Hector Ghosh
Three days passed between the vision a warped servant of the Wyrm and the phone call from the Galliard no one has heard from since December. Three days at the end of nearly two weeks where all of Hector's calls went straight to voicemail. She knows he was going to Vancouver and he has a crappy prepaid phone and the Umbra doesn't get reception but he'd also told Lola he would be at most two days after her.
At least Tamsin and Thomas could confirm he was still there. Fog had not lost its grasp on him. They just also couldn't hear him until Thursday.
The conversation was brief and fraught with background noise. He took the bus from Vancouver to Seattle and then he had to run across the building to find the train headed east. Blew through what little cash he had brought with him to buy a ticket and then stood outside bumming cigarettes off of people while blowing up Lola's phone.
"I'm so sorry," he said to her. "Baby I'm so sorry I lost track of time I'll be back on Sunday. I swear. I've got the train ticket in my hand, I'm coming home. I love you. I'm so sorry."
And at least he was back on American soil. At least he could take pictures of things he saw on the train as it took him through Oregon and dumped him off in Sacramento. A three hour layover that he spent talking music and bullshit with a group of aging drifters all of whom the story goes were fresh-divorced and headed to Reno.
The train took him through Nevada and then it took him through Utah and late in the day on Sunday he ran from Union Station to the light rail. At 7:52p.m. on Sunday the last train out of Denver makes its last stop at the downtown Littleton station.
His is the last body off the train. Gone gaunt in the two weeks since Lola last saw him and he looks like he's been awake for the two whole fucking days he's been on the train but it isn't just hunger and sleep deprivation and the mania come from the gibbous moon overhead shone in his eyes. The man could be a spirit-talker with how thin the membrane between this world and the next has grown for him.
His eyes have not gone dark though. His jaws are not set like stone and he does not glower at the world around them. This isn't He Who Waits For Dawn stepping off the train and shouldering his bag and looking around for his woman.
When he sees her and walks towards her Hector bursts into a big stupid grin that's muted only by the knowledge that she's probably going to start crying.
"I am never leaving Colorado again," he says when he's just beyond arm's length of her.
Lola Hawkes
Six text messages and ten phone calls. Five voice mails.
This is what he finds from Lola alone on his phone. The text messages are a standard variety of 'You're a day late, where are you', to 'I hope this reaches you, please answer my calls.' The voice mails were a lot of 'call me backs', but there was one date-stamped January 7th that stands out and pulls cords more than the others. It's recorded with Lola's voice trembling and weak on the other line.
"Hector, please be alive. I saw you... I saw you dead, and something was dragging your body through the snow and it left your guts and arm behind. Tamsin says you're still alive, but it was so real." She was crying at this point, her words shaken by the fact. "Please come home."
When he called her back she was sharp and on edge when she answered the phone. He said he was coming home, and she'd drilled him to know what had happened. She'd get the full story later, but was assured that it was just the Umbra fucking with time again and that he'd be home soon. She would pick him up at the train station. They made their plans, bade their sentiments of love and farewell, and hung up.
--------------------------
At the train station, Lola stood on the platform waiting. It was a cool night, but dry. Lola stood in a long gray skirt that hung near her ankles. There were boots on underneath it, keeping her ankles protected from the cold air. She wore her canvas jacket and a winter hat and scarf to keep warm. There wasn't a large number of people traveling to this point, so the platform was not crowded. Many people would be driving themselves home, or had their rides waiting for them in the warmth of their cars.
Lola, though, stood out and waited for her man to arrive. They found each other at the same time, and while Hector burst into a large grin Lola instead seemed to steel herself. She straightened up and lifted her chin, and did not walk forward to meet him at first. But when he came near her, within seven feet or so, Lola's weight tipped forward and she came to meet him. She hadn't burst out into tears, but her lips were forced still together and her nostrils were flared and her eyes were wet. She wrapped her arms up around his neck and tucked her face close to his neck.
She'd hold him like that for about five seconds without making a sound before finally muttering under his jaw: "Jesus Christ, Hector, I was so sure you were gone."
Hector Ghosh
Not until she starts forward to meet him does Hector pick up speed. Few passengers linger around the platform this time of night. Winter keeps the dark pressed down upon the earth much longer and though Denver and its surrounding areas are not so dangerous as the coastal cities it's difficult to feel safe in darkness.
