One More Trip Down Memory Lane (tag Killian) on Crotalus Commons

Selina Skies

February 07, 2021 5:59 PM

One More Trip Down Memory Lane (tag Killian) by Selina Skies

Selina had one more piece of cleaning up to do. That she knew about anyway. There was always the possibility of more people having been harmed by her gross negligence who would need her help in putting themselves back together.

She sat, staring a the vial on her desk, trying not to feel her stomach twisting. Dealing with the Hexenmeister situation had been horrible, but she at least had somewhat had permission to see the contents - within a given value of 'permission' where no one had asked for this all to be on display. But this was one she had witnessed by accident, and now had to confess to seeing. To someone she was very closely connected to, multiple times over.

It had seemed cold and impersonal to list it on the poster and sign her name, although perhaps he would have preferred it that way. Perhaps she should have let this be his choice. Perhaps she should have done a lot of things differently... She also hadn't thought it would do Bonabelle any favours to see this face though, not if she was right about who it was. So, she had called Killian to her office instead.

"Have a seat," she invited, the small vial on the desk looming large as its undisclosed contents swirled. "This is the one I captured in the library and sent away for analyis," she informed him. MACUSA had, helpfully, got off their backsides and written back to inform her it was a memory a day after they had all already concluded that. They had suggested that she investigate whether anyone had been exposed to a forgetfulness curse during their holidays and to check what her charms teacher had been covering. "I'm guessing its yours," she stated, aiming her wand at it just long enough to lift a ghostly face from its contents.

"I didn't mean to pry," she apologised. "And I suppose that, as your employer, it's none of my business, if it doesn't affect your work..." She trailed off, pretty sure he could hear the 'but...' hanging in the air.

"I'm also your friend, or I like to think so," she reminded him, just in case her other titles had superseded that fact in his mind. She wondered if they did... If it ever came down to her different identities being in conflict, there was a strong possibility she would have to put being his employer ahead of that, and he was sure they were both acutely aware of her other identity right now, and how that was pushing its way in, even if he didn't know which memory was in front of her. "I like to think that, even as your employer, I'd be concerned about you," she added, not sure whether to try to steer it back to more formal territory or not.

Speaking as his friend, she was worried that someone, presumably Lorcan, had attacked him so violently. Speaking as the mother of his girlfriend, she was concerned on any number of levels.

13 Selina Skies One More Trip Down Memory Lane (tag Killian) 26 1 5

Killian Row

February 07, 2021 7:01 PM

Like you said, once was enough. by Killian Row

Historically, being summoned to Selina's office wasn't a bad thing at all. Killian was generally confident that he'd know already if he were about to be in any real trouble, so the closest he'd come to being reprimanded was when Selina had taken time to remind him to take care of himself. Otherwise, summons were generally work related. Now that Killian had joined Selina's family, if in a tangential way, he was privy to information that meant he was more concerned that a summons was bad news. If not, there was still a decent chance that it was not work related. Killian wasn't about to bank on that though, so he always brought a notebook and pencil just in case.

When he arrived to Selina's office, her somber expression momentarily made him even more sure that this was not a work related summons, although considering the wild happenings around their shared place of work this year and the recent revelations about what it was and how it impacted students, there was still a chance it was ultimately work related. That didn't exclude the possibility of deep emotions, though, and Killian's somber expression matched his employer's as he sat opposite her. There was a swirling silver memory between them and Killian's heart gave a painful thump as he wondered whether Bonabelle had somehow left a traumatic piece of herself somewhere.

As Selina spoke, Killian realized he'd been neglectful yet again in thinking of himself (to be fair, he generally did think rather highly of himself, if in a surface level way, it was just that he tended to only include himself last) and thus hadn't considered that the memory might not be Bonabelle's at all, but his own. The image Selina revealed of a Lorcan far too young for Bonabelle to have ever met him that way was proof positive that it wasn't hers and his stomach churned horribly as his face paled some. That was a very young Lorcan indeed and given Killian's emotions towards his brother recently, and their actual shared experiences, he couldn't imagine it was a good memory. He wasn't entirely clear on how memories were left behind, or which ones were left, but Selina's expression had already solidified that he wasn't here for a happy reason, even if he'd had doubts about the contents of the vial.

