withintenfeet | TLV Inbox

His heart twists, the way it always would have; in the breach, in the circus, he'd have felt comfortable just pulling her into a hug, but -

But what? No, they don't know each other the same way; no, it hasn't been nearly as long. But she's never been scared of him, either.

As he holds out his hand, "All right. But I need you to do something, first."

If she takes it, he's embracing her as warmly, as fiercely, as his breach self ever did.

She takes his hand, and then they're hugging, and Willa presses her face against Zerxus's shoulder and lets out a tiny little sob.

"We're still-- I know it wasn't real, but you're still okay with being friends, right?"

She figures he has to be, with the hug, but she'll better hearing it.

"Who says it wasn't real?" There's something strained in his voice, because processing all of it is...difficult, but there are too many things about that life he refuses to just throw away. The memories don't quite feel like his - and it's starker than last time, because Earth is so different - but they linger like...

Like a dream.

"I think we get to decide what's true and what isn't."

Well, there it goes. That's the rest of her composure, right out the window. She clings tighter and starts bawling.

There's no trace of hesitation this time; he just holds her close and lets her cry, pulling one hand free to gently stroke her hair.

The gentle touch makes her cry more, and she can't shake the guilt simmering underneath it. That she's sobbing on him without explanation, that she's sobbing on him and not her dads-- not her dad or Arthur or Lester. That Arthur might not want her any more, Lester might not either, that she's too afraid to face either one of them and find out, that her dad hasn't woken up and she's starting to think again about asking Johnathan Strange for help after all because it keeps her from panicking, mostly.

At having a whole different life, that was for the most part happy, and the sin of forgetting her actual father. At waking up this morning confused in her cabin and not thinking about him first, but wondering why she didn't wake up when Arthur and Lester did. It's how she keeps referring to them in her head now, determinedly, Arthur and Lester, because it's entirely too easy at the moment for the thought of them to be framed by 'my dads.'

It's a very different kind of upset than what she felt after the cursed sword, or Kikimora's destruction of the wardrobe. She thinks she prefers horror and fear over shame.

He's murmuring to her now - nothing specific, because he doesn't know the shape of her pain yet, just gentle assurances where the tone matters more than the actual words. They fall from his lips with the sort of ease he knows he doesn't have anymore, not really; that might well fade, in the coming days and weeks.

But for now, at least, he remembers how to be a father.

(Not to Elias, not this time, and he doesn't know if that's better or worse but he can't dwell on it now.)

Her sobbing eventually eases into that uneven hitched breathing that comes after tears, when she's in that place of being self-aware enough to try and make herself calm down.

"Sorry. I wasn't--this definitely wasn't... I didn't mean to start cr-crying."

She's still got her face on his shoulder.

"You're welcome to cry on me any time you need." He's aiming for a light tone, but it's strained with his own guilt, his own failure.

He knows, deep in his bones, that his other self never would have chosen responsibility to a city over responsibility to his family.

"I just. Don't know who to talk to." It's quiet and a little desperate. "My dad is still asleep. I don't want to annoy people or make them think I'm going to like, be weird, after the breach, or something. I can talk to John but Arthur is already really upset and John never lets himself be upset when Arthur is upset, not in a way that lets anyone help him. I don't want to make him have to help me too. And there's not even anything to help, I'm fine, nothing's different."

Gently but sternly, "You are very clearly not fine, and there's nothing wrong with that."

He reaches out to rest a hand on her shoulder, and speaks with the hard-won confidence of his other self. "Breaches are hard on a lot of people, and that was your first one. You're allowed to struggle with it. That doesn't make you a burden."

She gives a tiny, tiny sniff, squeezing him for a second. "You're still warm."

"I am." For once, acknowledging the change in him doesn't weigh down his voice. "...Ah, not immune to fire, though."

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