Nora Cadwallader (safekeep) wrote in disorderic, @ 2018-03-27 09:30:00 |
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Grace tried to make as little noise as possible as padded down the hallway of Rhys’ brother’s place and to the kitchen where she’d been told Nora was sitting. She wasn’t sure why, except that there was an air of solemnity in the house, a silence that seemed too fragile to break right now. She knocked on the door frame to announce herself, pausing there. “Hey,” she said tentatively. Nora looked up at her friend’s entrance. She slipped off the stool she was sitting in and crossed the room quickly to wrap Grace in a hug, thinking less of how much her friend might want one and more of how much Nora herself needed one. The last of Grace’s hesitation left her in one long exhale. She clutched her best friend tightly to her, relieved to be reassured that she was at least safe in a physical sense. They hadn’t really had time to speak when Grace had come with the other Order members to help get the Gentle Green group to safety. Talking over journal wasn’t enough. “Ok?” Nora shook her head into Grace's shoulder, because the stiff upper lip just wasn't coming to her today. "Not really," she said. She pulled back and tried for a smile, but it couldn't really last. "Sorry I sort of ambushed you there, um. C'mon in." “Don’t apologize for hugs, I have an open door policy on hugs,” Grace tried to joke, desperate to make Nora’s smile real. Grace’s own was weak, but she followed Nora back to the stools. “Rhys seemed…” like he was in shock, but not so much so that he didn’t try to put Grace at ease first. Like he did with everyone. “Like he was still processing,” she finished. "He's been trying really hard to make it okay, but…" Nora pushed the bowl of pistachios she'd been eating without really tasting them over toward Grace to share, and added to the pile of shells she'd mindlessly cracked open. She didn't even really like pistachios, but something about breaking them was very satisfying right then. "It isn't. I don't know. It doesn't feel like it can be right yet." “No,” Grace agreed, sitting close. She grabbed a pistachio but rolled it between her fingers. “It was your home.” Nora sighed. "We didn't even like it that much." Grace’s eyebrows rose to hear Nora say it, though she had wondered about her friend’s happiness there for some time. “But you’d been making it work, trying to stay safe,” Grace repeated the words Nora had written over the journal. Nora nodded, but it turned into more of a shrug. "Yeah. Yeah, we were." Until she wasn't, and nearly four centuries of Cadwallader family history crashed down around them. "Thank you for … helping." Grace bit her lip and shook her head. “Always, Nora.” Nora had already dismissed her apology for not telling her about the Order but Grace wanted to apologize again, and keep apologizing because her friend had had her own secrets and had suffered. “How long had you been helping those people?” Nora's eyes flicked to the door, but Dafydd wasn't around. She and Rhys had decided not to tell his brother, at least not yet, about their extracurricular activities. Dafydd was fragile enough. "Sally and Clarence were with us from … I don't remember exactly when they announced the registration. September? And everyone else kind of joined us along the way." September? Grace smiled and reached over to squeeze Nora’s hand. “That’s — you’re incredible.” “It was what we could do,” Nora said with a dismissive shrug. She’d nearly had a building collapsed on them after promising to keep everyone safe. She didn’t feel incredible. “Are they… everyone’s okay? I know we shouldn’t really know anything but…” “They’re okay,” Grace reassured her. “They’re safe thanks to you and Rhys.” "And you guys," Nora said. Her feelings about the Order were complicated, but they had certainly come through when the Cadwalladers needed them. "How long have you … I mean, I understand if you can't tell me, but …" “Weeks, maybe a month now,” Grace answered, and was relieved to do it. These things were necessary, but Grace hated to keep anything from her. “They asked for help with freeing the wandless, and I opted to stay. I don’t think I’m very useful outside of flying, I can’t duel for shit,” she’d been working on it. “But whatever I can do to help.” It surprised Nora that the decision was so recent, though she didn't know why. She'd been wondering, after finding out about Grace, if perhaps the whole Magpies team had double lives she didn't know about. "Gracie, the fact that you said yes at all means you're a lot more useful outside of flying. It can't be all dueling all the time, right?" “No,” she admitted, since she’s been there there had been little of it and Grace knew she could help where the wandless were concerned. But with plans brewing with the expectation of a fight, it seemed to be the general trajectory of things. She didn’t know how to tell Nora that the militancy of it all had taken her by surprise when it shouldn’t have. This was war with homicidal extremists. Death Eaters weren’t playing by any rules, the DMLE was nothing. Winning by whatever means necessary meant that they would win, that people would be safe. She didn’t know how to tell Nora that hearing her brother come up with creative ideas designed to destroy (to hurt) was...disorienting. How could she explain anything when she’d make the choice not to unpack any of it, to just move forward. “They’ve been doing this a long time, and I can see what its cost them. If I can make a difference in any small way, maybe it will cost them less.” Cost Lee less. Grace cleared her throat, finding she’d clenched the pistachio so hard in her hand, she’d left indents. “What you said, before,” she changed the subject, thinking of cost, of playing by any rules in this impossible game. “About keeping quiet…” Nora was nodding as Grace spoke; she knew plenty about the cost, even for those outside the Order. For those just doing their jobs. But the shift in Grace's tone stilled her. "Yeah?" she asked hesitantly. “Are you...blaming yourself for what happened?” Nora turned back to the counter, grabbing another couple of pistachios to crack. "No," she said, and it wasn't quite a lie, even if it wasn't quite the truth, either. Grace pressed her lips together. “That’s not what it sounded like over journal.” "Do you count wishing you'd done things differently as blaming yourself?" The pistachio cracked. “I count you thinking Lestrange destroyed your home because you ‘talked back’.” Nora sighed. "You know you can't really talk people out of guilt, right?" “I don’t know, give me long enough I might.” Grace grimaced and heaved her own sigh. “No. I know, I just wish...a lot of things. That you didn’t feel that way.” She shifted so that their shoulders were pressed together. A shrug pushed through Nora's shoulders. "I know that he did this to us, it wasn't something we did. But it feels like … it's like if you know not to walk up a certain alley because people get mugged there, and then you do it anyway and you get mugged. It's still, you know, a crime and it's still the muggers' fault but it's still like if you didn't walk up that alley, you'd still have your stuff. I guess." Grace nodded. “I get it, it’s hard not to think of the what if, to be...angry at yourself even when you know it wasn’t your fault.” She set the pistachio on the table — she didn’t even like pistachios but she’d certainly manhandled this one. “I hope you told him he’s a dickhead.” "I barely said anything," Nora admitted. A part of her wished she'd said more, or that she had actually gotten a spell off at him, but that would've just gotten his wand turned on her or Rhys instead. "I told him to get out because we needed to close and get ready for our next guests, that we had a business to run, and he destroyed it. There was some kind of runes thing, I don't really know. It was like an earthquake. And it's not … I don't know if it was him or just a disruption in all the magic holding the place together, or what, but it's not repairing properly. It just stays rubble." “Runes? He came prepared. He came to destroy it then.” Grace furrowed her brow. “Maybe some things are salvageable still. I could go back and look?” "I don't think he did. I don't know. It doesn't really matter, though, does it? It's gone." Nora popped a pistachio into her mouth. "But everybody got out, so." Grace knew it mattered, that while the most important thing —everyone’s safety— was assured, the fact that their home, a period of their life, lay in rubble mattered. Not ‘so’, she wanted to say, but instead she set her chin on Nora’s shoulder and wrapped her arms around her best friend. “I’m glad you’re safe.” |