katherine foster (inamoment) wrote in shadowlands_ic, @ 2017-07-21 00:43:00 |
|
|||
Entry tags: | katherine foster, lucien swinton |
Who: Katherine and Lucien
What: Battle Royale. Words unsaid are finally said.
When: The day after she sees Peter.
Where: The Foster residence.
Rating: PG-13 for some swearing. Lots of arguing.
Assassination attempts, Lucien had decided, were remarkably inconvenient.
He had been assigned a bodyguard for the time being in addition to Malcolm, who’d insisted on carrying a revolver with him, and he’d had to spend a significant amount of time assuring everyone he was quite alright -- apparently, people came out of the woodwork to make inquiries when one was nearly stabbed to death.
His pack had also needed a significant amount of his attention, as several were understandably shaken -- the three youngest Fosters, Malcolm, and Maggie in particular. He knew Matthew was still no end of worried; he had very nearly ridden a horse into the ground to come into town upon hearing, and had required a great deal of convincing before he’d returned back home, and on top of the flurry of messages from his acquaintances, distant family, and his fellow Members of Parliament, he’d been fielding concerned letters from Mr Foster and Mrs Sayers in a steady stream.
He took his responsibilities seriously, but most especially to the younger wolves, who’d been all too close to danger and had seen something he would’ve spared them from if he could have.
The younger Foster children had been by to see him the morning after, and they were the first social call he’d made since being discharged, in order to check on them all. Today was more of the same, but after no end of correspondence and a few necessary visits for matters of work, he’d swung by the Foster’s London House once more to see how everyone was getting on.
He’d been surrounded by a host of concerned faces, and one he’d been expecting to see had been most notable by its absence -- Kat hadn’t come to call, or written, and hadn’t been present when he’d stopped by the previous day to call on the Fosters either. He knew she was in town -- Mr and Mrs Lewis had called to show their respects -- and he wasn’t quite sure how to take it; he assumed she was keeping her distance because of some mistaken concern over not wanting to step on Maggie’s toes, which was ridiculous -- she was a packmate, and a friend, and when one was hurt, one looked to one’s immediate circle for comfort -- a circle he placed Kat in, and he’d missed her, and found her distance troubling.
He knocked on the door to the Foster’s bearing a box of chocolates, hoping he might bring a smile to Ana’s face -- he knew she had a sweet tooth.
The past few days had been like a whirlwind of things happening. When she had heard about Lucien being attacked, she had been quite surprised and then she had been worried of course. If it had been any other time in history, she probably would have rushed to his side, to make sure that he was all right. Instead she had gone to visit her mother and siblings, to make sure that they were both all right. She had apologized for not being there with them, and though she could see the utter disappointment on her mother's face, Katherine knew that she just couldn't have gone. It was probably a blessing in disguise.
She had spent most of the rest of the day trying to explain to her mother about her thoughts of moving on. Not just from the house, but from the pack as well. While her mother said she understood, Katherine could tell the great pains that her parents were going through because of their oldest children. Nothing was set in stone of course, but when she left them that day, her mind was full of ideas. Her first priority had to be to take care of her family, and make sure that her actions didn't reflect poorly on them.
After that was a stop to see her brother. They had talked, and Peter had been as supportive as he ever was. He'd even offered her a place to stay, which she was still contemplating. She very much wished that Peter didn't blame himself for her plight, but she supposed if it had been the other way around, she would have done the same. When she left to go back to her parents London home, she'd just about made up her mind entirely.
Though she had heard that Lucien had stopped by, Katherine didn't think he'd be back a second time. In fact she thought she was getting rather good at avoiding him. However when she opened the door, she found that her luck had officially ran out. Her face fell for a second. "Good day, Sir. Please, do come in." She opened the door to let him inside.
Lucien winced at the look on her face, and the formal form of address. Seeing Katherine had been unexpected, but it was more than apparent that she didn’t find his presence a welcome one instead of a pleasant surprise.
“Miss Foster,” he said, giving a short nod of his head. “I was dropping these off for Ana, and stopping by to see how everyone is doing. How are they? And how are you?” He stood a little awkwardly in the entryway, unsure as to his reception -- whether she’d grant him a visit to the sitting room for a few minutes, or show him the door under some premise or another -- a thought which he would’ve found baffling a few weeks ago, but given her current expression, was within the realm of possibility, which made him frown.
