Edgar has retired his stilettos. FOR NOW. (goodoldbones) wrote in find_horcruxes, @ 2010-02-24 19:10:00 |
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Edgar Bones was sleeping, finally coerced by his healer into taking a slight more than the minimal amount of pain potions. There was nothing he could do to help with everything that had gone on the previous evening with the attacks against the quidditch games--vampires, now, what the fuck--the woman had reminded him sternly, insisting that if he didn't take the potions himself, she'd get him in a potions-induced coma so she at least knew he was getting some rest. At that he'd relented (not that he really thought she'd do it, but he conceded that she was right), and while the haze of sleep was only now starting to wear off, he'd been out for the last hour and a half, dreaming about contracting vampires to fix the hole in his ceiling. Calypso had been in and out of his room since she was released from hers. She hadn't been hurt nearly so badly as Edgar was, so despite the lingering ache she was setting about the work of getting their life put back together - and of course spending time with the children, since she had to send them back to Hogwarts on Monday night. She had been on the floo with various contractors (non-vampiric) over the morning, trying to get her ceiling put back where it was supposed to be, and now it was time to take a break and check in on Edgar. When she found him sleeping, though, she felt she should probably leave him to it. Calypso pulled a chair up beside his bed and gently covered his hand with hers. It was a nice moment of quiet in the middle of the madness of yet another attack to follow the one that had come to their door--or at least as nice as anything could get under the circumstances. She hadn't realized until she sat down how utterly exhausted she was; as she leaned back, she found her eyes closing. Edgar came to shortly after, noticing the touch of her hand before he opened his eyes. He opened his fingers so they could lace theirs together and then looked at her, smiling. He couldn't tell if she was actually asleep or merely taking a break, but either way he couldn't help be appreciate the way the sun from the window fell across her features, catching in her hair. She looked so tired, but still as beautiful as he had ever found her. The guilt of almost losing her--of almost killing them both--had become overwhelming. Her eyes opened soon after she felt his hand move, and Calypso smiled tiredly at her husband. "Sorry," she said quietly. "I was trying not to wake you. I imagine you need the sleep." Because Merlin knew that as soon as he could, that man would be up and moving and trying to thrash some more Death Eaters. If he didn't catch up on the sleep now, there was no telling when he might get around to it. Calypso was good at making sure Edgar ate, but sleeping could be trickier to manage. Edgar smiled slightly. "Don't be sorry. I'll have a good two weeks to sleep. I promise I won't even beg you to let me go back against healer's orders," he said, and he wouldn't, though he knew being stuck at the estate 'recovering' for so long was going to drive him batty. There was nothing he could do about it anyway, especially given the extent of his injury; going in damn the consequences would just end up doing more bad than good in the long run. "You look like you could use some, yourself." Calypso nodded in agreement; she had never been one to claim she could run endlessly on caffeine and determination, at least not to Edgar. "I'll get some tonight," she promised. "I've just been assuring the children that you're just sleeping and you'll be fine, and flooing contractors all over the place trying to get our house put back together." She paused, a slightly more grim set to her face as her voice lowered. "I'm not letting them chase me out of my home. And speaking of which," she added with a lift of her chin, "I intend to hold a ball at your parents' house." "A ball?" Edgar questioned, raising his eyebrows. The old ballroom at Bones Estates hadn't been used to host a party since Edgar was a child. "My mother will be over the moon with enthusiasm." He paused, tilting his head to the side. "Why a ball?" "Because I like--" Calypso stopped herself and snorted, and then laughed, shaking her head. "You know you've been spending too much time with Sturgis Podmore when you stop yourself from saying 'I like balls' in perfect innocence. But anyway, I do, and I thought it would be nice to have one with all the people I actually like and none of the ones I don't. Dinner and dancing, make everyone dress up, but no need to be all fussy about it." Edgar smiled. "Sounds like a good time. But you're going to have to forgive me if I can't waltz with as much gusto as I used to. Promise me there'll be canapes?" "There will always be canapes, darling," Calypso assured him, giving a weary smile. "And you know perfectly well that I'll forgive you nearly anything at all." She squeezed his hand and leaned down to place a light kiss at his temple. "Especially something as silly as energetic waltzing. Any waltzing of any sort with you will be perfect, because it's with you." Edgar inhaled deeply through his nose, a sad sort of smile on his lips. So much as he knew that it would take a great deal more than an assault by Death Eaters to pull them apart, Edgar still felt as though he'd let her down immensely and that from this there would be no going back to the normality they had striven for after Cally had been assaulted at King's Cross in September. Not after being besieged in their own home, after Death Eaters had brought down the better part of their upper-level, after being tortured in the same downstairs hallway where their daughter had taken her first steps. The guilt and responsibility Edgar felt for this was near overwhelming, and for all everyone kept saying (and he himself kept saying) that 'it could've been worse', it didn't change the fact that it could've been avoided altogether. That they could have taken the dogs to Bones Estate and not had to go through this at all. But Edgar had always been stubborn and prideful as shit, and not for the first time his overconfidence had come round to bite him in the arse. "I'm sorry, Cally," he told her, and not for the first time since he'd woken up. When she'd come into the room after they'd gotten him stable he'd very nearly cried at the sight of her, overwhelmed by the combination of pain potions and her being very much alive rather than dead (as he thought in a panic when he'd first come back into consciousness). "Don't, darling," she whispered, her hand coming to rest lightly on his cheek. She took another kiss, something soft (though a little shaky) to relieve the deep ache of seeing her always so confident husband rattled. "This was not your fault, and don't you dare blame yourself for it. I refuse to hear it." "I know, I just don't. I can't get past it," Edgar admitted, touching his own hand to the one she had put on his face. "Seeing you, when they. After we fell. I don't think I have ever in my life felt so vulnerable. So