WHAT: Blue goes to check on Edwin once he's settled in at the Outpost WHERE: The Outpost WHEN: 2033, not long after the time travellers arrive WARNINGS: Depression, references to character death, Future Stuff STATUS: Complete
That was it. Edwin had lost everything. He hadn't thought it would have been so hard. He thought, stupid of him really, once he'd destroyed and abandoned Sutton Cottage that he'd be able to continue in as he had these last five months. That he'd still work towards finally destroying the thralled Arlington, that he'd be able to help the resistance.
But of course, that was a fucking joke. What help could Edwin offer to anyone other than research? And what could he research without any books? The books they'd managed to save for the Outpost had already been combed over by a dozen sets of eyes. There was nothing new to uncover.
And so he'd done the only thing he could do. He laid in bed and he slept. Or he laid in bed and he'd read Nikolai's favourite novel. Or he'd laid in bed and stared at the walls and thought of all the ways he'd failed everyone.
He'd come out when the time travellers had returned. Had scanned the crowd for the chance that maybe, somehow, Nikolai had come even when his name hasn't been on the list. But like the first time he'd read The List, his gaze had missed Nikolai entirely and had fixed on Arlington instead, and he's grown so angry that somehow Arlington has come and not Nikolai that he'd tasted bile. It was stupid. He shouldn't have wished that the Nikolai of the past would be brought to this future. It was bleak and dangerous, and when Edwin would let himself think clearly, he knew he didn't want Nikolai to see him like this.
He rolled onto his back on the cot so he could stare at the ceiling. He knew what this was. His mother, too, had been unable to get out of bed most days, and now he understood something of what she must have felt. He'd worried about her terribly when he'd been home to worry about her. He thought now that his worry must have done nothing more than to add to her guilt over it. Lucky him: there was no one left in this world to worry about him.
There were plenty of people to worry about Edwin left in this shitty world, and Blue was stubbornly one of them. She knew the kind of asks she, and the other Outlanders, were requiring of people. Hadn't she been torn between curling up at the thought of Gansey coming back? Hadn't she shoved it all down because there was work to be done? Blue didn't think that was very healthy either, and yet here she was: stressed, concerned, and pretending that she could do this.
She didn't think it was healthy, but she didn't think what Edwin was doing, ever since he came back to the Outpost, was healthy either.
Nikolai's death was fresh, though. It had been barely a year since, and Blue—despite trying not to relive those early days—tried to remember the same all-consuming grief she had when Gansey died. It had lessened over time, but not in any meaningful way. So she couldn't be completely pissed that Edwin had decided to destroy Sutton out of his own anguish. She probably would have done the same.
But since everyone had returned to the Outpost she hadn't seen much of Edwin. Blue assumed that was because of the Daniel Arlington situation, but it felt deeper and more complex than that. So while Gansey was being ferried around by Ronan, Blue had sought out Edwin.
Because she worried.
"I didn't know you were planning to fuse to the cot," Blue said from his doorway, followed by a verbal knock-knock. Blue was not someone who waited too much on formality, and came right into his 'room'. "But I brought you water, so you're not dehydrated while doing it."
Edwin continued to glare at the ceiling. He didn’t want to respond. He wouldn’t respond, and she couldn’t make him. He wanted to be left alone. It wasn’t that much of an ask.
Except he could here NIkolai in his head. Well, maybe not hear him. But he could feel him, disappointed in Edwin. He’d been friends with Blue. Of course he’d been friends with Blue, Nikolai could become friends with a rattlesnake if he put his mind to it, and they’d worked together for years in leadership.
And if Edwin was honest, he’d been friends with Blue too. Even if Nikolai hadn’t been, they’d had Gansey in common. It was surprising how shared grief could bring people together.
And so, when she didn’t immediately turn and leave his room, his expression lost some of the hard edges, leaving only the tired lines under his eyes and around his mouth, and he turned to her.
“Thank you,” he muttered, and after another moment, he made himself sit up. “I would have thought you’d have other things to attend to with our new guests.”