She’d been a little overly brittle after his announcement of his engagement to Maggie -- the temperature in the air had shifted some -- and he’d been too occupied with the challenges of running an estate, a pack, and his office at the House of Shadows to notice Peter’s growing discontent until it was too late -- until Peter had left without a word of explanation. He didn’t want to make the same mistake with Katherine.
After letting him inside and shutting the door behind him, she looked down at whatever he had in his hands and gave a nod of her head. “Ana will appreciate them. They’re doing well. Everyone is still a little nervous about what happened, but they’re mostly in good spirits. I’m fine.” Though the gracious thing to do would be to smile and be polite, she couldn’t bring herself to smile around him any more. There was a part of her that just wanted to rush to his side, to make sure that he was really all right. The other part of her wanted to roll up her fist and punch him in the nose. Instead she kept her hands at her side, into tight fists as to prevent herself from doing something stupid.
“Would you like me to give those to Ana, or would you care to do it yourself? You must be awfully busy. Though we do appreciate you coming to check on everyone, in spite of everything.” See? She could be pleasant enough when she needed to be. She just wanted him to get the hell out of her house, but knew exchanges had to come first.
“I can always call at a more convenient time if she isn’t in -- I wasn’t fully recovered during my first visit, and perhaps seeing me more myself would be helpful,” he said, with a bit of a frown before bursting out despite himself.
“Good God, Kat,” he said, quietly, looking over at her. “What on earth is going on between us? You are one of my dearest, closest friends, an advisor and a confidante I trust and respect when it comes to pack matters, someone I’ve turned to time and time again over the decades we’ve known one another to help me steer this enormous ship I’ve had to take charge of -- my marrying Maggie won’t change how I see you. I need your strength, your friendship, your counsel, now more than ever. Please, Kat, talk to me?” He asked her, his voice low. “Tell me what the matter is?”
Katherine shook her head slightly, “She’s here, you may give them to her yourself, if you wish.” She didn’t want to say that she figured that he had better things to do than just hang around here, talking to them.
Every word out of his mouth was a bit like a stab in the heart. She hated hearing things like that. It would have been easier if he just didn’t like her straight out, and wanted nothing to do with her. This was worse. As they were standing in the hall, she gestured towards the drawing room, where they would maybe have some more privacy. Everyone else was around and about, and they would probably be listening, but at least no one was going to gawk. Once inside the drawing room, she turned towards him, her lips in a full frown now. No longer hiding the fact that she was truly displeased.
“You really have no idea? Absolutely none? Good god. I should have expected this,” she said with a laugh. “Of course you don’t. Because that’s just another example of how you feel about me. You say all of those things, that I’m a close friend and everything but you don’t actually mean them. Because clearly you haven’t realized that I’ve been utterly in love with you for.. Forever. And that yes, marrying Maggie does change things. I can’t pretend any more. I can’t wait for you. And I absolutely hate you for it.”
Lucien rocked back as if he’d been slapped, and looked at her, a frown echoed in his own face.
“Kat,” he said, taken aback by her vitriol, by her sudden revelation. “You were waiting for me? Why on earth didn’t you say something?” He asked. “I took our shared affection, our closeness, as friendship, nothing more -- have I ever… did I ever lead you to believe otherwise?” He shook his head. “Katherine, I haven’t shown interest in marrying anyone for decades -- and all that time…” he exhaled, and sat, and winced a little as something in his side twinged, looking up at her.
He’d known her since they were pups -- he’d spent countless hours running around the grounds together with her, Peter, and Matthew, wrestling, playing, talking about what the future would hold in store -- and when his world had fallen apart, and his parents had died, he’d had to put aside his youthful ambitions and thoughts of his own happiness, and had thrown himself into the monumental task of holding together his pack, shepherding them through a war, trying his best to navigate through thorny political waters that were far, far over his head -- and the entire time, Katherine had been a constant at his side, even when her twin had left. But when he was with her, he felt a deep comfort, an affection, a love, certainly, but as one might feel for a sister -- he didn’t feel that pull -- that bone-deep, magnetic, animal desire that he did when he was around Maggie -- one he could hardly resist when she was human and married, let alone now.
