Chapter 636: Whatever Comes

Arthur’s estate had been loud for so long that the quiet felt strange.

The guests were gone. The banner that had read WELCOME HOME, AURORA had been folded up and tucked away in a drawer by George, who had judged it too precious to throw out and too large to keep displaying. The garden table had been cleared of its tea service. The twins had gone their separate ways, one with a sigh and a flourish of golden light, the other with a wink and no light at all, and the house had settled back into silence of a home at night.

Arthur sat in the study with the fire going, and waited.

He didn’t have to wait long.

The door opened without a knock. Kara came in first, in an oversized gray sweater with her hair loose around her shoulders, her face scrubbed clean and her eyes bright. Raven followed, barefoot and floating wrapped in a long black cardigan with a mug of something steaming in both hands. They had slept for the better part of two days now. The bruises were gone. The fatigue that had hung on them in the Abyss was gone. They looked, for the first time in a two week, like themselves.

They crossed the room without a word, and Arthur stood, and then there was nothing else to do but let them reach him.

Kara hit him first. She came in like a small, determined storm and threw both arms around his neck and held on, and he felt her whole body shaking against his. Raven set her mug on the mantel with great care. Then she stepped up behind Kara, put one arm around each of them, and rested her forehead against Arthur’s shoulder.

Nobody said anything for a long time.

Arthur closed his eyes. He pulled them both in, one arm around each, and pressed his face into Kara’s hair, and let the warmth of them settle through him like the first real sun after a long winter.

"You mean the world to me," he said.

It was quiet and very plain. It was nothing like the voice he had used on gods and beings of great status. "Both of you. I don’t say it enough. I want you to know that, no matter what happens next."

Kara went still.

"What do you mean," she said slowly, into his shoulder, "no matter what happens next?"

"Exactly what I said."

"Because we already dealt with the actual threat." She pulled back to look at him. Her eyes were very blue and very wide. "The Rulers are dead. The gates are closed. That creature we fought in a box. We won, Arthur."

"We won," he agreed.

"Then what’s next?"

He didn’t answer.

He simply looked at her, and smiled, a small and gentle and slightly crooked thing, and tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear. It was not an answer. Raven’s eyes narrowed.

"Is it the archangel?" she asked.

"No."

"Arthur."

"No," he said again, and this time he laughed softly. "There is nothing of the sort. We simply talked about matters concerning the universe. Surprisingly, he was a rather calm being. Soft-spoken. Almost gentle." He shook his head. "I didn’t expect it, knowing what his brother is like."

"Lucifer?" said Kara, blinking. "Lucifer was here?"

"He stayed for tea."

"Of course he did," said Raven, she had given up trying to predict the guest list of this house. She lifted her mug, took a long drink, and gave him a look over the rim. "Alright. I’ll let it go. For now."

"Thank you."

"Not for the rest of it, though."

"The rest?"

"We’re having that talk," said Raven. "The one I promised you."

Arthur let out a long breath. He stepped back, and gestured toward the sofa by the fire, and the three of them settled into it, Kara tucked into one corner with her feet drawn up, Raven in the other with her mug cradled in her lap, and Arthur in the middle, an arm along the back of the sofa, ready to be shouted at.

"I’m ready," he said.

"No, you’re not," said Raven. "But you’ll listen."

She started quietly.

She stared at the fire for a moment, and her face was calm, composed, the same cool mask she wore in battle. But her fingers were tight around the mug, and her knuckles were white.

"I’ve seen a lot of people die," she said. "You might be Death now, but I always felt that. I can feel it when it happens. Every death, every little extinguished light. I grew up with that, Arthur. I thought I was ready for anything." She paused. "But I wasn’t ready for that."

"Raven..."

"I felt your heartbeat stop. In my head. I felt it in the same place I feel my own." She turned to look at him then, and her eyes were bright and hard and very, very hurt. "You told us to trust you. You told us to hit you. And then you stood there and let me watch you die and you didn’t say a word."

"It was a trap."

"I know."

"If you’d known my actual plan, the Rulers would have felt it. They’d have seen it in you. In both of you." His voice was low. "It had to be real. The grief had to be real. It was the only thing that could convince them."

"I know," said Raven. "I know. I did the math before you finished the sentence." She took a breath. "I’m still going to be furious for about a month."

"That’s fair."

"It’s very fair."

"I’d be furious too."

