety well under way, Suz felt less tethered to the world they lived in than she’d ever felt before. There were other people she cared about, of course, but she wasn’t responsible for them the way she was for her baby sister. And they were resilient in ways Mari couldn’t be anymore. She and Caradoc weren’t very resilient either. “If it gets to be so much you can’t bear it, say the word and we’ll go.” Leaning into his wife, Caradoc seriously considered the possibility for the first time. “They could still follow us…. They've followed people out of the country before.” Short term mostly. “God, I'd feel like... does that make me an asshat though? My parents? Cynthia? Emme? Leaving everyone behind…” Could he live with that? His stomach twisted as remembered in his worst moments of panic he thought maybe he could. “No, it doesn’t make you an asshat,” Suz said quietly. “I think our friends and families would understand.” Then, significantly, she added, “And I think between the two of us, we could cover our tracks.” It was a bit of a morally grey area, that. It wasn’t like stealing American Netflix so she could watch Gilmore Girls. “We could make it difficult for Death Eaters to follow.” “True....” Caradoc mulled some more. “If we really want to hide, though...” He turned, eyebrows lifting and putting a hand over hers as he came to the conclusion: “We could go back to the Muggle world, too.” “We could,” Suz said uncertainly, thinking about her wand and how proud of herself she was for being good with it. She turned her hand over under his, curling her fingers around his. “I’d settle for anywhere that isn’t here, though.” Hastily, she added, “I mean, if we were to leave here, anyway.” The more she thought about it, the more tempting it was. Caradoc was nodding. “What if… what if we sort of like… have a plan, just in case. Then whenever we feel like-” They wouldn’t make it out alive. “-like we might need it, we’ll have it.” He gripped her hand, eyes that were bloodshot and glazed over for days now finally having some resolve again as he looked over to her. “Just in case.” One week earlier… Freshly charmed passports in hand, Caradoc looked down at them while waiting for his number to be called at the DVLA. If it hadn’t been for the waiting time, he would have gotten legitimate new passports, but as it was with Suz having been attacked mere days before, the charm would just have to last. For however long. Doc didn’t want to take any chances. He was pretty sure it was essentially permanent if he’d done it right. He worried doing the same for drivers’ licenses without really being an expert in the area would nullify any of the digital encoding. Suz was good but that wasn’t something she could restore without access to the right equipment. “Now serving… 95…” was announced, and Doc flicked his wand up to the cameras, shorting them out temporarily. It had always been a handy trick as an obliviator. He approached the cubicle and leaned forward, wand still in his hand. “I’m here for new licences, for my wife and I,” he said, the man on the other side of the counter looking tired but accepting. “Is your wife here, sir?” Doc slid a USB across the desk and tapped his wand lightly. “Imperio,” he commanded softly. Why had he felt so nauseous at the idea of using the Imperius on an innocent person six months ago? He couldn’t really remember. Not when it was necessary. “Give me two forms to fill out, I can fill one out for my wife and you’ll approve it. Then use the photos on this drive to print the IDs. Don’t worry about sending the forms in, just print them for me, right now.” The man’s glazed expression didn’t change as he nodded and took the paperwork and drive from him. It stayed that way as he typed in the false information, typed in the Dearborns’ new names. Caradoc waited, turning to gaze around at all the Muggles in the office with him. None of them had a clue. It almost made him angry. If the Death Eaters won… were they all as good as dead? Probably. In the meantime, they’d continue to be clueless thanks to people like him. It wasn’t fair, but he was using it to his advantage either way. “Here you go, sir,” the clerk said, and Doc turned to take the freshly printed IDs. “Thank you,” he replied automatically, as if the man had had a choice. “Obliviate." 