Darker London

"Thomas!" Stephie called from the kitchen, where she'd been making coffee and messaging Deirdre. At first it had been good - Deirdre was going to come over and Stephie was going to tell her all about Spectre and if Deirdre was on her side, Spectre didn't stand a chance, and also, Stephie wanted a Deirdre hug, irregardless of anything to do with Spectre. And then Jinx had called him a cunt and something about Jinx standing up for her made her ache with the very strong need to hug him, too.

And then Deirdre had suggested with wasn't Spectre and breathing became an issue. "Thomas, where are you!?"

The scene smelled of spilled petrol and Stephie clutched Marie tighter, gagging not from the smell itself but the sense memory of the Templar splashing Thomas with petrol. She pressed her face against Marie’s hair, and clung. Marie was wailing and clinging too, Stephie could feel her tears hot on her neck in heartbreaking contrast to the icy shock as they were both soaked completely in the rain.

( ... )

"Did you have friends in school?"

( Smarts )

Thomas would follow Peter anywhere, so it was little wonder that he trooped behind his best friend into the depths of the hospital, without question. It was a place he didn't recognise, dark and foreboding, but Peter must have a good reason to show it to him? "Haven't seen back here before," Thomas mentioned, as Peter led them into a holding cell down there. Did you just build this? Is it for Magnus if he wakes up?"

( It's not for Magnus )

Thomas was nervous as he stepped into the hospital Scarlett had been living in for years. She had warned them that she had good days and bad days and he hoped so hard that today was a good day. Part of him believed that if Scarlett came back to them, then everything was going to be okay.

He gave Stephie's hand a squeeze, and slowed down. "I feel like stalling," he admitted quietly, glancing sidelong at Nancy as well. "Like if it stall as long as possible, then we don't know for sure what's waiting for us and we still have hope."

Stephie woke up gently in the morning and gave herself a few minutes of lying there, watching Thomas sleep, before she thought about moving. She'd slept so deeply and so well - if not for all that long- and everything felt warm and soft and good.

Yesterday, she'd planned to set an alarm to wake herself up but Thomas had been far too distracting last night, so that went out the window, but luckily she'd woken up anyway. Thanks, universe she thought, genuinely meaning it. There had been rough patches lately but sometimes the world was really good to her. She gave the arm stretched across her a light kiss and carefully shifted out from underneath it so she could get up and gather some clothes, then a shower. The coffee was brewing in the kitchen when Marie poked her head around the door.

( ... )

If Stephie was going to be dramatic she'd say that the last two hours of her shift had been two of the longest hours of her life. They weren't, by a long shot, but if she was only focusing on the moment then they goddamn definitely were. Thomas kept sending her videos and declarations of how much he wanted her and she was having so much fun driving him crazy. She had had such a good week - the news that Tasha was free from fear of Magnus and the news that Scarlett was starting to come back to them had lifted her spirits so high that it felt like nothing could bring her down, and she wanted to ride this feeling as long as possible.

And Thomas. She tried to make serious listening faces in her staff meeting while thinking about riding Thomas as long as possible too. It was hard - challenging. And she was blessed by the hospital gods that nothing in the meeting was about anything life-or-death that demanded her attention so she could keep messaging Thomas under the table and squeezing her thighs together.

She drove herself home, quiet as she shut the car door in case the sound woke up any of the kids. Marie, sometimes, waited up for her and Stephie loved that kid but really hoped she was very asleep. The air was bitingly cold between the car and their front door but Stephie's skin was already flushed with warmth. She jogged the short distance to the door and let herself in, expecting Thomas to be waiting for her desperately on the other side.

OOC: Set after this but before Scarlett reaches out.

Thomas and Peter pulled up to the Kemp house just before Stephie arrived. Peter had gotten the message that Magnus was settled into a room and locked down, and now they could tell Tasha the news. Peter was paler than usual, and Thomas reached out for his best friend the second they were out of the car. "Hey. It's going to be okay."

Peter couldn't say anything, but he did mumble a little in the affirmative before they turned towards Stephie's arrival.

OOC: Originally posted by Lewis in 2009 but we forgot and wrote things as if Magnus was still about so reposting NOW!

Getting back to London with Magnus in tow was even more difficult than finding him in the first place. Allanah took the first opportunity she had to find a very large bin bag and stuff Magnus inside, which made things marginally easier. It took a few bags to accommodate his weight.

Despite the cold conditions, Allanah was soaked through with sweat and extremely tired by the time she reached the Robert Macgavillary Memorial Hospital. The weather was bad enough that cloaking wasn't as difficult a matter as on some days, but it still took effort. Effort was something quite high on Allanah's list of things to avoid right now.

So it was that she strode into the hospital with her prize and dumped it in front of the reception desk. "Someone else can deal with it," she declared. "Inconspicuously." It wouldn't do to have any of the normal people see her bringing a man into the hospital in a rubbish bag...

Thomas was not sure how this was going to go. He hadn't been in the basement to visit Amaris since getting locked into the hallway during the blackout. Now he was heading down there and Stephie was coming with him. He was carrying a bag of supplies with him, because no way was he getting stuck without food again, and he had a tight hold on Stephie's hand. "Are you sure you want to do this?" he asked her as the elevator opened to the basement. Both Svetlana and Peter were waiting for them down there, and waved in greeting.

Thomas was starving to death. He was in a hole underneath a house he had no way of getting out of, chained to six other people, most of whom were dead. Amaris had left him to die too. She hadn't been back in days. He hadn't had a scrap of food or a drop of water, not that there had been any scraps before that. She had given him one muffin. One. Thomas didn't even know how long it had been since then, and now there was no hope for more.

