Shit had been kind of intense in Atlantis lately, but Julia was glad there was still time for happy moments in between all the chaos. Julia was pretty sure Sirius proposal during the solstice party hadn't been planned at all, but she still couldn't help but smile at the thought of it. That the three of them were able to share a house now, a perfect fulfillment of Remus' wish, only made it better. Before London, before Atlantis she never would have seen herself in a relationship with two men at once, but it was something that had felt natural from almost the moment they'd all started spending time together in Atlantis. Julia had already felt something for Remus, but falling for Sirius, too, had been easy. His asking had probably been on a whim, but Julia in no way regretted her answer and couldn't help smiling as she absently played with the ring that adorned her left hand.
Pulling her thoughts back to the book in front of her, Julia tried to focus on the research she was supposed to be doing. Apparently being engaged to the head of the department didn't get you out of doing some actual work, but Julia didn't mind it so much. The magical library here was insane and she loved having such easy access to all of the knowledge here.
She didn't even remember falling asleep before the dreams overtook her. Julia felt the indescribable pain as she sacrificed her own power to make new keys after Alice had destroyed the originals. She felt everything that followed - being another person, a student at Brakebills who couldn't seem to summon any real magic, killing herself over and over again until finally the spell that held their true memories hostages was broken, searching for the answers to getting her powers back while also working to find a way to defeat the monster possessing Eliot and get their friend back. Julia dreamed months in the span of hours or maybe even only minutes and when it was over, she woke with a start to find the tears on her face were real. "Q," she breathed miserably. It took only a moment to remember she was in Atlantis and he was here. He was okay. He had to be.
Julia was focused so much on finding her best friend that she didn't even stop to notice that she still had her powers. She somehow hadn't lost that goddess spark and didn't have the scars on her back where the other Julia had been stabbed with axes to pull the monster out of her. She'd notice those things later, but Julia moved now with a singular focus: she had to find Quentin.
She finally did in one of the other research rooms, thankfully alone. Closing the door behind her, Julia rushed forward and threw her arms around him with tears still streaming down her face.
For Quentin, it had happened overnight. He’d gone to bed early and had no idea how long he’d been sleeping when the dreams came. Magic was gone, they were going on a quest to find the keys to bring it back, he had lived an entire lifetime with Eliot in the space of what had been one day in real time, they’d had a family. Then there was all the rest, Julia sacrificing her powers, the keys, the library, the monster and all that had come after.
The worse was the end. He hadn’t hesitated in what he’d done, he knew it was the only way, he had to sacrifice himself to save everyone else. He felt the pain in his soul when he yelled at Penny 23 to get Alice out of there before he went through the rift, he could hear her screaming, and then nothing. He woke up hyperventilating, sweating and ran his hand through his hair. He was dead, at home he was dead, he’d given his life to save not just magic but the whole world. He remembered one other thing now that he was awake, he remembered finding their Penny waiting for him on the other side and they’d talked, he’d asked Penny if he had really died or had he just found a way to kill himself that was acceptable. He’d tried more than once in the past when he was younger. He hadn’t gotten an answer to that question and he knew he never would. That was the last thing he remembered, asking that question but then again there wasn’t a lot left to do, he was dead, he was in the Underworld doing whatever a person did there.
Quentin knew he had to talk to Julia and Margo but he wasn’t ready yet. He needed to think on it for a while so he got up and went through the motions of getting ready for work, ate a bagel and drank some coffee, then went to the Magical Research department. It wasn’t hard to find an empty room and he settled in there to pretend to work while he processed everything. When the door flew open and Julia ran in, he wasn’t entirely surprised, he’d wondered if she would remember too and it seemed that she had.
He hugged her back and took a shaky breath before he spoke. “You too, huh?”
Julia was a blubbering teary mess when she finally released him, but she pulled herself together enough to nod while she reached up to wipe the tears from her face. She knew full well that she was a fucking mess, but right now she didn’t really care. Until she’d found him in this room, a part of her had expected him to be gone. The dead could come to Atlantis and she and Quentin had both been here for a long while now, but the dream had felt so real that she was still terrified of losing him.
“Me, too,” she confirmed, laughing softly at the question. There was a small amount of humor in knowing they’d done this together, too, like so many other things in their lives. Brakebills was one of the first times in years that they’d found themselves embarking on something major without the other, the first real rift in a friendship she’d been sure would go on forever. Even that hadn’t been able to keep them apart for long.
“You died, you asshole” she said unnecessarily. Her tone was a mix of sadness and anger as she half glared at him.
“Yeah, I guess I did,” he said and ran his hand through his hair, his classic nervous gesture.”I had to do it, Jules. If I hadn’t, Everett was going to take over and fuck everything up. There wasn’t any other way.” He wanted to tell her the last part, the question that he had asked Penny but he didn’t know if he could do it. She needed to know though, she was the only person here who would understand, who had known him before. “I saw Penny, our Penny in the Underworld. I asked him if I had really meant to save the world or had I finally found an acceptable way of committing suicide. He didn’t answer me, that’s when it stopped so I guess I moved on to wherever. Jules, I’m scared,” he looked up at her. “I don’t know the answer to that question. I don’t remember thinking that I wanted to die. Alice and I had decided to try and work things out, we got Eliot back and you but what if I did. Was I that fucked up?”
He hadn’t felt like he was although now he did. Things were actually getting better, a lot was changing but maybe that was good. Alice had grown and changed, they all had so why the hell would he even think that he wanted to die? It made no sense.
Julia’s face went from understanding to shocked in an instant. “No, Q, of course not!” She hadn’t been there, she hadn’t actually had to see him die or anything, but she’d been told enough to piece it together. Julia had saved Quentin and 23. He’d saved all of them, really. However devastated she’d been to lose him, she knew what he’d done had been heroic, no matter what his history might suggest.
“I’m not sure Penny could answer that for you. Maybe I can’t either. Maybe the only person who can really answer it is you, but I do know that you sacrificed yourself for the people you loved and maybe even for people you didn’t know. I know the world is a better place with you in it, but I think you did whatever you had to do to make sure the rest of us could keep living in it.”
Maybe he hadn’t even known it would kill him. Maybe he’d just rolled the dice - it wasn’t like they’d all survived some serious fucking shit and lived to tell about it later. Maybe he’d thought he’d be okay or maybe he’d known he probably wouldn’t be; that was something Julia knew she couldn’t answer, herself, but she knew without any doubt that he’d done it for Alice, at the very least. If nothing else, he’d died to save Alice’s life.
“I just knew I couldn’t let Everett take over. That would have been horrible for everyone.” The man was crazy which could be the reason that The Library was so weird come to think of it. Maybe he’d been planning on taking over for years. “I’m glad that all of you survived though, I don’t know what happens in the afterlife but if it’s possible to miss people, I know that I would. Miss you, I mean. I’m just happy that here I still have you and Margo and the other friends I’ve made and I get to learn about types of magic that I never even knew existed.” He looked around the walls at the books surrounding them. “I don’t think it’s really hit me that this is it. I can’t go back but I could certainly be stuck in a lot worse places.”
“You’d better not go back.” Julia meant it as a joke, but her voice broke a little as she wiped the tears from her face. The memories of losing him had been so vivid, she could almost feel the warmth of the fire even now, despite knowing that she hadn’t physically changed. No scars from the axes, no loss of her goddess powers. She felt like she’d just lived it all anyway and she was deeply grateful to be here in Atlantis where they both had a second chance. Reaching out, she took his hand and squeezed it. “I get why you did it, Q, but I’m not letting you go again without a fight.” If Atlantis even thought about sending him home, they’d have a really pissed off goddess on their hands.