Warning: Language
The silence was deafening, and Colin was the first to break it. "If you have something to say bird boy, then spit it out. You can start by telling me why the f*ck Rhys is giving you the evil eye."
"Daddy, language!" Skye admonished him. She shook her head, and then turned back to Hawk with a smile. "Hawk, what's going on? You're so...solemn."
Hawk looked into Skye's eyes, committing to his memory, the way she looked at him now, for in just a matter of moments, it would all change forever. He reached out, and brushed her cheek with the back of his fingers. "Skye, we need to talk." He said softly. "Just..." His voice broke, but then he forged ahead. "Just remember, that I love you, okay? Please remember that."
"Okay." She said, a little confused. "I love you too, but you know that."
"I hope so." He said fervently.
Colin crossed his arms. "I'm getting old here."
"Rhys is here," Hawk began, "so that you all will know that every word I speak, is the truth, if anything I say is a lie, anything at all, he will tell you immediately. Or if I am not completely open to him, he'll tell you that too."
Skye laughed. "Hawk, silly, you would never lie to me, we don't need Rhys here for that!"
Hawk winced. "He's also here to make sure that your father doesn't kill me." Colin stiffened, and Hawk could feel his father in law's gaze intensify, but Hawk kept his eyes on Skye. "It's a long story, but I will try to keep it short and to the point, but if you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask and..."
"Stop f*cking around, and get to it." Colin growled, his fingers flexing into a fist. Bird boy hadn't really said a f*cking word yet, but with all that hemming and hawing, whatever he had to say couldn't f*cking be good.
Where to start? Now that the moment was here, Hawk didn't know where to start. He had just hoped that the words would magically come to him, but they weren't. His head dropped a little, he hated himself right now. Hated what he had to do, hated how he much he would be hurting his wife. One more growl from his father in law though, convinced Hawk that he had better start talking, or he would never get the chance.
"I was not raised in a family like yours Skye, I wish I had been. I wish that I'd had a normal childhood, and that we had met under normal circumstances, but I did not, and we did not. Our meeting was not by chance, Skye, but by design. My mother found out that Ivory, your mother, had given birth, to triplets, and she became obsessed with finding them."
"With finding us? But why? And how did she know my mother?" Skye wasn't sure what to think of his revelation that they had not met by chance, but that somehow he had arranged to meet them, because of his mother? And her obsession? Nothing was really making sense to her.
"My mother had sort of adopted Ivory as a child..."
"Son of a b*tch!" Colin immediately sprung into kill mode, but Rhys was quick enough to stop him.
"I want to kill the a*shole too." Rhys said quietly. "But not yet, you need to hear all of it."
"F*ck that!" Colin snarled, and he went for Hawk again, but was stopped by Rhys once more, who gently pushed Colin back. "Get the f*ck out of my way Rhys!"
Skye twisted her hands anxiously, she still wasn't totally understanding what was going on.
"Not yet." Rhys bit out. "I swore to Reilly that I would keep an eye on his family, and that's what I am going to do, no matter what. This a*shole," Rhys pointed at Hawk, "has something important to tell you, though he's taking his sweet a*s time about it. The family is in danger, and we need him alive, Colin. Alive. Do you hear me?"
Colin clenched his teeth. "He'd better start talking, and fast."
"I don't understand!" Skye wailed. "What is going on? What do you mean that your mother adopted my mother? That would make you..." Her eyes widened in horror. "My uncle?"
Hawk rubbed the back of his neck, and watched his father in law uneasily for a few moments, before turning his attention back to Skye. "It's complicated. Ivory and I, we were never raised as siblings. I was the son, my mother's heir. Ivory was my mother's pet, worse than a slave, really." Hawk glanced cautiously at Colin as he let out another string of expletives.
"My mother, Raven," Hawk continued, trying to ignore Colin's outburst, "kidnapped Ivory from an orphanage, she never adopted her, she only said she did. Ivory was...there is just no nice way of saying this, but she was brutally trained by Raven to be an assassin, and Ivory was the best, my mother wouldn't tolerate anything less. When Ivory failed, my mother was forced to come up with another plan."
"One that involved me?" Skye was slowly starting to put some facts together, and she wasn't liking what she was coming up with. "I was part of that plan?"
"Yes."
Skye could feel tears slip down her cheeks. "And what was that plan Hawk?"
