WHAT: Blue and Ronan visit Gansey's grave and discuss him coming to their future after six years of being gone. WHERE: Gansey's grave at the Barns WHEN: Sunday morning, 2033 WARNINGS: Death talk, grief STATUS: Complete
There were no flowers on the way to Gansey's grave. It seemed inappropriate for the forest around the Barns to not thrive with its former vibrancy. But the path was well-worn, and well-walked. Blue had only made it out here when she came to visit Gansey, but she knew Ronan walked it more than her. Blue still made it a point to lead this time, giving Ronan a bit of space to not have to engage in conversation as they made the familiar way in contemplative silence.
The silence was, of course, to also prevent anyone unfriendly from finding them. This was always the risk they chose to take by coming here.
Blue had come to Gansey's grave empty-handed. She usually tried to bring something: a trinket that was well past its usefulness, a dandelion that hadn't been blown to fluff in the wind, another mint plant to join the chaotic growth that had been around the beech tree he was buried under. But this trip had been more immediate, with little time to plan. It had felt necessary in the scope of things to see their Gansey before this new one came to the future.
They had a day, before Essek and Caleb left, to decide if it was worth the risk of seeing him again. She had been angry since the announcement, upset and confused and hopeful, every emotion a mess. Coming to see him with Ronan was supposed to be for clarity, but nothing felt clear here.
She moved under the broken part of the fence, no longer protected by the magic security system. She shuffled her feet along the dying grass that was being leached by the looming, ominous forest on the back of the Barns property. She stared down Cabeswater for a moment too long, cursing the injustice of their situation, before continuing on that gentle incline to Gansey's headstone.
She got to work, pulling out weeds and dead growth that had tangled with the mint. At least it still smelled nice, like Gansey. Blue exhaled, exhausted with a weariness that wasn't from the walk, and stayed crouched low at the foot of Gansey's plot.
When she couldn't bear it any longer, with Ronan beside her, she looked up at him underneath the perpetually overcast sky. "Are you ready to see him again?"
Ronan didn't like being without Nora. But this trip had felt like one they needed to make alone. He'd left her with Matthew, one of the few people - present company excluded - that he trusted to watch over his daughter. But the itch and anxiety of being away from her made him walk fast and hard, each step eating into the ground of his once beloved farm.
It looks like a ghost town now. It was a ghost town. And he felt the same dread he always felt on this particular path. He wasn't sure if the spill of mint across the half-dead grass and up to the farmhouse was comforting or like pouring salt on a fresh wound. He kicked the dirt with a booted foot and standing while she worked.
"No I'm not fucking ready. There is no ready." He adjusted the sword sheath on his back so it stopped pinching into his shoulder blades and he pulled his hood up over his buzzed head. The wind was biting today. So was his tone, even as it softened into melancholy. "I still can't believe this shit is our last hope."
Blue knew that look, the way that the hood almost felt like a wall when Ronan tossed it up. She shook her head, and gave her attention back to Gansey's grave. The headstone was small, dignified, something unobtrusive to the naked eye so that his resting place would remain intact and peaceful under the tree. It was certainly the only time she felt calm, quiet, the same way she made Gansey. Had made Gansey. Would he still feel that way when he was here with an older version of her?
"At least it's the last chance, and not another trial-and-error situation where he'd be coming back here for nothing if it didn't work," Blue said, but the words rang hollow. She didn't want him to come back at all, and the optimism was bitter on her tongue. She wanted to see Gansey, to hold him, to tell him how much she and everyone else missed his steady presence. Blue didn't believe much in fate or karma, but Gansey's death set off a series of events that felt too strung together for it to only be coincidence.
Her hand brushed against the tops of the overgrown mint, before ripping a leaf off for herself, and then another passing it to Ronan. She chewed on it, as was tradition when they came. The mint was sweeter than usual on her tongue—a sign or a false sense of security?
"He's going to try and do something stupid. Not intentionally, but—" Blue wanted to say like at the library. She knew Ronan knew what it meant. "I wish I could tell our younger selves to convince him not to come. But he was just as stubborn as you when he wanted to be."