He struggled to listen around the sudden pounding in his ears and was glad he did, because Selina's reassurances - for what they were - did serve to reduce the sound to a dull roar instead of the overwhelming blast it had been. He took a breath and relaxed his hands which had balled instinctively into fists around the paper he'd brought. He smoothed it out some, giving himself a place to look other than at Selina.

"What was the memory?" he asked, his voice coming out as a whisper. His usual pretense of playful arrogance, even confidence, was gone. Instead, Killian was every bit the teenage boy who had been absent in the silvery version of that memory. There was no way to hide from it, so he simply let the moment force him into a corner where he had no choice but to be vulnerable, again, at the hands of his brother. "You can show me or tell me," he added, knowing that Lorcan's vocabulary was often more colorful than he'd heard Selina's be and she may not wish to repeat some of that. He almost hoped she would show it instead, horrible as it would be, just so he didn't have to hear someone he cared about say the sorts of things Lorcan usually did.

22 Killian Row Like you said, once was enough. 1450 0 5

Selina Skies

February 07, 2021 8:34 PM

So, what now? by Selina Skies

Always ready, notebook in hand. Selina liked that she had a staff member who was always prepared but it made her wonder sometimes whether Killian was remembering to think of himself as a person and not just a business meeting. She watched the effect of her words, the clean and orderly blank page being marred as Killian involuntarily scrunched it up.

He looked awful. Small, and scared, and like something really bad might be about to happen. Selina wanted to reach out and put a hand on his arm, to assure him that it was all going to be alright - but she made a point of never promising that if she couldn't guarantee that it was true.

"You appeared to punch him in the face," she summarised, rather hoping that narrowed it down quite a lot. She wasn't inclined to say that Lorcan hadn't deserved it, but she still hoped that hadn't been too frequent an occurence. "He was making some rather choice comments about you," she stated, hesitating on the verge of the words 'about your abilities to be a father.' "And it ended with him rather violently attacking you," she stated, her voice cracking slightly. Judging by Lorcan's appearance, she was several decades too late, but the look she gave Killian suggested she wanted to reach for a cleansing potion and start patching him back up. "You can see it if you need to," she offered, "And I can step out if you'd rather I didn't see it again." She was learning. She wished it wasn't a thing that it was necessary for her to get better at... But here they were.

13 Selina Skies So, what now? 26 0 5

Killian Row

February 07, 2021 9:25 PM

That depends on if you are done with me now. by Killian Row

OOC: CW: child/fetal death BIC:

"Ah," Killian said, more of his voice coming out now but mostly a strangled, resigned sound. The memory it must've been flooded back to him - between the age of his brother in the scene and the information that Selina gave, it wasn't hard to remember it - and he blinked to stop the thoughts from coming out there. Still, he suddenly felt the distinct urge to see it. To know for sure how much was there, how much Selina had seen. "I'd like to watch it if you don't mind," he decided, taking a breath to steady himself in advance. "You can stay if you'd like, or step out if you're more comfortable."

And Selina stayed. Killian wasn't sure how he'd ever make the universe seem a little balanced himself, but he thought of John and his own small show of support in staying and thought that maybe somehow, the universe knew about it.

The memory played out in front of him, Lorcan positioned in miniature at an unfortunate angle which put present-day Killian in the same line of sight as past-Killian, and the remarks stung as much as they'd ever done. They were the comments that had swum through Killian's mind for all of the interim years, shaping and staining his beliefs about himself. Killian couldn't help wondering what his face looked like, although he felt it when he winced in sympathetic (? was sympathetic the word when it was yourself you were sympathizing with?) pain when Lorcan lunged forward. Selina ended the memory at that point and it took Killian several moments to say anything.

