InsaneJournal

Jacob Frye might not have had much experience with magic, but he was beginning to hate it with the fervor he reserved for Templars, slow carriage drivers, and barkeeps who watered down their ale. How long had he been back here in Mount Weather? A handful of moments, an hour? He felt groggy and disoriented, not unlike the effects of a drug wearing off. He was standing, at least, but as he took a step forward, he tripped over a pile of --

-- what had happened to Mount Weather?

It had been wrecked. He was standing in-- was this the library? What had been the library? Black blood was everywhere. A flash of his Eagle Eye vision revealed that there were still living people here thank God, just not here, and he glanced through the floors until he spied the yellow shimmer of an Assassin a few rooms down.

“Evie,” he breathed, and then… was it Ezio? Had Ezio come with him? Was Evie okay after this battle? Panic hit about the same time as the adrenaline, and he took off, bounding toward the yellow outline without a single shred of stealth accompanying his steps.

Evie looked to be helping with cleanup - she was carrying things, looked tired and out of breath - but she was moving. She was okay. Jacob didn’t allow himself more than a moment to suss out that she wasn’t injured; that vacancy that had been silently screaming inside of his Storybrooke persona demanded satisfaction. She saw him coming a half-second before he pulled her into a tight hug - he hadn’t been quiet - and Jacob didn’t care if it was terribly out of character for them to show physical affection. He felt like he hadn’t seen Evie in years. A lifetime, even.

It had been a long day for her - day and night, not that she’d slept more than a few hours - thanks to the attack. But they’d prepared the best they could, and the mountain came out on top. And if she’d been honest, it was the thrill Evie needed to boost her spirits. The spirits she was refusing to admit were dampened because of her brother’s disappearance.

Because no matter how much they fought or butted heads, Evie was never truly complete without Jacob around.

Not to mention she knew if he was back home - potentially without her - he’d likely burn London to the ground.

Keeping busy was the best for her mind. Cleaning up, repairing furniture, disposing of bodies. It’d been non-stop work since the evening before, but she didn’t mind it. Stopping to sleep usually meant thinking, as her brain was always prepared to do. Alfred was healing nicely, and unpacking her things in his room meant that she’d end up going through Jacob’s things again- So here she was, rearranging.

Evie had spotted him just the moment before she grunted, being pulled into a tight hug. How had- Jacob. Her arms came up tentatively, squeezing. Asking a thousand questions was likely to only confuse him this early on, so she just huffed out a breath. “Jacob- I don’t- Did you just arrive?”

“Yeah,” he answered, inhaling. Exhaling. Feeling as if his feet had finally hit solid ground since being so unmoored only moments before. Clearing his throat, he disengaged, pulling away, but still hovering with nervous energy as he crossed his arms over his chest. “Yeah, couple of minutes ago. What the hell happened here? There was black shite all around, and the library looked like it’d been invaded by a sodding army.”

He was closer to the truth than he’d thought; he regarded her worriedly, checking her visually for injuries and finding nothing more than bruises and scratches. “And what are you and your stuff doing in here, anyhow?”

Evie was fully aware that when people disappeared, they came back lacking their memories of this place. It had happened a dozen times that she’d witnessed, and the surprise that Jacob was easing into this was evident on her face.

She glanced around the room, at the wreckage, at the cluster of things that needed repaired, at the black blood splatters on walls and stray arrow here and there and looked back at his face with her mouth quirking up into a smile. “We were invaded by a sodding army. They tunneled through the mountain and we had-” Cutting off, shaking her head. “Nevermind. Do you mean to tell me you know this place?”

“Tunnelled through the mountain? Was it a race of carnivorous mole people?” And then all of Jacob’s incredulity came to a screeching halt as he considered Evie’s question. “Of course I know this place, it’s Mount Weather; I got here a---” And then he stopped speaking, alarm growing as he went silent. Jacob had just realized that his internal sense of time that designated days and weeks from months and years was completely, utterly missing.