"It all started with a prophecy, one that promised ultimate power, and there is nothing that my mother loves more, than power. There is a Book filled with many secrets, made by your ancestor, Ethan, that my mother covets. My mother believes it holds many answers to the prophecy, and she was determined to have it. The Book has been in your family for many generations, she was sure that Braern Kahekili had the Book, and she was going to force him to give it to her." Hawk's voice trailed away, the room was as silent as a tomb. He grimaced, he didn't want to think about tombs, or how close he was to being put in one.
He cleared his throat, "She set Ivory to the task, but Ivory met your father, and...well...she fell in love instead, such an un-Ivory like thing to do. And that botched everything. After Ivory's failure, my mother did nothing for days but read that prophecy, over and over, and over, obsessively, like she is with all things. Then one day she learned that before Ivory was executed, she had given birth to triplets, two of which were girls, two girls with Kahekili blood in them, and a new plan was born."
Hawk hesitated for a second, he looked at Skye, but she was refusing to meet his eyes, and who could blame her? It was only going to get worse, this part of his story was where it would start to get messy. "First we would find her children, who had disappeared. I put tracers in all of Ivory's files, so that if anyone gained access to them, it would notify me immediately."
"And Luna and I...we got into those files using a program she stole from Jack."
"It led us straight to you. I covered our tracks, so that no one would be the wiser, we didn't want your family to disappear on us again before my mother and I could agree on a plan."
"Your mother nearly killed my uncle, my father, and my mother, yet you were in agreement with her, with this new plan? Obviously the plan was successful, because here you are." Skye said bitterly. "I don't understand why you are telling me all of this now, when it is all too late."
Hawk smiled sadly. "That's just it Skye, it isn't too late, not yet, anyway. I didn't agree with my mother's methods, I preferred my own. I didn't think I needed to resort to raping Luna to have a Kahekili child."
"Easy." Rhys cautioned, holding his hand up to Colin. "Easy, I know it's hard to hear, and I'll happily let you beat the crap out of him when he's done talking." Colin tensely nodded.
Skye moaned. "Julia! Oh! Julia. No, not my baby!" She started to cry in earnest. "Please tell me that you're not going to hurt our daughter!"
"Skye, I swear, I'm not going to let anything happen to her, or to you, if I can help it. It's why I'm telling you all this, when I would have much preferred to keep my past dead and buried." He winced, bad choice of words, using dead and buried, both of which he was hoping to avoid.
"I could tell that you liked me, and that..."
"I'd be an easy mark." Skye said coldly.
Hawk sighed heavily. "Well, yes. I wasn't interested in Luna in at all, but I found you intriguing, and I decided it wouldn't be a hardship to have a child with you. I told my mother if I moved in, I could even continue the search for the Book without any interference, but I would need her to stay away. I couldn't be found in her company, or be associated with her at all, or the plan would fail. After a lot of negotiating, she finally agreed, on the condition that I sent her monthly reports. So I did, but what neither of us counted on Skye, was you."
She huffed. "Me?" She laughed, but it wasn't a pleasant laugh. "I was nothing to you."
"That's where you're wrong Skye. You are everything to me. Granted, it didn't start out that way. I had every intention of having a child with you, and taking that child, whom I foolishly believed would be a son, from you and your family, and then raising my son exactly how I was raised. If my family had a motto, it would be something like power is everything, pain is strength, revenge is sweet, while love is weakness, and weakness is death. That was drilled into my head from the day I was born. You cannot imagine the way life was for me, and for your mother, for Ivory."
He shrugged helplessly. "We knew no other way. What did either of us know of love, other than it showed weakness, weakness that could be used against us. The last thing I loved, I was forced to kill, to show that I was not weak. My mother does not tolerate weakness, one slight hint of it, and I would find myself in her chamber of horrors, and you don't want to know what happens in there." He fell silent, long banished memories of the abuse he had endured in that place rose to the surface of his mind, but he pushed it away with great effort.
When he spoke again, he spoke quietly, almost in a whisper. "I hadn't understood before, what had made Ivory change. I couldn't understand why she fell prey to that weakness, to love. She had been forged in my mother's chamber of horrors as much as I had been, we both knew the cost of love, the price paid in pain. Yet she loved anyway, and betrayed my mother, and in the end, it cost Ivory everything. It was illogical, it cost her everything, even her own life, and what did she gain from it?"