His breathing felt labored and tight, and his eyes were staring unfocused on the desk in front of him. It took a moment for him to identify the emotion that was burning in his chest, in part because it was largely unfamiliar to him. When his glazed eyes shifted back to his lap and he found that his fists were balled again, his forearms tense and hard where they emerged from his half-rolled sleeves, he recognized it. The physical signs, those that he observed in students sometimes, and the heat that he had previously observed in his own chest, once in that moment, once in the hospital years later, once the previous summer, and a few other times, meant he was angry. Burning, raging, seething angry.

Killian Row - mid-thirties, Hufflepuff, guidance counselor, failure.

A slip of paper in a folder in a filing cabinet in another office. A name at the top of a clipboard. None of it made it any easier to be angry and so Killian stopped, because he'd always stopped. His anger came out in a low exhale as he brought his hands, relaxed, to his face, through his hair, and then together at the back of his neck as he leaned forward to rest his elbows on the desk. For a moment, he thought that he might throw up or cry, but the energy to do either didn't come. It had left with an exhale that hadn't been able to blow away the silver mist before it disappeared between them.

At some point, sooner rather than later, Killian had to be okay though. He always had to be okay. So he sat up, inhaling this time, and looked at Selina. His face, he was sure, was still pale, and his eyes were dark. Although he always looked scruffy, it was undoubtedly worse now. If Selina had only been his employer, he might have worried about that. But she wasn't. Not now, surely, but she hadn't been only his employer for much longer than he'd known Ema too. His friend cared about him. And so he had to be okay.

"I got a girl pregnant at Hogwarts," he said quietly. "Her family was a lot more angry than mine, but we were going to figure it out. I was only fifteen, so we didn't talk about marriage or anything like that. But she lost the baby early on. None of our classmates knew," he added, thinking of Tabitha. "But Hannnah . . . she didn't recover really and she left school."

He'd leaned away at some point, his hands back in his lap, crossed as if he were a child in trouble. "Lorcan was . . . not as upset as I was. As I've been. She'd be an adult now," he added quietly, the clarifying words 'my daughter' dying horribly in his throat with everything they referred to. His eyes did sting then and he blinked as moisture clung to his dark eyelashes. "I haven't told Ema yet," he added, knowing that Selina needed to know that too. "I am going to. I just . . . haven't yet."

He tried to take another breath, another inhale, and it was meant to be steadying. "I'm so sorry," he choked. Instead of a steadying breath, it was a sniff and the air hitched in his chest before he screwed his eyes shut and finally, for the first time in a long time, gave into the urge to cry.

OOC: Selina's actions regarding the memory - staying and making it disappear at that point - approved by her author.

22 Killian Row That depends on if you are done with me now. 1450 0 5

Selina Skies

February 07, 2021 10:23 PM

I think the problem is that we're stuck with you by Selina Skies

Selina stayed, not sure whether it was to keep an eye on Killian, to make sure they were on the same page, or just... morbid fascination. Perhaps it was the opposite. Perhaps she was vaguely hoping that, on a second viewing, it would somehow make more sense. That the pieces would add up to a different picture than the one that had been forming in the back of her mind.

It did not. Each passing sentence entrenched her a little deeper into knowing something she rather thought she didn't wish to know.

It stopped, and Killian didn't speak. Selina had several things she was sorely tempted to say. What the heck? chief amongst them, followed by I hope you have learned to take some basic freaking precautions in the last... How many years? She thought Lorcan was older, she tried to remember whether she knew that for certain, and he had been so young... Not that 'young, stupid, and wreckless' were anything like reasonable excuses. Nor were they characteristics she liked in boys in general, and especially not the ones her daughters brought home.

She pressed her lips together, determined to think before she spoke, even if the tension of the silence almost begged for her to break it with words that stung like a slap. It felt like screaming at each other couldn't be louder than this silence. But she had learnt not to trust that instinct, and to wait until one of them had something rational to say.

Killian got there first. He retold her the story, filling in the blanks, with some details that softened the blow and some that made it harder. He was, to someone out there, the feckless idiot who had ruined their daughter's life. And Selina didn't want to think of Killian in those terms, wanted to be able to take his side but she found herself sympathising instead with these unknown parents. She would probably never have to defend him to them, and that was lucky, because she didn't think she could. Images of Ema swum to the surface of her mind. At fifteen, as she was now. It didn't matter. She still wanted to curl just as protectively around either of them.