often as I've wondered if I'm going to come out of this war alive, I've never... I don't think I had really realized how stupid some of the risks I've yaken have been, not until I watched them torture you." The fact that Edgar's work could lead to her being hurt was something that Cally generally tried not to think of too much herself. If she did, she'd get scared, and she didn't like being scared. Oh, she was sensible about it; she could hold a very solid shield, and she had the art of running away down quite well. Nonetheless, the possibility of events like those of the previous night was one that she preferred not to over-consider. The fact that it had happened now didn't really change that. "It's not your fault, love," Calypso quietly repeated. "And I'm just fine. A little achy, but none too seriously worse for the wear. This could have been much worse, and we'll take care to make sure it doesn't happen again." He looked at her for a moment as if there were something more he wanted to say, but in the end he decided against it. They were strong, they would persevere, and Cally was right: It wasn't going to happen again. No more needlessly risking their safety, no more inviting death to their front door. "You're right." He paused, then turned his head to kiss what of her fingers he could reach. "I have to take two weeks off of work, then it's only desk work for a month and a half. They'll need to sign off on my progress before I'm allowed back in the field again. I suppose that gives me plenty of time to think of new and creative ways to torture Sturgis." "And plot pranks against Angus MacDougal," Cally pointed out with a faint smile. "We could all use some competitive hilarity." Because otherwise, all they could do was sit around being miserable thinking about everything that was lost and everything they still stood to lose. Hope; they had to keep hope going somehow, or they were all going to fall apart. And if finding a way to enact Sturgis's plan of turning the vampire's sword collection to rubber was a slightly demented way of doing that...well, so be it. "Well it's that or start handing out clothes to house elves, because you know they're going to drive me batshit if I'm cooped up on the Estate with them for too long, offering me butterballs and tea every ten minutes. Better I spend my copious amounts of free time plotting Angus MacDougal's prank-demise," Edgar mused with a snort. Then, more seriously, he asked, "How are the kids?" "Worried, but better since they saw you with your eyes open," Cally answered. While they had the same struggles with teenage children that any parents did, in the end they all loved one another dearly. The children also had a tendency to think that their father was more or less invincible, especially Penny. Seeing him brought down like this had been very difficult for them, and to have their mother injured again had brought back all the terrifying memories of King's Cross. This hadn't been easy for them. Nonetheless, they were holding up comparatively well, and Cally didn't want Edgar worrying about any more than he had to right now. "I'll miss them when we have to send them back to school." "They'll be back again soon though, for Easter," Edgar said, wishing that having them home again now was under better circumstances. And even though the war could keep Edgar away from his family unpredictably at times, he added "And then we'll have the whole summer with them again," the tone of his voice conveying the hope he had that he wouldn't be forced to spend so much time away from home, or at least not the way he had had to the previous year. "We don't have many years left before they'll all be grown-up, and off developing their careers, and getting married." "And then grandchildren," Cally replied with a smile, then broke into a laugh. "Merlin. I can't believe we're so close to those days already. I suppose we had better take advantage of all the holidays we've got left before they start making them their own." Which meant that this war really needed to get over with, because it was putting a definite crimp in their plans. Calypso could hardly organise a skiing trip or a beach holiday with her family if she was working mostly at not ending up dead. It was a petty thing to think, and she knew it, but under the circumstances she felt she could be momentarily petty. "There's a scary thought, Grandpa Edgar and Grandma Calypso," Edgar said. "You in your rocker with your knitting, me yelling at kids to get off our lawn. It'll be beautiful. I might even retire." Calypso snorted. She couldn't see Edgar making an early retirement any more than she could see herself knitting. They simply weren't made to be those kind of grandparents. "We'll cross that bridge when we come to it," she said with a fond smile. "Let's get the children through this teenager business first." "Ah, right, the yelling and the door slamming and the loud music," Edgar said, amused as he shook his head. "And the many things we don't, will not and could never understand! Woe!" "They've actually all three been wonderful since they've been home. Better enjoy them being perfect angels while it sticks," Cally warned him. The two of them joked about the (very real) woes of raising teenagers, but they also knew that they had basically good children. With all three of them terribly worried for their parents, the stomping and dramatics had been severely reduced. "If they'd let me out of the hospital I'd bask in the glow of it," Edgar laughed, smirking. "Though given the amount of pie I've been sent, I could probably keep my spirits up in here for a little while longer. If I keep eating like this for nearly two months with no training to curb it I'm going to start going to seed." "We'll worry about keeping you fit a little later," his wife replied, leaning over for a light kiss. "For now, you rest and you heal and you don't do anything stupid to get yourself in worse shape. If you do, I'll kick your arse myself." "Yes ma'am," Edgar replied dutifully, smiling broadly at her. "I have no want to incur your wrath." "Smart man," Cally approvingly responded. "My wrath is mighty. Speaking of, you need to be getting back to sleep soon. I should've been more careful about waking you." She felt a little bad about that, still. If she could get him back into resting mode, though, she could assuage her guilt (and maybe feed it a little bit of pie.) Edgar shifted in the bed, resting his head back. "You're probably right. And my healer will be in here in a bit to give me shit as well, and I don't need the two of you reminding me how necessary good sleep is. I concede. Are you staying, or heading back to my parent's place?" "I'm staying until you're out, then going to your parents'," Cally replied. She leaned forward to brush her fingers lightly over his hair before taking a light kiss. "I don't want to leave the children to their own devices for too long. We'll be back at dinner time, though - everybody, since we're all allowed in at once now." "Okay," Edgar replied, and yawned, shutting his eyes. "I will conserve my energy for the children. And for eating." |