Hawk shook his head, and then looked up at Skye. "Then I met you, and I got to know you better, and it all started to make a crazy kind of sense. I understood then, the why. Ivory believed so strongly in what she had with your father, in their love, that in the end, she was willing to sacrifice it all. As am I, Skye. I didn't know that I still had the capacity to love, until I met you. I love you, and I love our daughter, and I will do everything in my power, to keep you, your family, and our daughter safe from my mother. Make no mistake about it, she's looking for me, at this very moment, and she will find me, it's only a matter of time. When she does, then she will find Julia."
"She'll get Julia over my dead body." Skye retorted.
"I want to avoid that." Hawk replied.
Skye felt overwhelmed by everything that she was feeling. Hurt, betrayal, anger, grief, and every emotion in between, she felt them all. She felt like her whole life with Hawk had been one big fat lie. She definitely couldn't trust him. With that thought, her eyes briefly met Rhys, who was looking at her with compassion, and she felt like breaking down and balling again. Rhys was there to act like a lie detector for her husband, and so far he hadn't said anything about Hawk lying, so Skye supposed all of what Hawk had said so far, was the truth.
If that was true, then she would just have to believe that Hawk wanted Julia safe as much as she did. "Why does your mother want Julia?"
"Who wants me?" Julia chirped from behind, and everyone turned to look at her, including Hawk.
Rian immediately recognized Hawk. "You!?" He shouted. "Run Julia, quickly! Get the h*ll out of here!" He charged after Hawk, intent on giving Julia as much time as he could so that she could escape.
Hawk used his power to stop Rian in his tracks. "Unbelievable." Hawk said, shocked. "As I live and breath, it's a bloody Guardian. I thought we killed all of you."
"Guardian?" Julia asked. "Not that word again. He's my bodyguard Daddy, don't you remember, you guys hired him? Hello? I thought it was a bit overkill, you know, I can take care of myself, but then I decided that I quite liked him." Julia noted the tense faces of everyone, and that her mom was crying. Her mom never cried, she must have walked into something really big. Nobody ever told her anything, it was so frustrating. "Um, Daddy, do you think you could release my boyfriend now? It took me forever to convince him to come in and meet you all, and this is not helping me out."
Hawk said, "Boyfriend?" at the same time that Rian said, "Daddy?"
Hawk released Rian from his hold with a warning. "I am happier than I can say that you are alive Guardian, this time we fight on the same side, so please, save your energy for when it will be needed."
"You are so weird sometimes." Julia commented to her father. "Now who wants me dead? I bet it's that b*tch Cornelia, she always was jealous of me."
"Julia, language!"
Julia sighed, things couldn't be all that bad. At least her mother was still getting after her about her cursing. "Well, she is!" She protested. It wasn't her fault that Cornelia was a b*tch. Julia had finally had enough of Nelia's ways, especially after she dared make a play for Rian, and had ended that friendship. Why she had ever been friends with her in the first place, Julia didn't know. She supposed everyone was allowed a stupid moment or two.
"Though, Guardian," Hawk continued, "next time I'd suggest being more on guard, I could have easily killed you if I had wanted, and then how would you have protected my daughter?"
"Kill? Protected?" Julia rolled her eyes. "I don't need anyone's protection, thank you very much. It's bad enough that Grumpa wants to bury him in the Sea." Julia muttered. "Don't worry Rian, I won't let any of them hurt you."
Rian sighed. "Julia..."
"Don't Julia me in that tone." Julia said crossly. "I meant what I said. I finally dragged your a*s in here to meet my family, because when we get married," She ignored Rian's groan, "They are going to be your family too, and da...rned if I am going to let everything fall apart." She scowled, daring any of them to say something negative. She loved Rian, and she was going to marry him, no matter what any of them said, or did; so the better they all put their grown up pants on and dealt with that, the better it would be for all of them.
Hawk frowned slightly. "I didn't think Guardians married."
"That is a misnomer." Rian said stiffly. "Some do, most do not."
"We'll deal with all of that sh*t later." Colin interrupted, impatiently. "Right now, there's something way more f*cking important."
Julia objected. "More important than me getting married?" She eyed her mother again, who, Julia was happy to see, was finally starting to calm a little bit. Whatever the big bad news was, Julia wasn't so certain she wanted to know it; especially if it had the power to reduce her mother to tears, turn her grandfather's face to stone, and make her father look like he would rather face a firing squad.