4 days earlier… It was time to tell Caradoc. It had actually been time to tell Caradoc for weeks now, but there hadn’t been a right time to bring it up. It was becoming rapidly clear to Suz that there would never be a right time, not with their friends dying or Death Eaters imperiusing or the constant crushing disappointment of being Muggleborn in a world that didn’t want them. And she was afraid. Her fear was reaching a tipping point. Suz hadn’t gone back to work since the day the Ministry computers fell apart so she’d had an entire day to figure out how she was going to tell him. But when she heard his key in the lock, she panicked and forgot every word of her carefully thought out speech. Instead, she jumped to her feet and sounded out of breath and panicked when he stepped through the door. “Caradoc! You’re home!” And then, with a nervous laugh, “Obviously.” Doc nearly started with her exclamation, but hearing her laugh relaxed him and he cocked his head to give her a questioning look as he closed the door behind him. “I am!” he replied, mustering some gusto to match hers, even if he had no idea what she was energetic about. He smiled and moved toward her as he loosened his tie and dropped his bag on the bench near the coats and shoes. “Miss me?” he teased lightly. “Obviously,” Suz repeated, managing a tiny smile this time. With another nervous laugh, her fingers plucking at the hem of her shirt, she added, “Sorry, I’ve just had a lot of free time. It makes me loopy.” Before he could process her apology or really do anything, she reached for his arm and led him over to the couch, saying, “There’s actually something I need to tell you and I think you should sit down for it.” Whatever smile Caradoc had on his lips faded immediately. Cynthia had said that when she told him about Suz’s attack. What now? What now? “Okay….” he said warily, letting himself be led to the couch and taking a seat he could already feel his palms start to sweat. “Are- Who…?” Who was hurt this time? But Suz waited until Caradoc looked securely seated on the couch before she said anything. And when she finally did say something, it was mostly gibberish. “That — Caradoc, you — When a man and a — No, wait — What I’m trying to say is —” What she was trying to say simply wasn’t coming out, though. So despite him having only just sat down, she reached for one of his sweaty palms and hauled him to his feet so she could drag him to the bathroom where earlier she’d laid out nineteen positive pregnancy tests. Any word of confusion or question Doc had tried to interrupt her with as he nearly tripped on his way over died in his throat as his eyes landed on the array of plastic sticks in front of him, all with the same little symbol. He squinted. “Uh…” was all he could get out at first. “Are…” He looked over to her, still squinting, still completely baffled, the sight so odd it hadn’t actually settled in what they were. Or what they meant. “Why are there so many?” “I didn’t trust the first one,” Suz said simply. “Right,” Caradoc replied, as if that was obvious, but now his voice had pitched upward. His eyes widened and the impact finally hit him. “WAIT these are yours?!” he yelped, spinning around and clutching her wrists. “You’re… you’re…” He looked back at the tests then her again, forgetting the word. “We’re going to have a baby??” Suz could only nod at first, trying to suppress the cringe threatening to spread across her face. “I don’t know what happened,” she said hastily, twisting her hands in his so she could clutch at his wrists, too. And then, after a pause, she shrugged and pulled an embarrassed face. “I mean, I know what happened. But the past few months — the past few years, really, have been so awful. And maybe I’ve been forgetful? I’ve definitely had more important things on my mind than my period.” She looked stricken now as she stared up at Caradoc, her words coming weaker now. “I thought it was stress. I stress bake. I stress eat. I…” She trailed off and slid her wrists out of his grip so she could pull her shirt taut across her middle. It wasn’t all that obvious yet, but she was undeniably rounder. While everything was too much for his brain to process right now, he immediately looked down at Suz’s middle and shook his head, “It’s not your fault. I mean - I’m - Oh god did I forget?” It would figure. He’d forget his own head if it weren’t attached to him with how distracted he could be. He looked at Suz’s crestfallen face and moved to pull her into a hug. “It’s okay, Suz,” he told her automatically, but his mind was racing the more the idea settled over his mind. A baby. It was soon. They’d only been married for a bit. No that he didn’t really mind, he realised, and put that panic aside as if he was mentally sifted through notecards. A baby. Now? When they were pretty sure no one was going to get through this alive. Then there the was