Ema didn't know. Didn't know that Killian was-

At the same time, he wasn't that person. She wanted to care about him. She wanted to think he was good and safe... He was crying, and she was supposed to comfort him. She was supposed to stand up and move round to his side of the desk and lay a hand on his shoulder. She knew how legs worked. It ought to have been simple. And part of her knew she could take it back later, she could be mad at him later if she wanted but she couldn't repair letting him cry and refusing to comfort him. It didn't move her out of her chair though, it only made part of her feel bad about that fact.

"What happened to her?" she asked. He had said not recovered. He had said left school. He had said would have been an adult by now.

13 Selina Skies I think the problem is that we're stuck with you 26 0 5

Killian Row

February 07, 2021 10:45 PM

I have been stuck with me for a very long time. by Killian Row

There had been a time once when Selina had cried and Killian had wrapped her up to keep her as safe as he could. With Selina still sat firmly on the other side of the table, that felt like a very long time ago. There were a number of reasons that Selina might have stayed in her seat and Killian preferred to think that perhaps it was because, in her semi-traditional tendencies, she wouldn't think to comfort a younger crying man the way he'd naturally thought to comfort her. He suspected though, and it hurt though, that he thought that probably wasn't the reason. He thought he might throw up then, but he kept it back. That was the sort of giving in that one only did in private, when you could sob and wretch and scream and not worry about what your girlfriend's mother thought of all that. It was validating in the worst way to think that maybe she thought every bit as badly of him as he thought of himself, even more than twenty years after the fact.

These thoughts swirled through his head and he took another sharp inhale. Hey, hey, just breathe, love, his mother had told him once, rocking him through sobs on the side of his bed. Count to five and breathe.

Killian only gave himself to the count of three.

"I'm sorry," he said again, wiping his face with the heel of his hand and sniffing once; he wouldn't give himself more than that. "'Her' Hannah?" he confirmed. "Or 'her' my-- the baby?" Either way, he had to answer now. "Something ruptured I think," he said, not having ever been given all the details. "They never told me exactly what happened." He hadn't even been able to see her then, just been told that she'd gone home, something had happened, and the baby hadn't made it. It could've been anything. "And she lost the baby and then was on bedrest and finished schooling at home." His expression remained neutral as his insides curled around a hard ball of anger that he'd carried for a long time. "Her family held some strong opinions about Irish people," he said. "They hated that she even went to school with us, so they didn't want me around her after that especially. But she's married now, and she's had kids since then. We don't keep in touch but she married another guy from our class and I ran into him a few years ago," he explained. Which is when Selina's question donned on him as having come from a place of misunderstanding, all because of that damn phrase he couldn't quite get out of his mouth. "I meant the baby," he added quietly. "The baby would be an adult now. She'd be almost twenty."

22 Killian Row I have been stuck with me for a very long time. 1450 0 5

Selina Skies

February 08, 2021 4:02 PM

Sounds like it hurt by Selina Skies

Killian was crumpled, sniffling and sorry. The gesture of him trying to wipe his own face with the heel of his hand was enough to snap her out of it a little, making her realise that – for all that she did not know how to deal with the specifics of this situation – there were some basics of dealing with a crying human that she was failing at. And she had a crying human, one that she cared about.

“Here, here you go,” she said softly, pushing the box of tissues that was always on her desk towards him. She conjured him a glass of water too, for good measure.

Her, yes her Hannah, who else-? Oh. He had said ‘early on.’ Selina had not necessarily realised there was any information attached to…her. Of course, he had said he would have tried but she would have thought that it had been a relief that he didn’t have to. Then again, there was someone else whose presence lingered in this room who’d thought that, and he’d been punched in the face for it. She visibly flinched at the word ‘ruptured’ feeling her whole body contact in the fear and unpleasantness of not knowing fully what that meant or what it felt like but that it was bad. She had not exactly been seeking or expecting medical detail, and for all that Krissalyn and Ema were several decades past the point where any such incident could hurt them – well, any such incident to Selina, anyway – there was just something viscerally twisting and jarring about hearing it. Imagining it.