Most of their battles against the Wyrm take place in darkness. Darkness and the hours of the morning where humans susceptible to corruption linger.
So no one is around to see the two young people meet each other after so long separated and throw their arms around each other. With her arms around his neck Hector has to wrap his around her torso and he does so without hesitation. Pulls her in tight against him and turns his face towards her hair. Eyes aimed out at the darkness so they are not both left vulnerable as they reunite.
Silence does not frighten him. Not after looking at his phone for the first time in nearly two weeks to find that Lola thought he was dead.
"I'm so sorry," he says. Draws a breath in through his nostrils and grasps her tighter. For once he doesn't try to talk her out of being upset. He just holds her.
Lola Hawkes
The scant few people that do exist on the platform see the reunion in different lights. For those that are more cautious, more suspicious-- quicker to flight than fight, they worry quietly but say and do nothing. They see tension in the man's arms around the woman's back and worry that he will squeeze the life from her-- they see his eyes cast out into the dark and find that to be uncomfortably close to a sweep of the surroundings before sinking teeth into the throat of his prey. None of them want to make it their problem if anything does happen, though, so they hurry along. Others are simply content to ignore the strangers like they do anyone else they see between where they left from and where they're trying to go.
One older woman who had shuffled off the train before Hector spied them and found the couple to be perfectly sweet.
She'd seen far too much in her years to be so skittish as the majority.
None of them mattered to Lola, though. She was too wrapped up in impressing upon her mind and soul that Hector was here, and alive. His arm was intact, his guts were still in his body. His ankles weren't snapped and crushed to powder, for he stood tired but strong. She'd told him simply, once she was assured that he was no illusion, that she thought he was dead. He only apologized and tightened his hold. The silence crept up between them again, but not an uncomfortable one. It was time spent remembering and adjusting and enjoying, and didn't need to be anything more.
Lola was the first to recognize that they should move. They'd been standing still, just holding and breathing one another for a full sixty seconds before she pulled her head away from him and loosened her arms away from his neck.
"I'll let you know if the apology's accepted after I get the story."
Though her choice of words is militant and dry, her face is still awash with relief. She's just glad he's home. Maybe she'll be mad later, but not right now.
"C'mon," she nodded her head past her shoulder, where the parking lot was. "You can tell me on the drive home."
Hector Ghosh
When Lola pulls away from him his hands are slow to leave her hips. Idle in his adoration of her. Their turning away to walk has one of his hands trailing over her belly. Like he wants to greet the growing baby too. An irony that he'd spent two months talking to her stomach and it wasn't able to hear, really, until after their ways parted in Muir Woods.
The walk to the car is tense for his wanting to tell her where his been butted up against his having spent the last two days crammed into a passenger train with a bunch of humans who were not happy by his presence. Having to lie to the conductor. Some story about how he was mugged recently and that's why he's using a learner's permit that's nearly four years expired as identification.
Nobody believed that anybody could pull off mugging that kid. From a distance and through a window pane he was young and unkempt and handsome but then the closer anyone got to him the more they realized there was something wrong with him. Like he had old blood staining his clothes or a twitch of murder wanting out in his hands. If his smile reached his eyes no one could look him in them to tell.
He was surrounded by people and felt alone the last two days. Out on the road spreading word about the pit and reuniting with his family wasn't any easier. He felt more alone during the last moon than he ever has in his entire life.
So they walk and Hector keeps his arm around her shoulders while the other hand holds tight to his bag. Not at all like their last walk to the truck from the Denver station. Then too he had had a story to tell her but he had bristled with new grief and had kept from her details that would not surface for another three moons.
This is a bit of a pattern with him.
Once they're inside the Subaru he doesn't set upon her like the brute that he can be but Lola can read the moon overhead and read the distance they've been gone from each other. If he's behaving himself now that won't last long.
"So, uh," he says as they close the doors behind them and negotiate seat belts. "I've got some bad news."
Oh really Hector. With your terrible poker face. What is that.
"Did nobody tell--?" He fights dueling urges to hold her gaze and to look away from her. "While I was gone, some Fostern claimed you."
