InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "Hear the voice of Thanatos!"

This Christmas had been harder than Lorna would have thought. What made it even harder was there was very little that she could do about it. She had been waiting all morning for Owen to come back from the emergency meeting with her sister. Lorna had been basically been interrogated through journals by Gwen on what she knew about Ellie fighting. It was frustrating.

Still… Lorna did the best she could. Kept the kids busy all morning. It was tradition that Boxing Day was their relaxing day. Let the wee ones play in the living room with their new toys (it was still a bit too cold and stormy for Fergus to take his new broom outside), and Owen and Lorna would enjoy the day together.

That didn’t happen this year or at least not yet. Lorna had just finished making hot cocoa for the kids, and made a cup of tea for herself. She’d moved them to the sun porch which was kept warm with charms as she waited and looked for when Owen was coming home. Lorna was quiet, and Fergus and Rhonna seemed to notice that.

“Where’s Da?” Fergus would ask. Rhonna came to curl up in Lorna’s lap to hug her and Fergus came to cuddle next to her too. “Are you sad, Mum?”

“Everything’s fine. Da will be home soon.”

Everything was not fine, but it was going to get there. Maybe. Eventually. By the time Owen had Apparated back home, he was tired in such a way that had nothing to do with the second day of having an unfortunate early waking hour. Honestly, the only thing he wanted was to be home with Lorna and the kids and just rest. Relaxing would be nice too, but there was a tight coil of stress that was lodged in his stomach that wouldn’t see fit to letting that be on the agenda as well.

Still, that was work. This was home.

From the distance it took for him to get from the Apparition point to the sun room he had managed to shelve his work problems. “Well, this is cozy, isn’t it?” he smiled warmly at Lorna cuddled up with their children. “And where’s my tea and-or cocoa?”

“Da!” Fergus and Rhonna said in unison as they both hopped up to go hug their father when he came into the sun room. They both picked a leg to hug affectionately and Lorna smiled as she sat up.

“Both are in the kitchen with a warming charm for whichever you want,” Lorna said, and then had an idea. “Fergus, why don’t you and Rhonna go get one of Ainsley’s cookies for us and we’ll have a snack out here in the sunroom,” she said to get them to scurry off for the moment.

With them gone for the moment, Lorna pulled Owen closer to her with her arms around his shoulders so she could kiss him. It had been a hard Christmas, and it didn’t seem like things were going to get any easier going into the New Year.

“You don’t have to tell me what happened,” Lorna said. It was a bit of a conflict of interest sometimes when Lorna being the Captain and Owen the Admin. Throw on top of it that the issue involved her sister… well it was a mess. “But are you going to be okay?”

Having sent the kids off with dual pats on the head, Owen sank gratefully into his wife’s embrace and circled his arms around her waist. The kiss was warm and familiar, but still quickened his pulse just like it had the first time all those years ago. He leaned his forehead against hers and closed his eyes briefly. “Thank you.”

And maybe it was a little pathetic how much he meant those words, but reaching this kind of understanding of clear delineation between home and work before Lorna had returned to the team had been one of their mutual prerequisites for her acceptance. He kissed her again, and then nuzzled her cheek. “I’ll get there.”

He had just started to move again when Fergus and Rhonna came rushing back into the room. “Da! Da!” Rhonna toddled up to him holding an opened box of cookies. “Ms Ainsley sent us even more cookies!”

“Did she now?” He smiled from the box to Fergus. “This lot as good as the last?”

When Lorna had left the game, it had just become routine to not talk about Portree. She missed the game and didn’t want to hear about it, and it gave Owen some space from work responsibility and being home. Now that she was back… they still both needed that space.

So Lorna held him as he pulled her closer. Lorna held onto his shoulders as he rested his forehead against hers. She kissed him back when he sought for more. She brushed her hands over the back of his neck and into his hair while he nuzzled her cheek.

Even when their children came running back in, Lorna didn’t move away very fair. She smiled though because even if she failed to make Owen feel better, at least the kids could. So while they did get busy showing Owen what new cookies they had, Lorna did slip away back into the kitchen to bring back more tea and cocoa, whatever Owen wanted.

She brought it back and set both mugs down on the table. “What would you like?” Lorna asked seeing Owen still occupied with the kids.

Fergus was just finishing his dissertation on the contrasting qualities of Ainsley’s holiday cookie offerings when Lorna asked her question. “Think I’ll match the wee ones for now and go with cocoa. Might even splurge and have a cuppa after.”

Owen settled himself on the sun room’s couch, and Rhonna immediately came to sit next to him, all but burrowing into his side. Fergus looked a little uncertainly between his parents, summoning a grave look that only the very young could do. “Where did ya go this mornin’, Da?”

Rhonna went a little still; Owen knew she’d come over all attentive-like. “Well, first I had to see a man about a dragon, see? This one’s been in a mad temper for ages, and we’ve not been able to work out what the problem might be. Had to find just the right spell to get it sorted. Can’t have mad, wild dragons flying about the place, blowing all sorts of”- he attacked Rhonna’s sides with tickling fingers- “rainbow bubbles all over the place! There would have been chaos in the countryside!”

Rhonna’s peels of laughter were almost enough to drown out Fergus’s exasperated, “Da-aaa!” and Owen relented, tossing a grin toward Lorna before looking back at his son. “It was just a team meeting, that’s all. Nothing to fuss about.”

Owen wondered who Fergus favored more in that moment, his expression one of wary skepticism. “Go on, let’s have one of these cookies, yeah? It’s Boxing Day!”

Lorna went and took a seat on the other side of the couch and handed Owen his cocoa. She smiled as she watched the kids and Owen, and listened to his story… knowing the truth behind it. She wished she could just apparate over to her sister now, to talk to her. The last two months was the first real time that Lorna felt that she couldn’t just go talk to Elsie, to help her younger sister. Realizing she’d taken for granted how they weren’t an unstoppable team. Lorna wasn’t sure what she would do if she had to keep playing Quidditch with Ellie not even being involved...

She looked over and smiled when Rhonna started laughing from being tickled and brought her back to the reality of the moment. Lorna returned Owen’s grin as Fergus still wanted to fuss.

“And once you finish your snack, we can go pick something to play with out of your presents,” Lorna suggested. That got both kids up again and scrambling over to the table to grab cookies and drink their cocoa, though Rhonna had moved faster than Fergus. This gave Lorna the opportunity to set her tea down and move closer to wrap her arm around Owen’s as she leaned into his side.

Owen settled his arm around Lorna’s shoulders, and pressed a kiss atop her head before leaning his own against it. He let a deep sigh leave him as he watched the kids squabble playfully over the cookies, with Rhonna making a bit of a mess with her cocoa, while Fergus- long suffering older brother- helped her try to clean it up, and squeezed her for a moment.

“I thank soro every day for you,” he told her quietly, so exhausted that he let his mother’s native tongue slip without even noticing. That gratitude swelled in his chest, pushing out everything else, and leaving behind only a pleasant warmth. He actually felt lighter, like he might be able to take on whatever crazy thing his team might sling at him next.

Lorna got settled and was quite content to just sit there for a moment with Owen. To feel him warm next to her. It was like they’d been living in two worlds the last two days. The world of where everything was fine and making Christmas for the wee ones. And the other world where things were not right and Lorna worried when she saw the worry on Owen’s face.

With their children’s attention divided, Lorna leaned up and tilted Owen’s chin so that she could kiss him lightly. “Love you too,” she smiled as she said something completely different back. Lorna knew her life would have been completely different without Owen in it. She’d be in that world where things weren’t right.