And Hannah had gone on to be fine. To have a hopefully happy life. In spite of Killian. In spite of her frankly awful sounding parents.

“Well, they sound charming,” Selina stated through gritted teeth. And there was the person in the bottle in front of them. Had there been anyone in the world who hadn’t been giving Killian a rough time? Yes. At least one. And her name was Hannah… It was harder and harder to think of Killian as purely stupid when he’d been exposed to a world with so many rough edges, and finally found something that didn’t hurt. She wanted to be mad at Lorcan again for what she’d seen. She wanted to ask if that had happened often. But it wasn’t the point here. She didn’t get to unite with Killian against his enemies and take that common ground whilst side-stepping the thing they were actually talking about.

“You are not old enough to have a twenty-year-old daughter,” was the first thing she blurted out in response to Killian’s clarification. “Sorry,” she stated. “That’s probably not the right thing to say. But… look at you. You’re Krissy’s age.” She bit back any comments about how that would have gone. It sounded too similar to what someone else had tried to say. And she did not wish to cast aspersions on any of the teen parents they had had through school (thankfully of the type that had been teenagers when they had the people who became her students, rather than the other permutation of that – though she tried not to think too hard about that point lest the universe saw fit to test her on it). “I don’t know what the right thing is,” she admitted. “I’m sorry. I mean, it’s my fault we’re even having to have this conversation,” she sighed. Her fault, on top of having dragged Killian through all the messiest parts of her life this year, throughout which he had been fantastic. But dwelling on that would make it about her, about how she was sorry that she wasn’t doing a good enough job – even though she was very deeply sorry about all of that. “But you keep saying it to me,” she added, realising that he’d apologised twice. Or at least, was saying it in front of her. She wasn’t sure how it could possibly really be ‘to’ her. “What part of all this is under my jurisdiction to forgive you for, Killian?” she asked him gently. “What do you need?”

13 Selina Skies Sounds like it hurt 26 0 5

Killian Row

February 08, 2021 7:05 PM

Very much. by Killian Row

"Thanks," Killian muttered, embarrassed. He took a tissue and wiped his hands with it now that he'd mostly done the job on his face, and then took a drink of water. That was more helpful than he'd expected and his throat felt clearer.

His mind did not, especially as he watched the display of thoughts across Selina's face. She was generally reserved enough not to show off too many of them but he knew her well enough to see some of it anyway, and her open flinching at his explanation wouldn't have taken someone who knew her well to see anyway. He stopped short of apologizing for that one, although he recognized that it was maybe a bit of a harsh way to describe things to another woman rather than in his own head, where pregnancy was a step removed. It did answer one question he'd always had though.

"That is a thing that can happen then?" he confirmed hesitantly, looking at Selina. "I always wondered if that's just what they told me so they didn't have to say she ended it or something." His voice trialed off as he wondered privately whether it made any difference. At this point, probably not.

His eyebrows gave a sarcastic jerk of a acknowledgment as he took another drink, wholeheartedly agreeing with Selina's own sarcastic assessment of Hannah's family. It had been a long time since that particular incident but there had, of course, been others, and those things tended to stick. Still, he knew he was better off in a lot of ways than even a lot of the students he worked with at Sonora and he wasn't about to dwell on that when he was, on the whole, rather fortunate.

His expression was less favorable when Selina indulged herself in the same sort of comment that Lorcan had made, although he knew Selina more meant that Killian was young himself and not that he was inept, as Lorcan had. He tried not to be angry but he couldn't quite help it, even if those feelings weren't really directed at the person he was speaking with in this case. When the woman clarified, backtracked, and apologized though, he sighed and nodded, hanging his head for a moment.

"It's not your fault," he amended. "It's mine for being in that situation in the first place. Although, in this particular situation, I'd say it's also partly Lorcan's. It wasn't a memory of Hannah after all." He didn't grit his teeth. He didn't. But he did glare a bit at the bottle that he suddenly wanted to smash very much.