"I do, actually," Blue said, giving a quick glance down the hall, as if said guests would instantly materialize beside her. There was a nervous energy about her that Blue was trying to downplay. Having Gansey here, so close, made her anxious—like the whole Outpost would collapse on top of him if she wasn't nearby. It was the illogical ridiculous thoughts like that had made her begrudgingly leave him with Ronan and do something else that wasn't hovering.
"But there are other people in this place that are also guests," Blue said, offering out the metal water bottle to Edwin now that he was sitting up. "Technically, you lived full time at Sutton, I'm hosting you here."
She tried not to give him a pitiful look, but she pressed her lips firmly together for a moment in disappointment at his lack of sleep. "And as your host, or a host, I needed to make sure you were okay. Comparatively speaking."
There was a beat, before she added, "I noticed the cottage was gone."
Edwin wasn’t okay, comparatively or otherwise. He hadn’t been okay for a while, but at least he’d been useful. Or could have been useful, if called upon. Maybe spending most of his time researching how to kill Arlington wasn’t much use, but he could research whatever was needed when asked, and there’d been the gardens that had been able to grow with his protection. There was none of that now. He thought that was probably obvious though; he wouldn’t make them both go through the indignity of him pretending that he was fine.
“Yes,” he said instead, and would have left it there, but that didn’t seem fair either. “I wouldn’t leave it to Interitus. Just because he’s taken everything from me doesn’t mean he gets to keep it, and he and his followers don’t get to paw through the books or Nikolai’s…. They can’t have it.”
"You're not in trouble," Blue said, a little softer. Sure, when they had arrived at the rendezvous point to pick up the ones coming with Essek and Caleb, the panic and dread at seeing their one line of protection gone caused a long-buried fear to well up in Blue. But when she settled, and the anger at the presumed selfishness subsided, she could sensibly realize that she would have done the same damn thing.
"At least not with me. I'm sure someone will say something about it, but right now everyone is distracted." She waved her hand behind her, as if you encompass everything. The Outpost was buzzing with more activity than she had seen in months.
She was quiet for a moment; the mentioning of Nikolai always stopped her short these days. "I'm sorry," Blue said. "That you were in the position to make that choice in the first place, as both options were impossible. I thought we were done giving things up, but apparently there's still more to lose. If I knew you were going to destroy it, I would have gotten more people to get books for you."
Edwin didn’t say what he wanted to say, which was that if they hadn’t wanted to lose their last substantial collection of books, they should have picked somewhere else to summon dozens of time travellers. He choked it back now for the same reason he’d choked back his objections when it had first been raised: it was the only place that made sense. Even with the cottage in shambles, the wards of the land should have held true. It was the only place where they would have had a fighting chance at getting everyone there safely, and it was the only piece if land in Vallo that was still under their control that still had enough magic in it to help.
“We would have needed much more notice if we were to clear out the entire library,” Edwin said at last, once he’d swallowed the bitter taste with a mouthful of water. “And it’s not as big a loss as the Great Library.”
There was a moment, and then he grimaced, remembering the other loss that had come with the fall of the library. “Sorry.”
On another day, Blue might have noped out of the conversation. Mentions of the Great Library tended to shake her to the core, within good reason. It was either a testament to her resolve over the years, her friendship with Edwin, or the fact that Gansey was here now that she didn't start shouting. Anger was always easier to deal with than grief.
"I would prefer to have people than books," Blue said, knowing that was a source of debate. "I'm willing to sacrifice the libraries, I'm just thankful you didn't decide to go with them." She hated the dark turn, the what if. The academics and their need to preserve information—sometimes Blue could scream with the irrationality of it.
But she was apologetic that they had forced Edwin's hand. People were supposed to have choices, and not impossible ones. "I also came to ask if you needed anything. We uprooted you, without a lot of notice. I want to make sure you didn't think it was for nothing."
