Queens: Evie/Wren/Luke
[The phonecall had startled Wren, but everything startled Wren since Silent Hill. Now that the maybe-dead children were back, they startled her too. Lia was loud now, all baby talk and words that made sense to tiny ears and no one else's. The baby wasn't quiet like Gus; she didn't know to shhhh, because she wasn't afraid of anything. And so, she was loud, the baby, and Wren startled easily.
Gus, Gus was quiet, but Gus was almost always quiet. Now, he was hiding beneath a pillow fort in the living room, Gus and Cygne with him, and he'd spent most of his time with the dogs since coming home. He looked at the prodigal adults with wide grey eyes, like he wasn't sure they'd come back for him, and Wren realized time had passed and passed and passed. She knew, but the way Gus looked at them, it just made it all more real. During those moments of realization, she really did think he was alive.
But Lia, Lia didn't seem to notice anything strange at all. She was in the gated of living room with Gus, and she'd been coasting on the walls of his pillow fort, babbling all the while, cinnamon hair in messy curls and wide blue eyes, until she'd fallen asleep beneath an endtable. Cow-print pajamas in white and black, pink pacifier in her mouth and a handful of cat fur clutched in one little fist, and the cat nowhere to be found.
The table was set, and lunch was almost ready. Macaroni and cheese, because Luke didn't like soup anymore, and thick toast warming in the oven. But the call had still startled her, and she thought maybe it would be better if Luke never, ever went back to work.
The knock on the door startled her too, but Wren ventured out to answer it before Luke would need to do it. She was in a sundress, sunshine yellow, and a long-sleeved white shirt beneath the straps. Bare feet, and she tugged the door open and blinked a few times as she looked at her best friend.
Evie looked really, really not okay, and Wren looked over her shoulder, as if Luke could fix it somehow from wherever he was lurking nearby. Luke always lurked nearby.
Inside, Lia woke and cried, and Gus retreated further into his pillow fort.]