He wasn't used to feeling so many angry feelings all at once. It had been a long time since he'd felt so helpless and hopeless and worthless all out loud in his own head; usually those things were relegated to the corners of his mind where they could influence his actions in whispers instead of shouts. It had been years since they'd actually taken the reins.

"I was thinking about that memory a lot when I got back from summer break," Killian recalled, almost more to himself than anything. "I had spoken with Lorcan and he'd brought a lot of that up again. We talked about Bonny," he added for context, since fatherhood wasn't exactly a topic that needed to come up a lot between the brothers otherwise. "That's the only time I've ever hit someone," he added, his eyes refocusing as he looked back up at Selina from the bottle. "I'm not a violent person," he promised. Of course, Lorcan would probably have said the same thing.

He blinked, taken aback by her questioning of his apology. What could she forgive him for? His initial thought was to say nothing, he hadn't earned any forgiveness after all, but she wasn't asking that. She was asking what was within her jurisdiction, what fell to her to choose or not to forgive him for? Getting Hannah pregnant, punching Lorcan, letting this memory out of his leaky head somehow . . . none of that was what she could forgive him for, even if somehow that's what he was sorry for.

"For being a blubbering mess at you?" he tried halfheartedly, offering a small smile as he knew the comment would land only in jest and she wouldn't take it for a good enough answer. He sighed again and looked down at his hands. Was this how the students felt when they talked to Selina about things? Like they were in trouble for existing even though Selina had never said that was why they were there? Like the best thing they could do was make up for who they were even though Selina had never and would never ask them that? Perhaps it was the benefit of adulthood that gave him the ability to recognize he was the only one asking those things of himself, and Selina just happened to be there to see it all happen. "I wouldn't ask you to forgive me for anything," he finally decided, speaking slowly. "I haven't earned it and can't prove I deserve it. I only want you to know that I am sorry, I suppose. For ever having been violent, even just once, for doing something irresponsible that I know can't make you real thrilled as the mother of my girlfriend, for . . . this." He meant to wave his hand at the memory, but if he included a bit of himself in the gesture, then it was only a little more true.

22 Killian Row Very much. 1450 0 5

Selina Skies

February 10, 2021 4:02 AM

Does it have to keep hurting? by Selina Skies

"I don't know," Selina admitted when Killian asked if the medical problem he had described was real. "It sounds..." ...plausible? ...medical? ...horrible? She mumbled a syllable or two that might have been ‘like it’ and trailed off, glad to let that part of the conversation fade into silence.

"I still think it's on me," she shook off his list of other people to blame. Although if they settled on calling Lorcan a whole host of bad names, she wasn't entirely opposed. “You should be free to think thoughts without them ending up on my desk. I didn’t mean to do that, or to force you into conversations you weren’t going to have,” she stated.

"I assumed as much," Selina stated when Killian stated that he had never hit anyone before or since and was not a violent person. The slightest hint of a smile appeared on her face, though it was still a long way from reaching her eyes, as she took in his soft sweater, ink stained fingers and the notebook in his hand. Her daughter kept informing her that he was an absolute dork, and that this was one of the things she liked about him. "I wouldn't think that about you," she assured him, "But good to have it confirmed. Was he? Often? With you?" she asked. Was he, as a rule, when he drank? Did she need to worry what Bonabelle had been exposed to? Probably. But unless Lorcan reappeared, that was perhaps a part of the past that could have a pin kept in it for now.

"That's well within the rules and you know it," she stated almost sternly as he apologised for being a blubbering mess. The rest of his apologies she took more seriously. She couldn't deny that she was a little bit upset by some of those things, more his messy bad choices than the fact he had punched Lorcan. And the friend part of her wanted to assure him that he was good and did deserve forgiveness, but the mother of his girlfriend part was more cautious. He hadn't yet proven that he could be trusted with Ema, for all that he had made a promising start at it. That was something that took time.

