Since arriving in Vallo, Nick had appreciated the balance Sabrina had struck between introducing him and Roz to people and places, and letting them have time to adjust. Because this much improved version of Vallo was an adjustment, from the mortuary being populated to the magic that resonated everywhere no longer seeming off and askew, powerful but twisted as it had in the snow globe.
So one afternoon while Sabrina was off Sabrina-ing, Nick found himself pausing in the doorway of Roz's room. "Hey," he greeted her. "What are you reading?"
There was a lot more to consider in this world. Now that she didn’t have to focus on just survival, she had to get back to having a life. It wasn’t something she really had to think about back home. She had Harvey, her friends, her school, and things with the Coven. But there was never a consideration of leaving Baxter High, or having to make any other choices.
She had three options to pick from, and she had no idea what was the right one, or how to choose. She had gathered information on all three options and was reading through them, trying to make the right choice when she heard Nick’s voice.
“Hey.” Roz answered, looking up with a smile that showed how tired she was still. “School stuff.” she said with a sigh, dropping one of the brochures on her bed. “Trying to figure out what I’m supposed to do here.” Sabrina had a whole life here, everything seemed laid out in front of her. Family, school(s), businesses. A lot could happen in a year, something Roz was already aware of.
"It's a lot," Nick agreed, his brown furrowing as he looked at the various brochures Roz had collected. "I have the same decision, but with less options. You're considering mortal school?"
Maybe mortal school was the wrong term, given the varied collection of outlanders Vallo had amassed, along with its diverse native population that hadn't existed within the snow globe, but he couldn't imagine not studying magic in place so rich and full of it. Even so his question was more curiosity than judgment.
Nodding toward the foot of her bed, he asked, "Mind if I sit down?"
Roz looked tired, and he wondered if he did as well, though he'd had less of a role in getting the two Vallos connected. Prudence was sometimes left exhausted after so much psychic activity and other times... less so. It was probably best not to go down that particular train of thought right then.
She shrugged in response to his question, “Maybe? It’s what I’m familiar with. Apparently there’s an application process for the magic schools.” What would hers even look like? That she didn’t know she was a witch until a few months ago and was very much behind on skills for other people her age.
Roz shook her head and motioned for him to take a seat. “Have a seat.”
She picked up the information for the Outlander school again, examining the cover. “The one for Outlanders is purely just to get you through classes. There’s not really any community. No student council, no extra curriculars.” Roz liked getting involved, she liked the sense of a community. “I have no idea if anyone else here actually attends a Vallo high school.”
Roz could probably guess which school Nick might attend, or at least narrow down the options. “Are you considering the University, or Geliara?”
"Both," Nick answered ruefully, sitting down, then turning to look at Roz. "Sabrina and I talked a little about the magic here. Like here, here and not the snow globe where everything seemed distorted. It's vibrant and new and different and I want to learn as much as I can, especially if I manage to stay here for a while." Hopefully a long while, though the idea that people could come and go at any time troubled him but he didn't bring that up.
"However, with people from all different worlds here, and other forms of magic from those?" His eyes lit up, erasing the weariness within them, at least temporarily. This was the same energy he'd found when he'd first arrived at the Academy, diving into the books and reading through them as quickly as he could. "I can see why Sabrina does it."
That didn't mean the prospect wasn't overwhelming. Nick was overwhelmed.
She could feel the excitement coming off Nick in that moment, and it had nothing to do with any powers. It was tangible, and it brought a smile to Roz’s face. She hoped she’d be able to find that level of excitement about being here at some point. Something more past the excitement of fresh food and not being draped in Dark Vallo. “It’s a lot to take in, isn’t it? Different kinds of magic, there’s a whole community of psychics too that don’t seem to be anything like Prudence, Agatha, or Mumbo.”
Not to mention everything was just fundamentally different. “Does it bother you? That everything here is just different from what you know? Or is it all just the pure excitement that’s basically radiating off you?”
"Both," Nick admitted. "I haven't even adjusted to the mortuary being so full of people, when it was just me for so long, then just us. This is better, it's just a lot. And that's without even touching on magic," he added. "It's a lot," he repeated, clearly in agreement with her. "This is really the first time we've talked without anyone else around, but don't think you can get rid of me now."
He wasn’t wrong about that either. “It’s loud when the house is full.” she agreed. It was better at night, when people were asleep. “Going back to just...life.” Work, cleaning, eating, conversation. No one seemed worried that if they made too much noise something might come through a wall.
She gleaned back down to the brochures and pamphlets. “Figuring out where you fit into that.” she said with a sigh.
“I wasn't planning on trying.” Nick was probably the main reason she managed to survive that place. She wasn’t about friendship of opportunities. “I figured you and Sabrina would want some time. I wasn’t trying to avoid you.”
"I didn't think you were," Nick assured her. "That's just how… busy things have been. Sabrina is a part of it, but sometimes I just have to get outside, away from everything."
He followed her eyes to the brochures and offered, "I was going to see about checking out a few classes or lectures. If you wanted to go with me? For what it's worth, I think you try one of the magic schools. No offense to the mortals, but magic is different. You've seen that. It's a part of you that you can't deny and the more you learn to wield it, the more you start to know yourself and what you're capable of. And you seem pretty capable," he added with genuine sincerity.