"You’d be insufferable," said Raven, and her voice cracked, and she looked away at the fire and wiped her eyes angrily with the back of her wrist.

Arthur reached over and took her hand. She let him.

On the other side of him, Kara had not said a word.

She had drawn her knees up to her chest and wrapped both arms around them, and she was staring straight ahead, at nothing. The firelight caught the wet on her cheeks. She did not seem to notice.

"Kara," said Arthur gently.

"I hit you," she said.

Her voice was very small.

"I put my fist in your face. I heard it. I felt your jaw give under my knuckles. And then I watched Frost throw that spear, and I saw the sky through you, Arthur." She swallowed. "I saw sky. Through your chest."

"Kara..."

"I keep seeing it. When I close my eyes, and it’s been two days and I keep checking if all of that was actually real." She laughed, a thin, shaky laugh. "Aurora is three weeks old. And she almost lost her father."

He put his arm around her and pulled her into his side. She came without resistance, her face against his chest, her fingers fisted in his shirt.

"You hit me exactly as hard as I needed you to," he said.

"That’s not a comfort."

"It’s the only one I have."

She let out a wet, breathless laugh, and punched him weakly in the ribs.

"I’m sorry, I know my battle tactics aren’t exactly easy to follow..." said Arthur. He said it into her hair, quietly, and he meant it with every part of him. "I’m sorry I made you carry that and I’m sorry I asked you to trust me with your own eyes telling you not to. I’d do it again. I want to be honest about that. But I’m sorry."

"I know you would," said Kara. "That’s the worst part..."

She was quiet for a while. The fire popped. Somewhere above them, in the nursery, a baby made a small contented noise through the monitor on the mantel, and all three of them looked up at it at once, and something in the room eased.

"She’s fine," said Raven softly.

"She’s always fine," said Kara. "That’s what’s so unfair. She has no idea." She wiped her face on his shirt. "Don’t tell her about this. Not until she’s thirty."

"Thirty," Arthur agreed.

Raven snorted into her mug.

George appeared at the study door a short while later, carrying a tray with three mugs of hot chocolate on it and a plate of something that smelled of cinnamon.

"I do not wish to intrude," he said, in the voice of a man who had been standing outside the door for twenty minutes and had made a considered decision. "But I thought some sustenance might be in order."

"George," said Kara, with deep feeling.

"I shall be unavailable until morning," said George. "Whatever the state of the apocalypse. Should the world end in the interim, I have left detailed instructions in the pantry."

"Thank you, George," said Arthur with a smile.

"Not at all, sir." He paused at the door. "Might I say, as a longtime observer of this household, that it is a great relief to have all of you intact."

He withdrew before anyone could respond.

They drank and ate, and they talked about small, silly, ordinary matters. Kara fell asleep against his shoulder somewhere in the middle of an argument. Raven sat curled at his other side with her feet tucked under her, and her head tilted against the sofa’s back, and she watched the fire.

"You’re thinking too loud you know," said Arthur, quietly.

"I’m always thinking too loud."

"It’s usually less pointed."

She was silent for a moment. Then, without moving, she said, "You closed a door earlier."

He didn’t answer.

"When Kara asked what was next. I felt it." Her voice was soft. She turned her head and looked at him. "You’re keeping something from us."

"I’m not keeping it," said Arthur. "I’m not ready to say it yet."

"Is that different?"

"I hope so."

She studied him for a long time. Her gaze was steady and dark and very clear, and he felt, as he often did with her, the odd sensation of being read all the way down. She had always been the one who could see the shape of him. It had bothered him, once. Now he found it was almost a comfort.

"Alright," said Raven at last.

"Alright?"

"Alright. When you’re ready." She settled her head back against the cushion and closed her eyes. "But you do not get to disappear into a closed realm or something and decide on your own that it’s for our own good. We’ve discussed this."

"We have."

"At length."

"I remember."

"Good." She was quiet for a moment. Then, so softly that he almost missed it, she said, "I love you, Arthur."

"I love you too."

Her mouth curved, just slightly, and she was asleep a few minutes later.

Arthur sat for a long time between the two of them, with the fire dying slowly to embers and the house breathing around him. He looked at Kara’s face, soft and unguarded in sleep, and at Raven’s, finally unlined, and at the small green light on the baby monitor glowing steadily on the mantel.

’Whatever comes,’ he thought.

And he did not finish the thought.

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