"It's not likely to be my favourite thing about you, no," she confirmed stiffly. "But there are quite a few things competing for that spot. And more than one member of my family willing to supply extra ideas if I run out," she admitted, feeling it would be deeply ungrateful not to acknowledge everything Killian had been doing for them lately. And part of that was why it hurt, of course. She did not want her or John's and especially not Ema's high opinions of someone to be proved incorrect. It was confusing, when it was something that had happened so very long ago but still felt like it was happening now. "And he's wrong - as usual," she flicked the vial on her desk sharply with a fingernail. "From what I can see, you're doing a better job with his child than he ever did. I assume we're giving Bonabelle herself the credit for anything that turned out well prior to you and your parents' intervention," she added. "And I think you would be..." she trailed off. As his friend, that comfort would have been easy to give. As the mother of his girlfriend, she worried it carried a different weight. It was also harder to be sure of, the protective part of her wanting to snatch Ema up and keep her away from anything not quite perfect. She was fairly sure that was why she was still on this side of the desk. Why she hadn’t reached out a hand to place it on his arm or take his. She was, as a general rule, cautious about touching her staff members. Killian was friend enough that she thought she almost certainly would have. Except now, there was Ema, and she wasn’t sure whether that made it weird for her to interact with him in certain ways, or whether it only made her reluctant to when his actions put Ema’s well-being at risk. She had too many hats.

Ema was the part of this that still felt current. Had she been presented this situation in the abstract, the mere matter of someone's past mistake, she would have said to leave it where it was - long ago, and far away. It didn't need to be something his partners knew about, if it was long since over. That was the question though. Her own actions had dragged it into the present, and she wasn't sure whether Killian was crying from the guilt and shame and fear of that, or whether this was not really in the past for him either. Like he had said, he had been the one thinking about it. Was it one of the things that kept him up at night? Did it mean that he never wanted kids, or that he was desperate to have them? Or that he wanted to but he was afraid, and was going to start obsessively trying to wrap Ema up in cotton wool if she got pregnant? Speaking as one of the people who had raised Ema, she could vouch just how not well that was going to go down. She would have almost been willing to be ready with popcorn and 'I told you so's the second he started trying if it wasn't for the fact it was all too tragic to be at all funny.

"Ema needs to know," she stated. "I know you said that already but... she does." Selina was now in the position of keeping something from her, which she didn't like. And with another baby joining their family, the subject was going to be front and centre for a while. She already felt like she had to tiptoe around Killian whenever alcohol came up. He couldn't be unable to cope with babies too - they were far too big a fact of life. And Ema could claim that she was Ms. Independent all she wanted, and that she had made her own choices about moving back, but the truth was Killian was the foundation of that. One she was already enthusiastically building upon, spending her days sticking pins all over maps and looking like she wanted to cram ten year’s worth of life into one summer. That, she thought, was something he might owe her an apology for; for letting her daughter make major life decisions based on the sort of man she thought he was when she didn't actually know. But she supposed she could wait and see whether or not she needed to be angry with him about that. It still smacked of recklessness, and being reckless with Ema, even if it didn't work out badly. She still wanted to know that he had learnt how to be careful in more ways than the overly literally kind that she never planned on thinking or talking about with him. "Before she's picked another ten places to drag you to, and chosen a colour to paint your bedroom," Selina stated.

13 Selina Skies Does it have to keep hurting? 26 0 5

Killian Row

February 10, 2021 4:20 PM

Do you know how to make it stop? by Killian Row

Much of Selina's reassurance got solemn nods in response, because what else could Killian say? He couldn't quite agree with what she was saying, either because he didn't have the knowledge or the ability to do so, but he didn't have the energy to fight her on whose fault all this was or the details of whether or not Hannah's loss was legitimate. Those were not things that could be changed, so Killian preferred to move past them. Except, of course, that he'd never been able to move quite past some of the things that haunted him.

He relaxed notably, the weight of misperceptions coming off his shoulders, when Selina assured him she didn't think he was violent though, and when she offered a small smile that felt like a ring buoy. No one ever felt like they were safe when they caught that little circle of foam on a rope, but they knew that maybe they were about to be. More than that, they knew there was someone on the other side who was going to do their best to reel them in. That's all Killian wanted.