Lola Hawkes
If anyone can empathize with not wanting to get back into a vehicle, it was Lola. She'd spent the end of December traveling from the Rocky Mountains to the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and back, all in the blue Subaru Forester that they approached together in the parking lot. She knew that he'd been on buses and trains for the past couple of days, and that was all piled on top of all of the traveling by Moon Bridge and car that he'd done before as well. If this were a place worth stretching legs in she would have allowed him more time to do so, but that wasn't the case. The train station had too many ears, too many eyes, so she'd led them back to where she'd parked.
Once back in the Forester, Lola in the driver's seat by custom and Hector to her right, keys went to the ignition and the engine quietly turned and hummed. The vehicle was well maintained, newer and smoother than the truck. By now she was used to it, but initially Lola was thrown off by the lack of chug-chug-rumble that she'd known from the truck she'd been driving since she was able.
Immediately, though the air was actually still cold on their skin, the vehicle felt warm and small and close. Hector's Rage, his Spirit, his very Being had that impact and filled up small spaces quickly. Those less able to withstand the force of him would tremble or press into corners when this happened on the train, or switch cars altogether if the option was available. To the perfect contrary, Lola seemed comforted by it. She'd breathed deep through her nose and looked over at Hector when he'd started with a 'So, uh' preamble.
When he said he had bad news, the muscle-memory motions of putting the car into gear and pulling out of the parking space were stalled. Hand on the gear shift, Lola stared over at him and waited for the pause to pass and the bad news to come. For a brief snap in time Hector may have reconsidered even presenting his news in such a manner. Lola looked steeled and ready, like she was expecting there to be genuinely Bad News. Like that there was an army crawling across the Umbra from the West and that it would meet them in three day's time.
Instead, it seemed that some Fostern has tried to lay claim to her.
Lola stared at him intently when he'd delivered his 'bad news'. Her gaze was hard, jaw set and lips pressed together while she processed the news. Perhaps it was all of the relief and exhaustion and questions rolling together at once in her head that let Hector's terrible poker face fool her, but she believed him and made a 'Harumph' noise before putting the car in reverse, slinging her arm around the back of his seat, and backing up out of her parking space. When the car was put into drive and they were moving forward, out of the parking lot and back onto the road, she answered him with conviction in her tone.
"Yeah, well, words are one thing and actions are another." She sounded like she had no patience to spare for this, and was stubbornly matter-of-fact in her tone. "Some fucker wants to try and lay claim let him. Let him come and try to collect. I'll send him home having to hold his tail between his legs with both hands."
Hector Ghosh
He hasn't had much good news to give her the last six months. All of his news has been related to the death of her sister. The additions of new packmates ought to have been a thing to celebrate but it was also a reminder that life moves on even after the deaths of those who are most important.
After all of that though he remains a poor liar. Hector bites down on his lower lip to keep from laughing but in the end all he can come up with is:
"He had a pretty compelling argument. It's his baby you're carrying."
Come on, Hector. Out with it.
"I'm sorry. Baby, they recognized my rank while I was in Vancouver. I'm Fostern now."
Lola Hawkes
That Hector had to bring his lip between his teeth to keep from laughing outright was a tell enough. This alone had Lola raising her eyebrow and casting her gaze at him skeptically. By the time he'd said that she was carrying the challenger's baby, the suspicion and tension had slipped back out of her shoulders and arms (but it could be noted that for a second she'd squeezed the steering wheel even harder, flashed some conclusion and heat in her eyes, all strong even if only very brief).
She calmly switched the blinker, turned onto the main road that would take them out to the highway to leave town, and cast her head forward again.
"Oh." She'd answered at first before the chuckling apology came. "Well, that's hard to argue with."
For a moment, a fleeting moment, the face of a square-jawed Glass Walker Ahroun had started to form in the searching shade of her mind. It had slammed adrenaline and insult and worry through her frame with the same force that being startled from around a dark corner will do. She was a healthy woman, her heart rate came back down and found its rhythm by the time Hector'd continue on to explain that he accomplished his rank as Fostern while he was in Vancouver.
Lola blinked at him, then smirked and nodded and looked back at the road. Though the actual physical smile on her face was small and quirked, it showed proud across her whole face and the smirk was only angled as such because the expression overall was very I should have known. Because she should have-- she did what she could to keep her finger on the pulse of the Garou of the Sept as much as any Cliath would be doing.