( The kind of dreams you never want to have )

The nightmare was bad, which Stephie had entirely expected. She'd dreamed she was still down there, locked on the other side of the door, and all the demons in their rooms had been let out, only Valentin was there too, and Jillian, and other faces she didn't know in her brain but her heart knew and her blood knew and she woke up as Thomas died in front of her eyes.

But she knew where she was straight away - in bed, beside Thomas, late morning light getting in through the curtains, Spectre and the kids next door, all the doors at the hospital that should have been locked still locked. The horror of it still froze her, though, apart from her chest which was heaving with breath, and she grabbed onto Thomas's arm which was wrapped around her ribs like a safety belt, like she was falling.

It's just a dream she told herself, though her body was not so easily convinced. He's here, he's here he's here he's here.

At 2:53 pm, Thomas and Svetlana stepped into the super secure demon ward in the basement of Robert McGillivray Memorial Hospital. Had they been staff members, they would have known when the power cut off at 3:12, they had a total of sixty seconds to exit the secure ward before it locked up tight.

Instead, Thomas and Svetlana stared at Amaris, who stared back at them, shrugging. The lights flickered, and then rose again, at about 40%. They heard the air conditioner cease working. "That can't be good," Thomas mused. "We should probably check on it."

Svetlana and Thomas let themselves out of Amaris' room just in time to hear the sound of metal scraping against metal as the large security bolt slid into place. It was there on purpose, to protect the secure ward from anyone who might try to access it by cutting RMMH's power. The ward would not be accessible again until power was restored.

Not that Thomas knew that. He jogged the last few steps, worried about the sound, and tried the door.

Nothing.

He tried again, keying in the code with shaking fingers.

Nothing.

"Svetlana!" Thomas panicked, and she immediately took out her phone, calling Stephie.

The thing about being this happy is that Stephie truly wanted to believe nothing could break it. All day she'd been dizzyingly high, the excitement bubbling up in her chest, grinning, joking, not staying still while Lavinia fixed her hair. And all day she'd been aware that something might go wrong - someone might disappear, someone might attack.

But everyone was as safe and protected as Peter could manage and there was certainly nothing else Stephie could do to make it safer. All she could do was hold onto this feeling and cherish every moment of it.

( ... )

While Thomas was reticent to ruin their vacation, he also knew that Peter was right. He needed to talk to Stephie about the things he was worrying about. He couldn't get the traumatic images out of his head, and Stephie needed to know. Keeping it from her was against everything he believed in, and he would hope she would be as honest with him if something was plaguing her mind.

He didn't manage to get her alone until late Saturday night. The kids were in bed, Svetlana was out like a light, and Deirdre and Tasha had run off to their room giggling. Thomas had taken Stephie's hand to lead her to the roof, so at least he could see the sky while he talked about awful things. The night air was pleasantly cool as he took a seat on one of the wrought iron deck chairs. "I don't really want to bring down the tone here, but there's a few things I haven't been able to stop thinking about. Can we talk?"

It had been Deirdre's idea.

Stephie, Tasha, and Deirdre were going to head out to find Stephie a dress for the wedding. Before they could go, however, everyone needed to have lunch and sort out what Thomas, Svetlana and the kids were going to do. And while Tasha, Stephie and Svetlana discussed it, Deirdre had gone to decide what to wear on their outing. She had heard Thomas in the hall, and dragged him in.

How he had then ended up dressed in her yellow sundress, modelling maternity wear chic, she wasn't entirely certain. Things like that just tended to happen when Thomas and Deirdre were alone together.

And then James walked in and whooped. "Yeah, work it, Dad!" he said, clapping and Thomas posed. "Stephie! Svetlana! Everyone! Dad's saying yes to the dress!" he called out.

"I'm going to try him in my floral robe next!" Deirdre said, excitedly.

The second that Svetlana, Deirdre and Thomas had gone to put the kids down for the night, it was like Stephie and Tasha both knew what the other was thinking. Which was how they ended up at the table outside, already several shots of vodka in, laughing and talking.

"Pour me another!" Tasha yelled, her arms in the air. "Celebration for leaving the city for the first time in ages! And doing so with a hottie! Do you know what Deirdre can do with her body? Dear goddess."

There were enough children in the large taxi van, that Thomas being quieter than usual went unnoticed by everyone except probably Stephie. He had been fine on the flight; excited even, but as the van drew close to the vacation house, Thomas said less and less. Now that he had started talking about what Brian had done to him, the idea of seeing the man's face in photos, even to hide them, was not something Thomas was looking forward to. It was a staunch reminder that one of Thomas' safe spaces just happened to also be the childhood vacation home of a man who tortured and assaulted him.

( SPAIN )

Stephie stepped out into the hall and carefully shut the door of the hospital room she'd been sharing with Thomas. She had to take a little breath to resettle herself; inside the room it had felt like safety but outside in the hall it just felt like work. Usually she had time in transit to step out of her home-persona and into her work one, usually she barely noticed, but today, when the physical distance between home-and-work (or at least, Thomas-and-work) was so small, she really noticed the shift.

When it was just her and Thomas in that room she was allowed to be vulnerable, she didn't need to hide her fears or her anxieties or any of the mess. But at work - well, sometimes the fears and anxiety and mess still showed through, but they were covered by an extra layer of armour, a bit more cockiness, a lot more guarded.

( ... )

Perhaps on a day when he had both opened up about fearing breaking Stephie's heart by dying and going to the Beyond, and begged his best friend not to let him die, he should have known better than to read about the Templar. Most of his translation work was about them this time around, however, and while Stephie seemed sure it was the Templar Peter had dreamed about taking Thomas, Thomas himself didn't believe it was.

( Trauma )