the fact that he could be a horrible dad or - or drop it or something or - “Jesus,” he breathed, holding her tightly in an attempt to calm himself. He swallowed. “Are you okay?” “I’m…I don’t know,” Suz admitted, wrapping her arms around him. She held him silently for a moment, every thought she’d had since that very first positive test catching up to her. “I thought after what they made me do I could handle it, but now that I know for sure…I don’t know.” She gently extricated herself from Caradoc’s embrace so she could look at him, hands pressed to his chest. “I actually don’t think we can stay here, Doc.” A deep breath to keep himself from melting into a puddle of pure anxiety and Caradoc was nodding, swallowing dryly again. They had plans. They’d prepared for this eventuality but Doc’s conscience was hoping they’d continue to find excuses to put it off. He didn’t want to leave and yet… it wasn’t really his decision anymore, was it? Not with a child’s life in his hands. He was still wrapping his head around that, but his adrenaline spiked at Suz’s words. “It’s not safe,” he agreed, frowning down at her, not quite meeting her eyeline. “Fuck.” He wished he could be happy about this. The fact that he wasn’t completely having a meltdown probably meant that part of him was. But he could feel the responsibility settle around his shoulders with every second as he ran his hands up Suz’s arms, finally looking her in the eye. “‘In case’ is here, huh.” Suz could only nod, torn somewhere between relief that he agreed with her and blind panic over everything else. Though they had a getaway car plan, this wasn’t how she’d planned for her life to go. She’d anticipated being at least thirty-five before she started considering kids. And even then it had only been a vague idea. There’d always been the possibility she wouldn’t have kids. She’d be the uptight aunt to her brother’s and sister’s kids. But now… She smoothed her hands over her middle. That was the part she could wrap her head around. It was justifying staying that she couldn’t. “I don’t want to leave everyone behind, but they’ll kill us if we stay,” she said, her fingers spread protectively over her stomach now. “I don’t even have any idea who imperiused me. It could’ve been anyone. So…I think yes. ‘In case’ is here.” But she looked sorry to be saying it. “Okay,” Caradoc found himself saying before he had a chance to second-guess it. If Suz needed them to leave, then… that’s what they’d do. And it wasn’t all her, if he was honest with himself. He’d been desperately asking people if it was worth it, how do you go on, is everyone just going to die… all these questions since Benjy and had never once gotten an answer that actually made him feel safe. A little better, a little calmer, a little more hopeful maybe… but he was so tired - he couldn’t handle his anxiety attacks and panic so many times a day and stay sane and it wasn’t going to be long before he was talking more calming draughts than was healthy. “We’ll leave. We’ll…” People were going to fight them over it. “What if we… we can’t tell people, before we go. It’d be... too much. We can… we’ll take the next week or two - spend some time with people for the last time - and then we leave. We write goodbye letters. We can start that tonight.” His eyes moved from her face down to her tummy, and he almost hesitantly reached down to touch it, like it would feel different now that he knew about the child inside. Suz nodded and moved her hands out of Caradoc’s way. She studied his face closely as she echoed, “We can start that tonight.” And then, for both of them, she added, “We’ll be okay, though. They’ll understand. We can tell them why. And I’ll see a Healer tomorrow. About it. The baby, I mean. And we’ll be okay!” Fingertips lightly splaying over the fabric of her blouse, he started to smile. Nervously, of course, but he sighed at her words, looking back up at her. “Yeah. Okay. This - Suz, I think… this is the first time I feel like I can actually believe that.” He bent down and pressed his lips to her forehead. They were prepared. They’d be okay. 24 hours earlier… Caradoc popped straight into the house with a crack. “SUZ!” he yelled, not bothering to take off his shoes and tossing his coat over the couch. “Suz - I - Suz, I fucked up!” he called to her frantically as he flicked his wrist so the folders of papers buried in drawers flew out and began to stack themselves on the kitchen counter. The stack of papers on the counter immediately put Suz on edge when she walked into the kitchen and saw them. They weren’t supposed to leave