She ventured another look at her grandfather, but she still couldn't read him, which was the worst thing of all. Usually she could always tell what was on his mind, but his face was inscrutable. She almost felt afraid then, but immediately dismissed that idea from her mind, she wasn't afraid of anything. Definitely not. Still, anyone could use a little extra strength, so she reached out and grabbed Rian's hand. He squeezed it.
Colin's face softened. "Yes, Squirt, it is. Your..." Many names came to mind, but Colin was mindful that the a*shole was still her father, so...he kept it nice for her sake. "Your father just gave us some f*cking bad news, and we have to decide what to do." Colin already knew what he wanted to do, but held himself back. It would make him feel infinitely better to pound the sh*t out of the a*shole, but would it help his daughter? Or Julia? "Your father was just about to explain why in the h*ll his f*cked up mother is so f*cking obsessed with us."
"I know the answer to that one." Rian said, and then shifted uncomfortably when he found himself the focus of everyone in the room.
"Do tell." Hawk said. "I am curious just how much you Guardians know, and how you even survived that last attack to stand here before me today."
"I will tell you what I can." Rian answered. "Some things I am not permitted to discuss, for future events are always changing, and I do not want to say something that may ruin all our chances, and bring doom upon all of us."
Jack, who had kept quiet throughout and had just merely observed all the drama unfolding in front of him, perked up at the word future. He sat up straighter on the couch. "Future, you say?"
"Yes, future. Some of what I say you all may find hard to believe, but it is all truth. A great many years ago, more than I care to count, my closest friend, Ethan, who is also my King, and just so happens to also be an ancestor of yours, discovered that not only could we travel through portals to other Whens, but we could travel to other times, specifically the future. He embarked on the future journey alone, and when he came back, I knew something was dreadfully wrong. He was pale as a ghost, and did not speak for weeks, not even to Kei, his beloved mate."
"This sounds like one of your mother's fairytales." Julia said. "And what the h*ll is a When?"
"Alternate universes, alternate times, that are all interconnected through a series of wormholes." Jack explained.
Julia stared at him. "How..."
Jack shrugged. "It's elementary quantum physics, I'd explain it all to you, but..."
"No, I'm good, thanks." Julia told him.
Rian nodded. "It is as Jack says, an alternate time that can be accessed through a gate, that we call a portal. I am from that other when, not from here, but as I was saying before, when Ethan came back, he had changed, and I did not know the reasoning for it. Finally, he approached me one day, and told me he had a mission for me, one of extreme importance, one that could ultimately destroy all of our worlds, or, save them. Ethan hoped for the latter. He said that I must be willing, for this mission would require everything of me. Of course I was willing, being a Guardian not only defines what I do, but it defines who I am."
"What is a Guardian, exactly?" Julia asked. She was starting to understand that maybe, just maybe, what he was talking about was slightly different than what a bodyguard did.
"A Guardian is someone who devotes their whole lives to a higher calling, we protect, defend, and guide those we are called to serve."
"And you were told to protect me." Julia stated. She wasn't liking the way things were ticking off in her mind. Had she got him wrong this whole time? Was he only with her out of a sense of duty to this King guy? Maybe that was why he always hesitated, held back; and maybe that was part of 'all the things she didn't know about him', that he had deemed so important. Maybe she should have listened to what he had to say. "I still don't understand why me. Why some King in another land would send you to watch over me. It's kind of creepy."
Rian turned to her. "Julia." There was so much he wanted to say to her, but he had a rapt audience, and he wasn't one to put his personal life on display. He repeated her name; she still didn't look at him, but looked down at the floor instead. He had gotten to know her fairly well, he could only imagine all of the crazy things she must be thinking.
"I had no idea what I was getting myself into." He confessed. "I did not know that I would die, only to be reborn again, brought back by Ethan, who said it was a near thing, that he almost lost me to death for good. He also told me that I would need to stay in hiding now, that everyone I knew and loved, my mother, my friends, most importantly, our enemies, must believe that I had died. That I had died by the hands of this man, " He pointed to Hawk, "and his mother."
Rian paused, gathering his thoughts, picking his words carefully. He didn't want to say too much, or too little. "He warned me that for now on, my mission would be a lonely one, for I would be the last of my kind, that he had been over everything that he had found out about the future in his mind a hundredfold or more, and that this was the only way he could see that we even had a chance to save it. To save the future, and everyone in it."