Somehow she knew that he was going to do this. Act like he had no idea, and then play the victim card. It was her that had done everything, and sure maybe it had been all of her fault. But she was so tired of feeling like a monster because she'd dared to have feelings that weren't returned. She wasn't the first woman it had happened to, and certainly wouldn't be the last. But when he said things like that, she wondered how she ever could have fell in love with him in the first place. She was quite sure that her mother at least was listening by now, but she hadn't shown her face, and for that Katherine was grateful.
"Yes, Lucien. Everyone but you knows. Everyone in the pack and probably everyone in London could see it, but you. But that's okay, because it's my fault. I was the silly, idiot girl who thought maybe deep down, even though I knew. I knew. But that doesn't make this any easier. Despite being quite sure that you've never had feelings for me, I am now a fool. I've always been a fool in front of you," she said, her voice slowly getting a bit louder. All of these things that she had been holding back, had decided to just bubble up instead. "And as usual, you look at me, and you look at Peter and you've decided that you're just completely obvlious and that means that we're in the wrong. Now yet again, the Fosters are the laughing stock of the pack. I mean.. you proposed to her in front of me." Again she laughed, though this time, quite more bitterly and shrilly.
Katherine shook her head. "I can't do this. I beg of you to have leniency on my parents, and on my siblings and not take it out on them. They haven't done anything wrong. Peter and I.. I suppose we've just always been this way. Putting our faith and loyalty into.. our alpha." Which made this so much harder. If he had just been some boy in the pack, then she could have ignored it and sure it had gone on, but he was the alpha and now she was just cast over, again. Over and over. "I will do as you ask, because you are my alpha and I cannot deny you. But I beg of you, to formally let me go. I will leave and not return."
Lucien turned white. “I have gone out of my way to elevate your family’s standing, to give them opportunities to circulate among the highest levels of society due to my close connections with them, to call on you personally for counsel, to have you a valued member of my pack,” he said, hotly. “What would you have me do, Katherine? Enter into a loveless marriage with you, and then humiliate you further by requesting a divorce after finding my Mate, or stick it out, both of us miserable, trying my best to be faithful while being so drawn to another?”
The mention of Peter stung. “I’ll be the first to admit that I took Peter’s friendship for granted -- I thought he would support me, that I could depend on him and you both, because God knows, when I took over, I’d just lost both my parents, Kat, and I had to make hard decisions that were for the best of everyone in the pack. Yes, I chose Matthew for my second,” he said, his voice shaking. “I needed someone who’d be happy to stay in the country, who’d compliment my personality -- I needed a Beta, not someone who wanted to be an Alpha too -- and if I hadn’t had been so damn busy holding us together with packing twine and a prayer for those first few years, I would’ve been able to get him thinking about a pack of his own -- but damn it all, Kat, I trusted enough in our friendship to believe he’d have my back until I could breathe a little, because of how much I held him in my esteem, not because I thought him beneath me. And when he left, it was...”
He sighed, pinching his nose. “I have never thought of your family as a laughingstock. I have worked to keep my association with them close despite Peter’s defection. Why would you…” he dropped his hand, looking up at her, his heart breaking. “You would leave me too?” He said, quietly. “How would you have me be? What would you have done in my place?” He said, a sudden fierce ache in his chest.
"And I appreciate everything that you've done for us, Lucien. That isn't the point. They're still looked at differently because of Peter and I, and I know that's our faults, but I just want to be sure that when I go, that you won't treat them any differently," she said, trying to calm down a bit. She took a deep breath to try and center herself. Think about what she wanted to stay, instead of just blurting whatever came out.
Katherine looked down at the ground, unable to look at him in the face. If she looked at him, she might not be able to say the things she wanted. "I'm so glad to know that you couldn't even try to love me, and that it would be so incredibly horrible for you, to be married to me. You keep showing me how you feel about me, and I've never really listened. But I've listened now. I know exactly how you view me." This was getting to be a little too hard, too much of her wanted to just spit on him and run away. This would probably be the last time that she even looked at him.