"Congratulations, though. It was about damn time-- you were overdue for that rank, if you ask me."
They'd take another turn and find themselves on the highway that would take them away from towns and out away from people, to the gravel road that would eventually turn to dirt ruts in the landscape to lead out to the log house that they called home.
"Is that what you were doing that got you caught up and lost from time?"
All in all, Lola seemed to swallow the concept of time traveling differently on the Other Side. It would be surprising at first, but then one would have to remember she grew up with an accomplished Spirit Talker for a mother. Absences of this sort were not a new thing to her.
Hector Ghosh
By the time Lola circles back around from shame to pride Hector has realized what it was that cast that short-lived pall over his joke and started thinking about that same certain Glass Walker.
Not even a month has passed since he stopped in Houston to tell the urban sept of what was happening in Denver and spoke with the male who led Celduin after Willow's death. Though he left that sept having forgiven Corey for the damage done and apologized for his own part in destroying what was left of the pack no mention of Lola's trip to Las Vegas came up. Neither of them wanted to go there. It wasn't relevant. They were not friends anymore and that incident all but assures they never will be again.
If he asks her he was overdue for that rank.
Hector has his thumbnail between his teeth and his eyes aimed out the window by the time she asks if that was what he was doing that had him on the other side for so long. Doesn't seem as though he's paying attention to the conversation any longer. Easy enough to blame it on his tenuous attachment to reality but his mind was occupied even before he left the state. Everything he had to do laid out before him and nothing he did in the last month has borne fruit. He won't know until he goes into the city tomorrow morning that no word has come back from any of the septs he visited.
"Yeah." He takes his thumbnail out of his mouth to answer proper but his voice isn't any louder for being unobstructed. "A water Jaggling was trying to summon these twin Theurges who were in the same pack only everyone in the sept ignored them when they said they were having dreams. The brother was unconscious for a day and a half and everybody was like 'It's just a couple of dumb-ass Cliaths who cares?' After I told a couple of Adrens what was going on here they asked if I would stay and help a lawgiver look into it. Long story short, the Jaggling insisted I meet it by myself and everybody thought I was dead when I didn't come back across."
He scrubs his face and looks at her again. When he blinks his eyes grit from having been open too long.
"I wasn't dead," he says. Like that undoes the fact that he was gone for ten fucking days and no one knew where he was.
Lola Hawkes
After a night of confessions and yelling and tears and Actual Death, Lola and Hector had more or less aired any business they had concerning Corey Seger between themselves. Like bleeding the poison from a wound, they'd gotten everything out and splashed ugly on the gravel before they'd come together to rest and heal. That topic had required a break for Hector to go spend his fury in the folds of the spiritual night, and he'd come back from his first brush with Death. That it was something that had pushed the Galliard to a point of burying his teeth in something that would kill him so that he himself would not spend fury upon his woman said the topic was one to kill and bury and leave alone.
They didn't talk about the Glass Walker. They didn't discuss the small percentage of a chance that the baby could come out with light skin and eyes. Lola didn't mention to Hector that she spoke on the phone with Corey every so often and maintained a friendship with him, distant though it was required to be.
She would go to Corey if he called needing help, just as she would to Tamsin or Thomas or even Milton (even if that Glass Walker was a proper pain in her neck, he'd reached to brace and support her when she wept into her arms convinced of her mate's demise). Though she was confident that Hector would do the same, there was no reason to say so.
It's for this reason that although both knew the shameful bloom of worry and heat in Lola's chest, neither spoke of it aloud and they moved on to other things.
"Clearly," Lola said with that small grin still hanging to her lips. Clearly he wasn't dead, that is. As for the Sept thinking he was dead.. "Yeah, they sent a message back here to let us know. Tamsin and Thomas debunked it, because they could still feel you through Fog like they do, but it was sure uncomfortable to come home and find a spirit had left a message hanging in the living room air." The message had reached Lola the night that she'd gone home from firing bullets into a Wyrmling. She'd had to call Tamsin back to make sure that Hector was still there for a second time within three hours.
The rest of the story was accepted for what it was. It was the tale of a pack at another Sept that Lola probably would not be visiting. What was important was that Hector had done what a Sept was ignoring and he'd earned his rank for it.