He smiled sadly. "Even then, I did not understand it all, despite the fact that he told me that he himself would be betrayed, and murdered in his sleep, Kei along with him. I did not believe that he would truly die, for who would subject themselves to death, if they knew they could prevent it? He said it must be that way, but did not tell me why. He only gave me my last instructions, told me that he would put me in a deep sleep, and that I would awaken when it was my time, the time of the prophecy."
"Cryostasis sleep?" Jack exclaimed. "That's awesome! I never even thought about inventing something like that, I wish I had thought to ask him about it."
"Ask who?" Rian inquired.
"Oh, uh, well, uh," Jack stammered, "No one in particular, really. Just this science guy I used to know."
"Hmm." Rian studied Jack for a moment, but decided to leave it alone for now. "So when I woke, I knew the time of prophecy was near. My task was to find the child of prophecy, skyehawk's child, born of mixed blood, with the power to unlock the greatest Power known in all these Whens, or to forever lock that Power away. I was looking for a child at first, but when I waited, where Ethan had told me to wait, it was only to find you, Julia. Not a child at all, but one who was nearly a young woman, and I was not prepared at all for that. For you." He clarified.
"So," Colin interjected, happy that they were finally getting to the f*cking point of things, "this Power that Julia can f*cking unlock, this is what the b*tch from h*ll wants?" Not that he wasn't interested in everything that had been said, but he wasn't interested in everything that had been said. F*ck, he knew it was important sh*t and all, but what he f*cking needed the most to know was what the f*cking threat was to his family. So he could figure out the best f*cking way to keep them all safe. It was times like this he missed his father the most. His dad was the wisest person he knew, with the patience of a saint. Sh*t. Unfortunately, Colin f*cking knew he had neither one, either wisdom or patience, but he had perseverance and obstinateness, so...
Whatever the f*ck he set his mind to, he would f*cking do, or die trying.
"The Power is a person." Rian stated. "Medraut is who Raven seeks."
"But I don't know how to do any of that." Julia said.
"Medraut yes." Hawk agreed. "that is who she seeks, who I once sought as well. He was placed in cryostasis, by Merlin, to be held there, as prisoner, until a thousand years had gone by. At the end of his sentence, a descendant of Arthur's, the child of prophecy, would be gifted the ability to either free him forever, or to let him die, and his power with him."
"But why was he made a prisoner?"
"Because he is inherently evil." Rian replied.
"Then why not just kill him and be done with it?" It seemed perfectly obvious to Julia.
"Because Arthur loved his son, despite Medraut's evil deeds. He blamed it on the influence of his sister, Medraut's mother. He had hopes that with time, with eons to do nothing more than think, Medraut would see the error of his ways, and choose good instead of evil. You will be the one that decides which one he is, and whether he should live or die."
Julia turned towards Rian, and he followed suit and faced her. "F*ck!" she said, appalled. She ignored her mother's gasp. "What if I don't want to decide if some evil dude lives or dies? What the h*ll?! How did that become my f*cking problem?!"
"Julia, language!" Her mother scolded her. "And I agree with my daughter, it's way too dangerous for her."
"That's not what I said Mom!"
Skye was shaking her head. "Much too dangerous. We need to find a safe place for her, somewhere that this Medraut person, and...that Raven person, won't find her. Maybe we could go into one of those other Whens, that Jack was talking about?"
Rhys finally spoke up after spending most of his time just listening, while keeping one eye on Hawk and the other on Colin; but here was something that he knew well. "I'm sorry." He said to Skye regretfully. "You open one of those portals, and Julia will be found immediately."
"Skye, running is not the f*cking answer." Colin told his daughter. "She'll be running the rest of her f*cking life, always looking over her shoulder. Sh*t, what kind of f*cked up life is that?" He scowled. "There has to be another f*cking way."
"What other way?" Skye argued. "It's simply too dangerous, and I won't let her get hurt. That's final. We'll find some way to hide her and..."
"Mom!" Julia huffed. "I'm not some child that you can just order around. This is my f*cking life, and I ought to have a say in it!"
"Julia, you are too young to know what is best for you!"
"Too young!" Julia spluttered in outrage. "I'm just about to graduate!"
"Julia, be reasonable." Skye pleaded with her daughter. "You are at an impressionable age, and I don't want you..."
"Great, so now you're calling me stupid!"
Skye sighed wearily. "That's not what I'm saying at all, Julia. What I am trying to say..."
"I don't care!" Julia yelled. "It's my life and I'm not going to not let you dictate it! I'm not going to hide in my room for the rest of my life!"