Ronan took the mint leaf automatically and jammed it into his mouth. He had a love-hate relationship with this tradition. The smell of the mint soothed the anger inside of him but it made the grief bite deeper. One would think the years would have taken some of the edge off, but Ronan still woke up every day in an empty bed feeling lost and held together by string. Or rather, held together by his love for Nora and the barest glint of hope that he might one day save Adam. He didn't let himself hope Sydney's powers would right themselves and they could bring Gansey back. It was too painful to think about.
He sank down to the ground beside Blue, looking miserable. "He won't say no to a fucking time travel quest to save the world. He's too noble and too much of a goddamn nerd." Emotion tangled up in Ronan's throat, making the words come out tight and wobbly.He ripped little bits of dead grass out of the ground. "I just..I don't think I'll survive watching him die again. Think I'm more afraid I'll do something stupid to make sure it doesn't happen and then my kid will be an orphan."
"None of us are ready for that, Ronan. Don't you think I'm worried about it, too?" Blue asked, her own voice mimicking the same shaky way Ronan's was. Gansey had been so determined to point out the similarities between them when he was alive, that Blue had often made disgusted faces when compared to his best friend, that now it seemed ridiculous to have ignored it. They were cut from the same cloth, and Blue had wished that Gansey was alive to see how well they had come to depend on one another.
But instead they were both just teetering on the end of a breakdown because talking about Gansey had become just so fucking difficult.
She huffed, and put her hand on Ronan's forearm. Not to stop him, not to try and convince him not to fear making Nora an orphan, but for grounding. A physical point of contact to show her support. They were, despite all odds, in this shit together. "We'll stay at his back, we'll lay down rules about where he can go and what he can do. I'm not against putting him in some kind of protective bubble when he's here. He's going to know he's coming into a world where he—where he doesn't—" Exist felt heavy on her tongue, and she looked to Gansey's grave again.
"He's going to know it's dangerous, and that we're the ones with more experience. He'll listen, he has to, or I'm locking him in La Niña with FCG and Viktor until this whole thing is over, whatever the outcome is."
Ronan blew out a loud breath and stared off towards Cabeswater as Blue talked. It was all the same stuff he'd been telling himself since the wizards told everyone their crazy plan. But he knew Gansey could find trouble just as easily as he might find a way out of this hell. Blue had been the one that was supposed to be cursed, but she wasn't the one who'd died three times and then stayed dead.
He covered her hand on his arm without looking at it and then leaned over to quickly kiss the side of her head. It was almost an angry gesture if you didn't know what to look for with Ronan Lynch. Blue was one of the few who did. His family. One of the last left. He wasn't ashamed to admit he loved her. He was just angry that it wasn't enough to keep her safe.
"You know the more dangerous a situation is, the more he thinks he needs to be willing to sacrifice himself to fix it. And if he starts thinking well I'm just going to die young anyway then his next line of thought is that he better make it worth it for our sakes. If we hold onto him too tight, he'll just know that means everything is worse than he even thought."
Ronan went back to digging up weeds, more angrily than before, until a black shadow swooped out of the sky and landed on his shoulder. Chainsaw squawked. She'd taken off as soon as they'd gotten to the old perimeter, to scope the farm out. "See anything?" he asked her. Chainsaw ruffled her feathers and nipped him on the ear. "Ow. Asshole. I'll take that as a no."
Even though Blue had come to some unsettling terms that it had to be Gansey to come—fate, prophecy, drawing the shittiest short straw, whatever they wanted to call it—it still made her worry. What kind of timeline fuckery was going to plague them if something happened? Were they inevitably doomed no matter what if it wasn't Gansey here? She knew dozens of other remaining Outlanders were having those very same conversations and wondering if it was worth it.
Blue had to hope. Because then what were these past few years even for? All the sacrifices of everyone else would be for nothing, and that wasn't something that was going to rally people against Interitus. That wasn't something that would help her sleep at night, when she was sleeping at all.
She closed her eyes against Ronan's simple affectionate gesture, and took a deep breath. There was still rot in the air, even the mint couldn't cover up all the corruption that threaded through Vallo. "Maybe, maybe he might," Blue said, turning her attention to Ronan as he chattered with Chainsaw. Blue reached over to scritch under her feathers, thankful for her watchful eye.