"You haven't missed a whole lot. The Septs are still recovering-- I haven't heard anything more about the Pit or the Spire Sept's revival. Milton and Keisha and that Silver Fang Theurge that runs with Erich and I-- we all found and killed some Wyrmling that I think was luring people in and.. I don't know, eating them probably. Aside from that.." She shrugged. January seemed to be the month for hibernation, and she was perfectly okay with letting the Septs and city be peaceful while they would.
Hector Ghosh
All they could have said about the topic of Corey and the possibility of the child being his they had gone over already. Small though the chance is Hector did goad her into stating aloud that she wanted the baby and she wanted to raise it with him. Nothing signed or witnessed but even if its skin is light he will stay with her and be its father.
They know they won't know until summertime. Corey's intrusion passes wordless and then they move on.
Hector flinches when Lola tells him she came home from fighting a creature to find a message telling her he'd gone missing. Having said nothing of a woman back home to the Guardians or to Leads-by-Showing did not prevent them from assuming such a woman did exist. As young and capable as he is it would have been a strangeness if he were not attached, they must have figured.
"Seriously?" he asks. "Nothing's happened at all?" He is not at all okay with the notion of peace, it seems. Peace isn't anything he ever really knew as a Cliath and that isn't about to change just because he's recognized as Fostern now. "It's almost been three months, that's more than enough time for Beloved Horror to've gone on a hardcore recruiting spree. We should have gone after them that night. Waiting around like this is stupid."
Lola Hawkes
"Baby, I couldn't agree with you more."
Hector knew that if Lola had her way there would have been a hunting party sent out for Beloved Horror long ago-- much as would have been the case if things went Hector's way. She would have gone along with if she could, and put bullets in the brains of monsters to make sure that they would never rise again. But, Lola couldn't do any of that. She knew what was and was not allowed as a Kinfolk, and going along with hunting parties to follow Beloved Horror certainly wouldn't be approved of-- especially not in her current matronly state. She couldn't attend the moots either, so she hadn't the ability to raise her voice along with his before the Sept to declare that action needs to be taken.
So, instead, she did what she could: She supported Hector and his pack, she killed the Wyrm wherever she found it, and she kept the Homestead and the Bawn safe.
----------------
The drive back home isn't nearly so long or terrible as it is when coming from Denver. After traveling such great distances as they have, going back home from Littleton feels as though it takes no time at all. Before they have time to become too cramped in the car, the Forester is rolling along dirt ruts in the ground and pulling to a stop in front of the shed that Lola used for most everything except cars.
She is quick to get out of the vehicle, as Hector no doubt must be. Returning home after being gone for so long had to be a relief and a thoughtful one at that for the Galliard. Since leaving his human life behind (whether he liked it or not), how often has he felt relief after traveling because he laid eyes upon a place he could recognize as home? The house was modest and plain and crafted of logs, but it was comfortable and sturdy and strong and theirs.
"I'd been keeping busy while you were gone," she said over the hood of the car to him. She didn't really look sheepish, but there's just the barest hint to her tone that makes it seem like she's amping up to defend herself or playing something off. "Had to keep my mind off worry, and the ground's useless this time of year, so I did what I could with the nursery."
Hector Ghosh
Even with times being as they are Lola would be hard-pressed to find a Gaian willing to permit her to go along on hunting missions even if she were not known to be pregnant. The rest of the Nation has known of Echoes of the Lost's expecting a child since the November moot when he stood up and told the story of how a group of Kinfolk and a strange Fang Theurge managed to exorcise a Bane from a woman who was otherwise doomed to fall as a Fomor.
Possibly earlier than November. Just before the battle at Cold Crescent he had soundly thrashed Pokes the Mind's Eye. Everybody eventually found out about that. Heavy as his Rage is Hector is not known for either his temper or his violence. He is a brave fighter and survived two brushes with death last year but public perception of the male is that he is even-tempered and honorable. It made sense that the fight happened though. Public perception being accurate or not had nothing to do with the fact that Milton was in charge of that mission and his negligence almost cost the Nation a life.
She is more than just a warm body. Their numbers are dwindling and fewer trueborn are coming into the world these days. Her battle prowess and her tenacity make Lola an asset in combat situations but everyone knows what the Black Spiral Dancers do to Kinfolk they capture. Rape and dismemberment are the best anyone taken by them can hope for.