"Julia." Colin said sternly. "You will speak respectfully to your mother, no more yelling. Now calm the h*ll down, so we can figure things out."
Julia shook her head, and took off running.
"Julia! No!" Skye cried out.
"I'll follow her." Rian said quietly. "I know where she's going, and I'll keep her safe, I promise."
Colin closed his eyes, rubbed his forehead wearily and sighed. "Dad, I sure could have used your help." He mumbled to himself. He opened his eyes when Rhys announced that he was headed home. He promised to stay in touch, and extracted a promise of his own in return; that they would call him whenever they got word about Raven's whereabouts. Jack bailed soon after Rhys left, mumbling about the amount of work he had to finish in his lab. Which left the three of them, Colin, Skye, and Hawk. Alone.
Skye was alternately sobbing or hitting Hawk, while Hawk just stood there and took her hits without a word. Not that Colin blamed his daughter one bit. He wouldn't mind hitting f*cking bird boy either. In fact, he really, really, really f*cking wanted to. But then the strangest thing occurred; it was almost like he could hear her voice again. He remembered the shadows in her eyes, how she feared the darkness, and woke up many times screaming from nightmares. She would only say she had dreamt that she was trapped in a chamber, H*ll's chamber, and that no matter what she did, she couldn't escape the pain.
He had thought, at the time, it was just a f*cking dream, like she had stated. A reoccurring nightmare for sure, obviously something had been bothering the sh*t out of her. When he thought back, he had assumed that maybe it had just been her f*cking conscience making a come back. She did f*cking kill for a living, though he tried his best not to remember that. Now he wasn't so sure that it was just a dream, maybe she had been reliving parts of her childhood, things that she wasn't able to share with him quite yet.
D*mn. If only they'd had more time. He shook his head, ashamed once again, when he remembered his utter f*cking arrogance. He had been so f*cking sure that he could get his family to just accept her, despite the fact that she had kidnapped his brother, and even tried to f*cking kill him. Could he do no less for the a*shole raised by the same woman as Ivory?
"I will never forgive you for this." Skye whispered to her husband, but Colin overheard her.
He also overheard the d*mn bird boy's response back to her. "I know." If Colin didn't know better, he'd think the a*shole was close to crying himself.
"Sh*t." He must be out of his f*cking mind. "I'm blaming you for this madness that's come over me, Angel." He muttered under his breath. That could be the only f*cking reason for this insanity that had suddenly f*cking overcome him. It p*ssed him off too. He wanted to ignore that stupid f*cking little voice, the one that reminded him of things he'd rather f*cking forget.
It would be so easy to take the a*shole's life. No one would even try to f*cking stop him, Skylar might even f*cking thank him. He watched as she went through another round of pounding the a*shole's chest, and yet the d*mn bird boy still did nothing to defend himself. "Sh*t." he repeated the word. He was f*cking going to do it. He was going to let Hawk live. More than that, he would have to f*cking help him put his family back together. Obviously Hawk wasn't f*cking bright enough to do it on his own, just look at the huge f*cking mess he had made of everything.
The only one Colin knew who could have f*cked things up better than Hawk had managed to, was himself. Madness.
F*ck.
~<>~
He found her clothes first, lying haphazardly on the sand. He hoped that she still had her swimsuit on, because he needed his brain to think, and if she was naked, he knew he wouldn't be able to form even one coherent thought. He shrugged his clothes off, leaving his swim trunks on, he was sure he would find her in the surf, so there was no sense in getting his clothes all wet.
He found her, not in the water as he had expected, but just standing on the shoreline, watching the horizon. He couldn't decide if he was disappointed or not to find that she did indeed have her swimsuit on. Then he mentally chided himself, her whole world had come crashing down on her, and here he was thinking of her naked. He needed to rein in his inappropriate thoughts, he didn't know what was wrong with him anyway.
She spoke first. "There is just something so calming about the Ocean. I was standing here, thinking about us, and you know what conclusion I came to?" She didn't wait for him to answer, but kept on speaking. "That you can't count sleeping years, so I still don't think you're all that much older than I am."
"That's what you were thinking about?" Rian asked, surprised. "About my age?"
"Of course. What else would I be thinking about? My homicidal grandmother who wants to use me to free some powerful evil dude?" She scoffed. "Why should I think of her? Or him? They don't matter, not really. I'm not scared of her, maybe I should be, but I am not. I am more scared of being locked away somewhere. I think I would chew my own leg off in trying to escape, if I was trapped, forced to hide for the rest of my life."
