mal. (nevergotnolove) wrote in madisonvalley, @ 2019-10-01 22:10:00 |
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Entry tags: | !closed, !log, !open, ~25 points, ~~seymour birkhoff (bestnerd), ~~~mal (nevergotnolove) |
Who: Mal and Seymour Birkhoff
When: Late Tuesday Night
Where: Birkhoff and Sombra's apartment
What: Mal comes back from her time back in Auradon.
Warnings: Mild Language. Descendants 3 spoilers (If you haven't seen it yet, FYI!)
Status: Closed/In-Progress [TBC in Comments]
Mal knew exactly where she needed to go. She knew who she needed right at that moment. It had taken Mal a few minutes to collect herself and find her bearings. Stumbling out of Madison's wooded area near the park, it wasn't where Mal had expected to be. Truthfully, she didn't want to be there. She needed to be back in Auradon to fix the mess that she had had a hand in. Doing what was right for everyone was hard. You wanted to promise the world, but it wasn't possible. You didn't want to disappoint the people you loved, but that was exactly what Mal had done.
Not her mother. Not her father. Her.
Even Uma and Harry had walked away from her. Mal had lost it all in that moment just as Audrey had wanted. In someway, Mal knew it was deserved. She had turned the lives upside down for so many. Some for the better and, clearly, some for the worst.
Hurrying up the staircase and along the row of doorways, Mal stopped short in front of Birkhoff's apartment. Pushing back a mess of purple and blue hair, she pounded against the door. "Please be home. Please be home," she pleaded quietly.
***
Birkhoff had definitely not slept unless he'd literally passed out in front of his computer. He'd programmed and reprogrammed the camera system every day, making sure the program knew what to look for. He still had a lot of Madison Valley missing from his network though, so he didn't get the ping until she got within a certain radius of the apartment building. It had been enough to startle him awake though, his mug filled with cold coffee spilling all over him.
He cursed and stumbled into his bedroom to change quickly and then all but ran to the front door just as she pounded on it. "Here, I'm here," he said in a rush as he pulled her into his arms. Birkhoff didn't hesitate to wrap his arms around her and hold her tightly. She'd been gone for too long for his liking and he'd been really worried that she'd go right to Evie and Carlos, that he wouldn't find out until later. It meant a lot - and terrified him a lot - that she came right to him.
"You're back. I've got you. It's okay. We're okay." God help anyone who tried to tell her otherwise. He'd shoot them first and argue about it later.
***
Birkhoff was good to her. Too good to her. The fret of hurting him just as she had the others easily slipped into Mal's thoughts and fears, but she held onto him. Audrey couldn't get him. None from the Isle could, either. None of them were here.
At least, Mal hoped beyond any and all hope that they weren't. Especially Audrey.
"They're not okay. No one's okay. And it's my fault," she cried and tried to catch her breath. Mal had never cried like this. Rarely cried at all. There were only a few people who could make her show that much emotion. Shaking her head, she didn't know what to do. What was going to happen back home? Things continued moving, but in which direction Mal was unsure. "Evie and Carlos and Jay," Mal paused, hesitating though looking even more broken at the thought. "Ben. They're gone. They're stone. Trapped in Audrey's spell just like the rest of Auradon."
***
He really wasn't sure exactly what was going on, but he did know they couldn't have this conversation in the doorway. "Come on," he said, letting go so he could pull her inside and shut the door behind them. His arm looped over her shoulders as he led her to the living room so they could sit on the couch together. Something clearly had happened, something that had hurt her friends, but it sounded like a spell and if there was one thing he knew about his not!daughter, it was to never bet against her when magic was involved.
"Why don't you start from the top, okay? We'll figure it out. But I know for a fact your friends aren't stone here, okay?" Hopefully that would help. Birkhoff really felt like he'd been thrown into the deep end because Mal didn't get like this. Whatever had happened, it had been very bad. "Tell me what happened," he encouraged softly, staying close, totally ready to pull her into his lap if she needed, just to feel safe and comforted. There was pretty much nothing he wouldn't do to help her through whatever it was. She was definitely his kid, regardless of whether or not he was actually her father. He was her dad, and this was what dads did. Or were supposed to do, anyway. His dad had been kind of an asshole.
***
From the beginning. That was a lot to go through, but Mal understood why it was necessary. Birkhoff knew as much as Mal before she had been sent home. Now there were, at the very least, two years to explain. A lot had happened in that time for all of them.
Wiping at her face, Mal took in a deep, calming breath and exhaled. "Ben asked me to marry him." That was the ideal place to start. "After I had gone back to the Isle, Ben and the others came looking for me. I was just so confused and I felt like I was being smothered by everything that wasn't me. I went back to Auradon with them, though. Not without trouble since we had to rescue Ben from Uma and her pirates." Mal flinched slightly and paused. She didn't want to infer that they were bad. They'd sacrificed enough to help Mal and she had run them off and pushed them away.
Bowing her head, Mal rested her forehead against her steepled hands. "I just wanted to make everything work and to make everyone happy. If I had told Evie and Carlos and Jay that we were going to close the portal to the Isle for good, they would have left. And I love them, but I love Ben and I want to marry him. I want to do good for the Isle and for Auradon." There was another brief pause before a look of panic flashed across Mal's face.
"What am I going to do about Jughead? What if Carlos and Evie end up getting sent home and they don't come back?"
***
Birkhoff blinked. He had not expected her to start with a marriage proposal, which no doubt would be a very big problem to deal with because he knew how much she cared about Jughead. There was just a lot more after that and he hated that she'd been dealing with that mostly on her own. That was a lot of pressure she was putting on herself at a young age, which made him want to just go rant and rave at this Ben guy for putting Mal in this situation already. That wouldn't help anything though, so he just tried to focus on what else she had to say.
"It sounds like you've got a lot on your plate right now, but it's going to be okay. I know that because I know you." It also sounded a lot like she was being confined into thinking of Auradon only solutions and Mal was at her best when she got to do what she believed in, even if that wasn't what was best only for the heroes of her world. "And I know you're going to find the way forward that works for everyone. Here and there, okay?" It was clear she wasn't really trusting herself right now, which was sad to him. She was so strong and smart and loving that she should always be able to see that for herself.
Birkhoff wrapped his arms around her and pressed a kiss against the side of her head. "What you do with Jughead is up to you, but make sure you're doing what's right for you here, okay? Because Ben's not here and yes, he might show up here, but that's true for anyone, including people from his world, too." He didn't want her to turn her life here upside down without thinking it through. "If Evie and Carlos go home and don't come back, it doesn't necessarily mean that they're going to stay stuck in stone. You'd never let that happen, not for good." Surely she had to believe that much.
***
Mal knew Birkhoff was right with his statements. It was possible that things would end up okay in the end whether it was here or in Auradon. It was hard to visualize, though. All Mal kept seeing were the people of Auradon fast asleep with Audrey raining chaos around them. What if she shattered the people who were stone?
What if she opened the barrier and the villains if the Isle had nefarious plans for Auradon? It was still Mal's doing. She would carry that guilt and burden for the rest of her days.
"I couldn't help them, though. I couldn't break Audrey's spell on my own. I know I couldn't. I tried before that and it wouldn't work. It wasn't powerful enough. Not even using my Dad's ember on my own worked. I needed them. I needed Uma and I pushed her away."
Mal's frown only deepened knowing she had nearly done the very same with Birkhoff. "It's not my Mom this time. It's not even my Dad. It's me."