“Me too,” Edwin said. There was a time, more than a decade ago, when he would have disagreed, when he would have thought that books beat people in every way. But he would have given up the Great Library and Penhallic both if it meant having Gansey or Nikolai back. He wasn’t so sure he was glad at his decision not go to with them, but he wouldn’t give voice to that. He’d made his decision. Nikolai wouldn’t approve of a lot of the choices he’d made the last few years, but he was glad he would have approved of that, at least.
“I know that what was done was necessary. I don’t think any of us can make the decision on whether or not it was for nothing just yet, though.”
Blue gave a one shoulder shrug. "I'm trying to keep my expectations low, but my hopes high. Counterintuitive, and our track record usually sucks, but I have a good feeling this time." The mix of the two was strange—Blue didn't want to be disappointed, and she knew if everything went to shit, it would be over pretty fast after. She wouldn't have to wallow in regrets. But what if it finally worked?
The sound of conversation drifted down the Outpost hallway, and Blue watched for who it was before continuing. "I'm going to keep him on the other side of the Outpost." Blue didn't explain who he was, but she knew that Edwin knew. She didn't have to say it.
"It's the best I can do right now. But that doesn't mean you should stay in here all the time either, all right? It's good for people to see you. And it's good for you to see people."
She paused, giving Edwin a small, encouraging smile. "Gansey will want to. He's making his rounds."
Some small part of Edwin dared to hope that maybe this would be different. At least they weren’t banging their heads against the wall, hoping for the same result over and over again. This was something new, something different. A new way to make things worse, a louder part of him said.
A muscle twitched in his jaw and his fists clenched around his blanket at the mention of him, but he managed with a terse “Thank you,” instead of saying what he actually thought. It wasn’t logical. Some small part of him knew it wasn’t logical. The Arlington they’d brought from the past wasn’t the same one that had killed his husband. The Arlington of the past was probably friends with Edwin and Nikolai. Some part of him even knew that the Arlington in this world hadn’t betrayed them, that he hadn’t consented to the magic that had turned him against them.
All the logic in the world didn’t make him feel any less sick at the thought of it.
He slumped a little at the mention of Gansey though. Part of him wanted to see Gansey. A bigger part of him dreaded it. “I don’t think he’d want to once he actually did,” he muttered.
"Don't count him out. He's—" Blue paused, letting out a long breath. She had expected the same thing; a shell-shocked Gansey who was regretting his decisions from coming along. Instead she had received someone who was determined and optimistic in the way Blue hadn't remembered ever being herself. It had been part of the reason she felt so goddamn hopeful.
"He won't take no for an answer. He has that way of looking at things that is needed here. However you want to take that to mean." Aside from the complicated feelings that she felt toward some of the Outlanders they brought back from 2023—twitchy around Gladio would be an understatement—the mood had shifted in the Outpost. Somehow things felt brighter, if the lights were still literally dim.
Blue could feel the device Morgan had crafted for her buzz in her pocket. She was probably needed for something. Normally this was welcome to keep her emotionally distracted, but right now it felt like a frustrating interruption.
"Give it a chance. He's been surprising everyone lately. It might be good for you and he has a nicer bedside manner than me."
“I’m not an invalid,” Edwin snorted, managing a ghost of his old, wry smile. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to see Gansey. He definitely never wanted to see pity in his eyes when he looked at him, but if Gansey was going to see him whether he liked it or not, as he rather suspected he would, then he wasn’t going to see him curled up in bed. If he was going to see his old friend, he wanted his friendship, not his bedside manner.
“You should answer that,” he said, dipping his chin at her pocket. “I’ll be up in a moment.” He hesitated a moment, and when he spoke again, he didn’t look at her. “Thank you.”
Blue looked down to where he gestured, then nodded, as if to say yeah, unfortunately, I do.. She made a promise to herself that no matter what happened, she'd find a way to fix this. Maybe not completely, not the way it was before, but there was going to be a chance to do something. And Blue wouldn't waste it; she had her family and her friends, Edwin included, to think about.
"You're welcome," Blue said, with an encouraging smile. "And if you don't want me to worry about you, hydrate." She pointed at him, and continued to do so, all the way out the door and back into the bustle of the Outpost.