She pointed out towards the horizon. "I want to see what's out there. Maybe find a Kraken? I want to marry you, maybe even have kids one day. What I won't do, is let fear, my mother's fear, or my own, dictate my life. Funny enough, it was my mother that once told me that fear was the great limiter of life."
"Raven is dangerous Julia. She would not hesitate to kill you, or worse, if you do not fall in line with her plans."
Julia laughed. "What are you recommending Rian? That I free the evil dude so that she doesn't kill me?"
"No, of course not. I'm sure you'll make the right decision, whatever that may be. Just that your mother is right to worry about your safety. It's a bonus, I'll admit, that your father is going to go up against his mother. Together they were quite formidable, apart, maybe that is the hope that Ethan spoke of. I still can't believe that you are the enemy's daughter."
"Ex-enemy." She reminded him. "I'm pretty p*ssed, that I got stuck with this sucky job, one that I want nothing to do with. Cleaning up some old a*s problems that shouldn't have been allowed to live in the first place. What was my ancestor thinking anyway? But it was because of those series of events that I am here at all, so how could I complain about that? Would I be here at all if not for them?"
"Philosophical questions?"
"The ocean makes me philosophical, which is better that homicidal, I would think. I'm just so angry, but I don't have any place to put that anger. Maybe I'll hang it on my dear old grandmother's neck, and strangle her with it."
"Are you angry with me as well?"
"Should I be? As far as I can tell, you told me who you were, and what you were about. It's hardly your fault that I didn't believe you, or thought you meant something else." She was silent for a moment, listening to the sound of the waves. "I've been standing here, thinking, and my biggest fear, at first, was only about one thing. That maybe you really did spent time with me just because of duty, that maybe that was all I was to you. Your duty."
"At first?"
"At first." She confirmed. "But then, I started thinking."
Rian couldn't help but smile. "Oh dear. Not that. Those words always make me shudder."
She elbowed him for his comment, and he grunted slightly, still grinning. "And I came to the same conclusion that I had before. You are not with me just because of your duty."
"No?"
"No, I know you love me, even if you don't say the words, it's in all the little things you do. Actions speak louder than words, my mother always likes to say. My grumpa was right though," Julia sighed. "I was being disrespectful to my mother, and no matter how provoked I felt at the moment, it wasn't right. I'll apologize to her later."
"Your newfound maturity is scaring me." Rian teased her.
He didn't confirm or deny her words, so Julia knew that she was right. He did love her, he just had a hard time saying it. She figured it must be some holdover from his childhood, or maybe because he was a Guardian. She didn't know. She only knew, they were meant to be together, and that she could face anything and everything, so long as he was by her side. "I can be mature." She sassed back. She turned around, and wound her arms around him. He was her anchor, she didn't know what she would do without him. "I could show you just how mature I could be." She purred.
Rian chuckled. "And that was short lived. Come on oh mature one, let's get you home. Your family is worried about you."
"You are always such a spoilsport Rian. But graduation is just a few days away, and I won't be put off then."
He kissed her lightly. "After all this energy I expended, letting you chase me? I should hope not."
"Oh! And you call me a brat!"
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Notes: Sooo---I shall be ignoring all plot holes in this little story I have concocted, if it works for Hollywood, it can work for me too, lol That's my theory anyway.
Hawk finally came clean, only because he was forced to, basically. He could have happily carried on, if not for his mother. Obviously, Skye is taking it very hard. He has pretty much pulled the rug out from under her, and now she is questioning everything about him, and about them.
Colin didn't kill Hawk for two reasons. One, Rhys stopped him, ha! Two, after he heard all that Hawk had to say, he started to notice how similar Hawk's experiences were to Ivory's. He had excused Ivory's behavior in his mind, because he loved her, and he empathized with her pain. More mature Colin can recognize that he should do for Hawk, what he, Colin, had wanted his family to do for him. Which was mainly to forgive Ivory, and welcome her to the family. I'm so proud of mature Colin, he has come a long ways! <3 Was it easy for him? No. None of it is easy for any of them, really.
I have sat on this chapter forever, I think I am going to finally post it because I really am tired of looking at it, lol If there are any questions---please ask away. It sounds pretty clear in my head, but...it may be clear as mud to you all, lol
Thanks for reading! Next chapter Julia officially becomes a young adult and Gen 9 rules will apply. I'm really looking forward to her story. =)