for a while. “What happened?” she asked, reaching for his arm to direct his attention to her. The calm he’d managed to keep while leaving the office was crumbling fast. “Avery - you know, my boss, Avery?” Of course she did. “He - he called me into his office and we were alone and I thought he was going to do something and then he told me to grab a quill and I panicked!” His voice cracked and he gripped her arm, refocusing on her. “I - I imperiused him. To - to confess? And then I was going to obliviate him but I got interrupted and I don’t know if it worked but he’s - they’re going to know something’s wrong and if it didn’t work I’m going to be arrested and if it did the Death Eaters are still going to… to want to get whoever did it and I - I’m so sorry, I fucked up, I fucked up, I fucked up!” His words tumbled out as fast as his lips could manage. “Oh,” Suz said. “I see.” Her brow furrowed as she thought about what Caradoc said and then just as quickly her forehead went smooth as she turned sympathetic eyes on her husband. She reached for his cheek now, swiping the pad of her thumb across his cheekbone. “No, don’t. If he confessed, that means…” She didn’t really know what it meant. And they obviously wouldn’t be around to find out. “It’s a good thing. We just have to go now. Right? Right now? That’s what you’re saying.” She glanced at the pile of everything they’d need to get away safely. The hand on his cheek forced his mind back on track and looked at her worriedly, but her words made sense amongst the fear threatening to break him. “Yes,” he said, “Even if the obliviation was perfect - they’ll want to get back at someone. I can’t -” He glanced down at her belly then back up into her eyes. “We can’t be here for that,” he logicked out slowly, trying to catch his breath. “We’ve got to get out of here. We’ve got to book a red-eye or something-” His eyes were watering a little bit and he wiped at them hurriedly. “I had him wait for the DMLE, that should give us just enough time before anyone comes looking…” “Okay,” Suz said, forcing herself to sound firm. She was trying not to think about how it felt like this was all happening too fast or the people they were leaving behind or whether Mari was actually safe in Japan or not. She couldn’t think about it too hard or she would change her mind. “Let’s pack then.” Present day… The train chugged along, not as fast as the Hogwarts express, but the irony of beginning his life in the wizarding world on a train and ending it on one wasn’t lost on Caradoc. He gripped Suz’s hand as they took in the scenery of the Canadian countryside until finally Doc looked at his watch. “I should get started, hun,” he turned to her, looking over her face carefully. For the first time all year, the anxiety didn’t cripple him. They were away. They would be safe. As soon as they hid themselves from the magical world… … and as soon as they hid the magical world from themselves. “Do you want me to go over anything again?” There were a thousand last minute questions running through Suz’s head, but she couldn’t let herself entertain her second thoughts. It all suddenly felt like they were taking it too far, but that in itself necessitated the need for drastic measures. If they didn’t do this, she would always think about turning back and eventually she would give into it. She stared down at her own hands for a long moment. After this, they wouldn’t be hers anymore. They’d be someone else’s. Someone who looked like her and acted like her, but her life was going to be different. Suz swallowed hard and looked up at Caradoc, her face even. “No, you don’t need to go over anything again. I’m ready.” Taking a deep breath, Doc nodded and leaned forward to cup her face in his large hands. “I love you, Suz. And I’ll love Naomi too.” He knew that, no matter what their names were, she’d still be the person he loved at the core of it. He kissed her then, slowly, like he wasn’t going to get to again. It was almost the truth. Lifting his wand with one last nervous swallow, he rested the tip against his wife’s temple. “Obliviate” he began, and one by one he began to peel back her identity, a memory at a time. First the short term, then the long, first the little things that wouldn’t mean much if they faded and then the bigger things like the war, Benjy’s death, Mari leaving, her Imperius, the horrible attacks… he wished he could stop there, but as the minutes turned into hours there on the train, he continued. Hogwarts. Slytherin. Being a mudblood. All the way until she received the letter that would change her life. Suz