"I won't lie to protect him, he needs to know what he's dealing with here. And I know you won't lie either. Maybe that will be enough to knock some sense into him. Scaring him into complacency isn't going to stop him, but hiding the truth will only make him dig for it, and that's where the risking himself will come from." She paused, only to add a second later, "we can have some of those conversations together. I won't put the burden on you to do it alone."
"I'm not saying we should lie to him. I'm just saying we can't lock him down under guard." Ronan gave Cabeswater another glance, this one more weighted. Locking Adam down hadn't proven yet to be anything but a stall. And it ate at him every day. Cabeswater kept Adam alive, even corrupted. He had the occasional dreamwalk with his twisted shade of a husband to confirm that. But for all intents and purposes, he had abandoned the man he loved in a horrible place.
God this place made him fucking maudlin. He spit the mint leaf out.
"I have to tell Nora what's happening. You help me do that shit and I'll help you talk to Dick." He was reasonably sure Gansey would focus on what Blue had to say anyway. Ronan wasn't exactly a reliable source of exposition. Chainsaw cawed like she was agreeing with the thought. "The real question is do I tell him." Ronan nodded towards Cabeswater, his eyes dark and wounded.
Blue canted her head to one side, to say I could keep him under guard as she considered it. But Blue knew better to keep Gansey contained; there was no way he would ever be content in a predetermined box, no matter how much Ronan and Blue explained the dangers to him. It was infuriating, and it made Blue miserable to think about it.
"I'll help you with Nora, of course I will. She's tough and clever, like her dads, she probably already has some idea that something is happening," Blue said, picking at another mint leaf and pocketing it for later. She wasn't superstitious; growing up with psychics made her sensible, but something about their tradition required her to be sentimental.
But when Ronan nodded toward Cabeswater, all her sentimentality vanished, and her expression seemed to grow colder. There was no ignoring the unsettling presence that was at the back of the property. Blue worked her jaw. "I don't know, Ronan," Blue finally said. "I really don't. He might not even understand if you can get through to him. It could make things worse. But you would know better than me," Blue said, sad and concerned. This was not the romantic sort of knowing she had seen grow between Ronan and Adam, but the unfortunate circumstance that Ronan was Adam's sole form of communication through dreamspace haunting.
"I haven't talked to him in years. But maybe, Gansey can."
Gansey and Adam back together again. It was a powerful thought. Ronan’s mood was incendiary already and thinking about this was like waving a lit match over it. He ripped out one last handful of grass absentmindedly and then pushed to his feet. Chainsaw staggered on his shoulder, digging in with her claws so she wasn’t unseated. She croaked her annoyance and then said Atom in that eerie bird voice of hers. She’d been spending a lot of time in his tattoo lately, magically tucked away to save energy for the final push, whatever it was going to be, and he had to wonder if she was more linked to his mind and emotions than she’d ever been.
“No Adam,” he told her, stroking her head in apology. “Fuck, I don’t know. I can’t—As tempting as it is to go yell at an evil forest for a bit and see if anything happens, I need to get back to my kid.” He knew the best way to talk to Adam was to dream anyway. He scowled and held out a hand to Blue. “Stop stuffing mint leaves in your pockets and let’s go, short stack. I’m not leaving you here alone.”
Blue heaved a heavy sigh, one too big for her tiny stature. She had cried, punched a pillow, straightened up her cramped space she called a room at the Outpost, all in preparation for Gansey to come back to them—young, a bit naive, and alive. It was surreal to think about, overwhelming even, as they hovered over his grave. Would they have to take him here too? Would he ask?
She was glad for the mental interruption with Ronan reaching out a hand. Blue took it, and pulled herself to standing. They shouldn't linger, and Ronan was right: she couldn't stay here alone.
Their conversation seemed to pause around the awkward and painful subjects again: Gansey, Adam, Chainsaw and Ronan's ticking clock. She started walking in the direction of home instead, side by side with Ronan.
And as she did, Blue pulled another mint leaf from the stash in her pocket and said, "They're not all just for me." Gansey might need some too.