He fidgeted though some at her question, not wanting to commit too much to an answer one way or the other. At the same time, much as he and Selina were mandatory reporters in terms of the safety of the students they worked with, Killian was aware that he was not a student and that he was, in theory, okay now. "Not all the time," he hedged. "But . . . that wasn't the first or last time," he finished in a mumbly voice. "It wasn't always like that, though." It wasn't never like that either but he didn't want to make her worry.

He wanted to shrug it off as a thing big brothers did sometimes, as he had justified it to himself most of his life, but he also knew he wouldn't accept that answer from one of their students and so he wouldn't try to get away with it now. Besides, Killian was grown now; he wasn't the little boy or young man who'd gotten his nose broken or any other such thing. That was a lifetime ago in a lot of ways. "I don't think he's been like that with Bonny," he added as his mind did turn to other connections in Lorcan's fragmented life. "She may have seen him act that way toward other people but not toward her I don't think. Nothing she's told me has made me think otherwise."

It was odd somehow to be almost reprimanded for being sorry for being a mess and Killian nodded again, actually allowing a bit of a smile. For all that Selina was his employer and his girlfriend's mother and thus acting well within her jurisdiction to reprimand, it was the subject that reminded him they were friends first. Well, they'd been employer/employee first, but their friendship was important. "Thanks, Selina," he said sincerely, relaxing another small bit and taking a breath that felt clearer.

His smile grew a little more confident, if still small, when she continued. He wouldn't expect her to just love this news, but it felt good to know that it wasn't in the top list of traits she maybe had in mind for him, and that he'd made an impression on more than just her. Clearly he'd made an impression on Ema, but it was a sweet reminder nonetheless. Her words failed at some point and Killian thought he understood. After all, they were the sort of words he hadn't been able to get out himself either. "Thank you," he said simply. "For everything."

He wished a bit that he could see inside Selina's head, but he was not at all displeased to have the natural separation that meant he didn't have to know either. He suspected, though, that he wasn't the only one whose thoughts returned again and again to Ema throughout their conversation, and he was glad in a way that that was the case. Ema deserved to be considered, especially given the growing state of their relationship. He nodded, agreeing that she needed to know, but any actual words stalled in his throat for a moment as he considered his response. Explaining that he'd kept the information from her thus far because it hadn't seemed appropriate to put into letter to his new girlfriend at first and then because it hadn't seemed appropriate to tell his girlfriend whilst she also dealt with the trauma of a family emergency was hard, not least of all because he didn't want to shirk the blame nor put any of it on Selina. He was sure she would take it the latter way at least if he tried to put it that way.

Before he could decide how to say what he wanted to, Selina continued and Killian blushed, trying not to smile too big to be appropriate for the circumstances. "Anywhere she wants and any color she wants," he replied softly, unable to help the swelling feeling of elation in his chest at the thought that somehow he'd gotten to be the lucky man that Ema loved. Remembering he hadn't yet addressed the previous issue though, his expression darkened some with guilt again.

"I plan to tell her. I already did plan too," he expanded, not wanting Selina to think he only intended to now that he'd been caught out. "I wanted to wait until summer when I wasn't going to have to zip back off to work if she wanted to talk about it and needed some time, and give her some time to get settled a bit here." The last bit of his explanation came out carefully and he hoped Selina understood that he only hadn't wanted to add to Ema's plate, not that he was blaming Leo and the Skies' family trauma for his lack of communication.

He wanted to promise that Ema would never have to meet Lorcan, that none of this would ever impact her, but he knew he couldn't promise that. His brother, his niece's father, his mother's son, couldn't just be guaranteed exclusion and his flighty nature meant that Killian could only do so much to guarantee Ema's separation. Besides, Ema could make her own choices in that regard and Killian wasn't precisely sure how much he wanted to tell her about why he himself preferred to avoid his brother anyway. Now, as a fully grown wizard in much better physical shape than he'd been in before, Killian was more frightened of his memories than of his brother, even if that was irrational for multiple reasons. Instead, all he could promise was that he'd be there by her side no matter what. Except that words didn't really mean much there and he knew it.

"I care the world for Ema," he said quietly but surely. "I want her to be able to know everything she needs to know to decide if that's okay with her."

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