wouldn’t know the word Muggle anymore. She was just a person. And even still, he had to go farther. Stopping there still meant they could be found, and slowly, he stripped away her name and replaced it with a new one. “You’re Naomi Davis. Or you were, until we got married last month. Now you’re Naomi Blackall.” He wiped his own name. “I’m Miles Blackall. We met at boarding school, remember?” It was one long story that was the same as their own, but without what was getting everyone killed, and he almost smiled as he retold pieces of it. “We’ve lost some friends recently so we’re moving to Canada to start a new life. We just found out you were pregnant,” he reminded her, smiling briefly down at her stomach. Her mind would make new memories to replace the old quickly enough, and he had time to meticulously change things to keep a lot of her life the same, sans magic. As the early hours of morning turned into late afternoon, he finally reached the end of his task. “Okay. Last thing is, on the way to the train station this morning, we had an auto accident. Your memory might seem fuzzy because of it. Mine might be even worse. We might have to deal with that for awhile.” He paused, looking at her cautiously, exhausted. “How do you feel?” Through the whole process, Suz had sat, rapt and silent, absorbing every new bit of information Caradoc gave her. Then, she blinked hard and she was Naomi, sitting in a train car with her husband Miles. Her head did feel a little off and despite not wanting to worry him, she lifted a hand to her temple to rub absently. After a beat, though, she angled a fondly exasperated smile at him and said, “I’m fine, Miles. You need to stop worrying!” Doc chuckled lightly despite himself. “Sorry, hun,” he replied, and moved to act quickly before the lingering effects of Suz’s obliviation solidified and she wasn’t as impressionable. He needed to obliviate himself. He looked down at the letters addressed home, to all the old friends and family that were left. The goodbyes and apologies and explanations. The news of the baby. Hopefully they would be enough. He took Suz’s wand and carefully stashed it away, then took his own and tucked the tip up under his chin. He hadn’t told Suz how dangerous obliviating yourself was. Not to this extent. If hers had been a methodical and careful brain surgery, his was about to be a scalpel desperately stabbing and swishing at grey matter in the dark. But it was a risk he had to take to not spend their lives lying. He was so tired of lying. “Hold my hand?” he asked, and when his fingers were tangled with hers, he inhaled, squeezing his eyes shut and with all the power he could muster in one blast shouted the word one last time. “Obliviate!” Hot pain shot through his skull and he felt thoughts and feelings ripped away from him as wave after wave of magic from his wand pelted his head until his ears rang. Then finally with a gasp, wand clattering to the floor of the compartment, he slumped down in his seat, dizzy, nearly unconscious. It took Naomi a moment to realize something strange was happening to Miles. She’d given him her hand, but had gone back to rubbing at her temple and only glanced over at him when she heard something clatter to the floor. In her haste to help him, she sent the stack of letters skidding off the seat and onto the floor with his wand, not giving them another thought. “Miles? Miles! We need —” There was a gap in her memories there and the name for what they needed slid out of her mental grasp, but then her brain supplied another word. “We need to get you to hospital!” She reached for his cheek, tapping him and trying to rouse him. The accident must’ve been worse than she’d thought. Stirring awake, the man’s eyes grew wide, looking around frantically for a moment before his frantic gaze settled on the woman in front of him. Miles? Who was that? But she was talking to him. But he was.... no… no, he couldn’t remember. He squinted at her, reaching up to grip her hand to ground himself and attempt to calm her all at once. “Hospital?” he asked aloud, his voice hoarse. What was going on? Why was he in this - this… train? The pieces of his mind weren’t fitting together properly. Nothing made sense. Why was he here? What was his name? He shook his head, confused, then finally looked back at the concerned woman again, this beautiful woman who was acting like she knew him and cared about his well being but he straightened, reddening, embarrassed and lost. “I’m… I’m sorry, I don’t…” he started, then stopped, his head throbbing, then started again. “Do I... know you?” |