When Jacob was upset, he withdrew and went quiet. Now was no different as he bit the inside of his cheek, trying to sort out the vague, half-remembered memories of a life that didn’t feel like his from what he knew to be true. “It was a spell,” he said at last. “Magic. Not the-- Pod God or whatever we’re calling it. I didn’t go home, Evie, I went--” Where had he gone? “Somewhere else,” he concluded, and then looked back at her, stricken. “How long was I gone for?”

“Goblins, actually.” Evie answered simply, but her mind was racing. Magic. He remembered! Blowing out a breath, she took a long look around the room, through the walls, and her heart raced even faster - it was certainly more populated than it had been a few hours ago. Much like it had been before-

Magic.

Jacob had gone somewhere else. Without her. It explained the hug, certainly, and also worried her even further, even if he didn’t look harmed.

Evie looked him over again, just to be sure he really wasn’t harmed. “Somewhere else? Where? The White Witch? We speculated that- It’s been over two weeks, Jacob, and we lost over a hundred people all at once.”

Over two weeks? That felt both right and terribly off. Jacob shook his head, frowning as he mulled over the new information. “Don’t think it was the White Witch. I don’t know. It was-- different. We were in this town, you see, called Storybrooke, and we all had these different lives and memories, and some of were like ourselves and some weren’t. Say… you know The Iron Bull? Big fella, took him down last Fight Club but barely? He was human, no horns. Ran a motorcycle gang, was named Ben. Ezio… he worked at a bank, see, and had a little art gallery called the---” Belatedly Jacob tried to remember the name of the gallery, and couldn’t. How dumb, he’d been there multiple times, he knew the name--

“It’s like a dream, or a.. Nightmare of normalcy,” he finally concluded, looking helpless and angry. “I don’t remember much from… before about two weeks. Why were we there? Because I’m not going back. I’ll burn myself a witch first.”

Evie found herself listening patiently, searching Jacob’s face for something that might have been blowing this out of proportion. But she didn’t find it, and instead all she came back with was worry. Jacob was obviously the more emotional of the twins, but he didn’t often lose himself this easily.

“Alright, sit.” Evie pushed him slightly to the side and nudged his shoulder so he’d fall down on the corner of the nearest flat surface. “We’ll find whoever is responsible, don’t worry. Especially if they’re here. But it’s over now, and this … Nightmare of normalcy seems to have reverted back. Aside from the blank in memories, what else was so terrible about it? Do you know why there was only a chunk of people taken for this?”

Jacob sat, frowning as he went over the tangible memories along with the wispy ones. “No pattern, that I know of. Everyone had just… normal lives. There was the usual romantic drama, a few odd marriages I guess. People who didn’t like one another were sometimes together. But sometimes not?” He wasn’t being much of a help, he knew, but figuring out the similarities behind seemingly unrelated events was Evie’s thing, not his. He snorted impatiently, looking like he wanted to pace and wasn’t through sheer force of will.

“I don’t know how to tell you it was terrible, because everything was fine. I was worried about paying for my textbooks. Roomed with Caro. Er.. Caroline Forbes, that nice vampire girl? Only she wasn’t a vampire in Storybrooke. She worked in the police station, I did stuff with some sort of homeless shelter…” His voice trailed off, and he shrugged. “It was fine. But it was terrible because it wasn’t me. I said and did things, I had friends and family, and at least Ezio and I were sort of seeing one another, but it wasn’t me. It was magic, making things happen, putting things in my head.” He looked at her imploringly, willing her to understand how strange it now felt. And Evie hadn’t been there. How could it be anything but terrible if they were apart?

“Jacob, I-” Evie understood, explicitly, that this was not the sort of magic to be brushed under a rug, to be ignored. But she was never very good at sympathy. Instead, she was the sort of person to figure things out and solve them. If it was a problem she couldn’t solve, she didn’t necessarily know how to act, or respond. It was frustrating, as she saw the anguish on her brother’s face and was powerless to immediately fix it.