“Do you think I could make it there, though? Even with Sabrina not starting until she was 16 at the Academy she still grew up learning magic.” Roz grew up learning prayers, bible passages, and preparing to go blind. “Who knows if I’d even make it in there.”
That wasn’t the only thing though. “I wouldn’t have even considered leaving Baxter High if I was still home. But suddenly I don’t have a reason not to consider something other than regular high school.” No reason. No parents, no boyfriend, no friends. It was starting all over.
"Yes," he answered confidently and without hesitation. "And even if you found yourself struggling you have Sabrina, Ambrose, and of course myself here to help. But I spent a month with you, and saw how quickly you picked things up. Don't sell yourself short, Roz."
He offered her a smile, but that faded as he realized what she was getting at. Prudence wasn't here and that was probably who Nick was closest to apart from Sabrina, but he didn't leave nearly as much behind as Roz had. They'd talked about it a bit in the snow globe, but it had to be different now that life had a sense of normalcy, and yet so much was missing.
"That's probably a lot just on its own, huh?"
“The three of you do have your own life and studies to focus on.” she pointed out, but she did appreciate the support. “But I’ll consider it. Apparently one of the other witches here applied recently. I can ask her what the process was like.” Because if she had to prove herself with spellwork, she was in trouble.
Her smile faltered though as she tried not to think about everything she was cut off from. “Yeah, it is.” But thinking about it wouldn’t get her anywhere. “How are you doing though? With everything. What’s making it ‘a lot’ for you?”
"Everything," Nick answered. "It's not just the mortuary that's full of people and Sabrina knows so many that I want to meet and get to know but there's so many. Pandemonium's still calling to me and I talked to Lucifer about it, actually, but that's just one more thing to deal with. I can't even decide what I want for lunch without taking twenty minutes because there's a lot more choices now."
His voice got quieter.
"There's dealing with everything that happened at home and having a chance to get things right this time." Lucifer. Hell. Not messing things up with Sabrina. Hoping the worst of his nightmares were held at bay.
"I have this chance at a normal life and I have absolutely no idea what normal is.”
“You don’t have to meet them all at once.” god only knew how many more people Sabrina knew, from Outlanders to locals. “She’s had over a year. We just got here.” It wouldn’t do any good to stress himself out.
She forced herself not to have a visible reaction at the mention of Pandemonium, and Lucifer. The Lucifer that was here had actually saved her during the mammoth attack. Roz was still figuring out what to make of that. “What did Lucifer say?”
Roz tilted her head, and considered everything that he was dealing with himself. Not that she could understand or tell him what to do. But they were both dealing with a lot in their own way. “Our lives back home might consist of dealing with hell, and pagan, and demons. But this place? I don’t know how normal our life is going to be here. Figuring out is going to be one step at a time.”
The Lucifer Morningstar in Vallo was nothing like the Lucifer Morningstar back home. Sabrina had said as much, but it was the day they spent tracking down supplies and fighting off an attack, followed by his conservation afterward that had really driven the point home for Nick.
"I told him how our version was able to torture me when I had him trapped, that I wasn't strong enough to fight him off, that even after we were separated I still felt bound to him. And he said that torture is what he does, that I shouldn't feel ashamed, and that there was a point where that Lucifer ended and I began. And that maybe I felt I still belonged in Pandemonium, and that's why I hear it calling, not that I actually do."
He'd reread those words repeatedly, considering them and weighing them in his mind. If he was to move past his time spent in Hell, he would need to face everything the Dark Lord had weaponized against him.
"I'll take whatever normal looks like here," Nick said, "even if it's not always normal. Sabrina seems to like it well enough."
“As much as I never thought I’d say this, but I think Lucifer is right.” Roz could not imagine what it was Nick had endured. It was likely so much worse than Dark Vallo, and Dark Vallo had been terrible. She didn’t know how Pandemonium worked, but Roz also wouldn’t put it past Pandemonium to actually be calling because it could somehow sense that Nick felt like he belonged there. “If I learned anything about that place in my trip down there, is that there are souls there who do not deserve it.” The image of Theo’s uncle would never leave her mind.
Roz had no idea what normal was in this place, or how she was going to build her own. She knew it would be a process, but for her the start of that process wasn’t clear. Or not as clear as it seemed like it might be for Nick. “Hey, promise me something?” she asked, sitting up and leaning back on her hands. “Promise me you’ll come talk to me when things get overwhelming? And I’ll do the same. In fact, I’d suggest like a weekly check in or something, at the very least.”
"I hope he is," Nick replied, thinking that he'd stop by Lux sometime now that they were in normal Vallo. Lucifer had gotten to the root of what had long plagued Nick, which had gone a long way toward separating the two Lucifers in his mind.
Nick flashed Roz a smile at her suggestion. "Deal. Maybe sometimes that can happen over lunch. Or maybe we can take advantage of the kitchen being stocked with real food." Food was definitely a theme. The two of them may not have been close before being thrown in the snow globe version of Vallo, but they were now and had been through enough together that their friendship was solid. At least something good had emerged from those two months and that? That Nick wouldn't change.