Her hands fidgeted with her skirts, and she was unsure of what to say about her brother. "You did take him for granted. You think he wanted power? He just wanted to be close to you. And you chose someone else. You always choose someone else. I might not be able to understand the intricacies of being an alpha and everything that you have to do. You're very busy, and things get hectic. But us little people get lost in all of that shuffle, and to have us constantly stepped on.. I suppose it was just a little bit too much for either one of us to handle."
She couldn't actually defend her brother as much as she wanted, because while she understood the reasonings for Peter leaving, she hadn't quite agreed with it. She always supported her brother, no matter what but she didn't always agree with him. And she didn't actually know if the two had talked and if Peter had ever explained himself properly, or what either one of them had talked about. "I know you don't view them as such, but everyone else does, Lucien. You can't see it, but maybe that's because you haven't paid much attention. I would leave you. Don't ask me to stay. I can't bear it. I can't ever get over you, if I have to constantly watch you so happy. Isn't it enough that I have to suffer alone, for the rest of my life? But you'd make me watch you grow old with her, and have children with her? You'd really do that to me? There is nothing you could have done. It is how the world is. I can't stand to look at you. You cause me nothing but pain."
“You know it’s not that simple, Katherine,” he said, quietly, his heart beating fast. “I love you like a sister, like a friend I hold dear, but you know I can’t snap my fingers and make you my Mate when you aren’t, I can’t, and the second I would’ve seen Maggie, I would’ve been lost. I would not use you like that, marry you for convenience and leave you -- I couldn’t treat my friend like that. You deserve so much better, I want you to be happy, to find your intended, someone who will love you as you deserve to be loved, and I have to believe he’s out there -- you’re a beautiful, brilliant woman, Kat, and I hope you find him. I really do.”
He shook his head. “I gave you a place at my table, Katherine, I treated you and your father as respected and valued members of my pack -- it pains me to have you thinking that I stepped on you, that I belittled you, that you’d think I consider your family so poorly. I just… I don’t love you -- not as a man loves his wife. And Peter… my issues with Peter are clearly a part of all this, a reason you’ve felt so torn, but if he wanted my closeness…” he inhaled painfully, “he’s the one who left without saying so much as a word, Kat. Not me.” He looked up at her. “At least you’ve done me that courtesy,” he said quietly.
“You’re… you’re the closest thing I have to a family, you know,” he said, his voice low. “You, Matthew, Peter… when my parents died, you were the ones I was closest to, and now…” he shook his head. “God, Kat,” he said, his voice breaking, “do you really hate me so?”
"Yes, yes I do deserve better. I deserve more than have you sitting here, feeding me a lot of excuses. You're absolved of all sins, if that makes you feel any better. You didn't know.. you didn't do anything. You're completely innocent. Good for you." It must have been nice to have his hands completely clean of just about everything. It was true though, it hadn't really been his fault. She was the one who had developed feelings, and she'd never said anything. And they clearly weren't meant for each other. "Oh my god, please shut up. Just shut up. You are not making this any better with your fake pity. For god's sake."
There he was, telling her how much he was so completely innocent. It was driving her up the wall. She wanted to tell him to get the hell out. If she had been thinking about not leaving before, she had completely made up her mind just now. "Are you quite done telling me how much you don't love me now? Just get out of my house, Lucien. You won't have to come back here and see me any more. I don't care, Lucien. At this moment, I really don't care that I'm your family. And yes, I hate you because I have to right now. Because I'm so fucking heartbroken. And I can't stop being that way. I can't stop being angry, and heartbroken if I'm around you."
This would have been easier if he could have pretended to hate her maybe. She knew that he would never give her even that smallest of courtesies. "Get out. You won't see me again."
He stood, abruptly, which was unwise -- his side protested fiercely -- but he bowed stiffly. “I would not be so cruel as to force you to stay in the pack out of duty -- if you are so very unhappy, you may go, and with my blessing,” he said, crisply, “and despite your poor opinion of my capacity to treat your family with any courtesy, I will do my utmost to not let your decision color my continued support of your parents and younger siblings. Good-bye, Katherine. I wish you all the best.” That last might’ve been a little sharp in tone, but he couldn’t muster much grace in the face of seeing his childhood friend’s face so twisted in anger and hatred.
He set the chocolates down carefully on the table and bowed again before stalking out the door, his face white and his mood decidedly dark.