She took a seat next to him, her teeth worrying at her bottom lip. “I obviously can’t put myself in your shoes, but I believe when you say it was horrid. When I ended up younger, and later, the fuzzy memories of it- I can’t imagine being out of my own mind and powerless to do anything about it. But now, perhaps, we can figure out who caused it, and bring justice. Or at the very least, prevent it from ever happening again.” Evie glanced over at him, nose scrunched up. “Did you have anyone to keep you out of trouble, at least?”

‘Bring justice’ sounded like a good start. Jacob didn’t know if this was something that was maliciously done or another accident, but there were a lot of people in Mount Weather who knew magic. He’d trust their say-so on the topic, and if the guilty party didn’t come forward, well, he and Evie would find them. It’s what they did for a living.

Having a plan in mind helped steady him, bring him back to the present. It wasn’t much of a plan at all, but Jacob had never been the sort to bother with details. “Nah,” he sort-of smiled, the corner of his mouth quirking up. “I mean, I had friends, people who looked out for me, but no one to call me a tit when I needed it.” That smile grew. “But it sounds like you needed me to keep you out of trouble. Evie. A goblin battle? Moving in with your boyfriend? Tsk, tsk.”

Evie scoffed, and her nose wrinkled further. While she was glad Jacob seemed to be solidifying himself back into this world, she never liked it when it was at the expense of her. She had missed the teasing, however, so she let it slide with a begrudging sigh. “If there was no one to call you a tit, you were likely an even bigger one than you normally are.”

She swayed to the side, bumping shoulders with him. “And that’s saying a lot, brother.” Moving in with Alfred likely didn’t even dignify a comment, he knew her reasonings, because Evie beat the topic to death before Jacob had disappeared - she just hadn’t actually pulled the trigger. Logic was always the forefront on her mind, including even moments of passion. “You’ll notice everyone is still alive, save for the goblins. I got to have fun, you missed the battle. Oh and I borrowed your throwing knives, I’ve been teaching Elea how to use them.”

His grin melted into horror. “You didn’t.” Elea’s bloodthirsty zest for life was well and fine when she wasn’t armed, but now that she was… “Cripes, Evie. You’re going to feel terrible when she makes good on some of her artwork threats and…. Never mind.” Some violence was best left unspoken.

“So tell me about this goblin battle,” he beseeched her, bumping her shoulder right back. He didn’t feel quite himself, but conversation with his sister was helping. Specifically, bugging the shite out of his sister was helping. “I want all the gory details, particularly the exciting bits where you killed things; let’s skip the planning and saving books and boring parts.”

“I did and I still have no regrets.” Evie’s smile turned into something of an evil grin, having already thought of exactly what Jacob was worried over. She knew Elea wouldn’t actually use her newfound skills against Jacob, only if someone wronged her, which was all she could ask for, in all honesty. And Evie was always a fan of making sure women had every exceptional ability they desired in life.

If there was one thing in common they had, it was their enjoyment over the work. Showing off their skills. It was one of the only indicators to their age, and their thrill of it all. “It was-” Well, it had been a particularly eventful fight, and her smile turned smug. “It was brilliant. Hundreds of them, close quarters and slipping about practicing not being seen because of so many people fighting. I’ve a few really good stories to tell, but they require an audience and ale, I think.”

He gestured toward the door. “I’ve no idea what time it is, but I, for one, would never stand between you and a pint with storytime. “C’mon. Let’s go find the others and stand where they tell us to stand.”

Jacob was smiling and trying to act like his ordinary self, finding it easier to do so now that the initial shock had worn off, and he had his sister by his side. That unrest in his chest continued to grumble and demand attention, but he ignored it for now. If he woke up in the morning still upset he’d deal with it, but for now - well, he just wanted to bask in the relief.