Sometimes Hector has bad dreams but that's to be expected. He's seen things his brain can only process when it isn't occupied with other things.
Once they pull off the highway Hector reaches across the car to rest his hand on Lola's thigh but he does not seek to provoke her while she's negotiating the roads that wind past the parks. He moves stiff as they climb out of the car at the Homestead. Too much time has passed with him cramped inside vehicle seats and he looks as though he's dead on his feet and ready to let himself drop to the grass. Lola has never seen relief flood him like this.
Returning to his parents' house was not the same as returning home. Nothing was left for him in his human life and his parents and sisters all realize something has changed in him. They know he's alive and they know he's gone. He has a baby on the way.
Lola tells him she did what she could with the nursery and all the weight and worry of the last month vanishes from him. Like Gaia's breath broken over him Hector draws a deep renewed breath and looks at her with eyes no longer exhausted.
"What'd you do?" he asks. Flicks his gaze towards the front door and takes up her hand like to tug her inside. "No no, wait. Show don't tell."
Lola Hawkes
Since Hector's been gone it hasn't snowed too much. There were a few days with decent snowstorms that blew through, but overall the snow where left undisturbed shone with a thin glaze of ice on top from the sun melting and the night refreezing. There are paths cut out to the shed, and two well-beaten walkways that led away from the house and out into the landscape, one in either direction.
She'd been making a point of continuing her patrols when she'd returned home. The cold hadn't been too severe, not like what had happened on the east coast and through the midwest. The cloak kept her warm and her energy was up. She'd taken to visiting with Eddie for the first five days or so that Hector was late getting back, but beyond that point worry and discord had set in and Lola just wanted to be left alone.
It was unsurprising to find that Lola busied herself as a coping mechanism for worry. If Hector had been missing for weeks on end instead of a week and a half the Kinfolk might have tried to build an addition onto the house (and probably called some of the White Fianna boys to come help, she was no carpenter after all). All that she had time for, it seemed, was one room.
"Just fixed the walls and window up, really," was Lola's dismissive answer, but it did nothing to dampen Hector's spirits for being able to nestle back into home and think about the coming of his child instead of what he had been doing for the past month. They went into the house, Lola shucked her boots and coat, and would trail along after Hector were he to bee-line it to the room across from theirs at the end of the short hallway.
For clarity's sake: this house is old. It's been there since pre-twentieth century. Or, parts of it anyways. For how old it was, at no point had it ever been vacant. There's always been someone from her mother's line living here, which meant it was always looked after, maintained, and repaired. When families lived here that grew larger in number, the place was built onto. This was how the open living/kitchen area and the loft were borne. Where walls used to be nothing but log, they'd since been reinforced and drywalled.
So, fixing the nursery up was simple. Since he'd been gone, Lola had somehow managed to remove the full-sized guest bed that used to be in there-- it was probably upstairs in the loft where all things stored away could be found. The floors were scrubbed and the hardwood polished. New trim was put up, and the walls were painted some dark shade of gray that Lola had taken to. No pinks, no blues. Dresser, wardrobe, and tables were set up functionally about the room, but there was no crib yet.
No decorations, but it sure looked neat and clean anyways.
Hector Ghosh
The impression the rest of Forgotten Questions has of Lola's mate is that he is brave and loyal and passionate. That even when he sits tight-jawed and hard-eyed during the Cracking of the Bone for not wanting to discuss what is going on in the basement of that failed attempt at an urban sept he will still rise up and lend his assistance if he's asked for it.
His line all autumn was that he did not want to get involved with the urban sept unless it was to track down Beloved Horror and identify the portals in the basements of the Broadway building and the Denver airport. These things he could do by himself but he has been waiting for those who are actually invested in the sept's success to ready themselves for such a task.
All this waiting has left them more than two months gone from the events surrounding Raspberry Sky's death and the halving of Beloved Horror. Hector is doing his own waiting outside of combat and politics. They don't know when their baby will arrive but they have two seasons ahead of them at least. It's more than enough time to prepare and yet time is getting away from them.
Easy enough to switch from complaining about the inactivity in the car to grabbing her hand outside the cabin. It is a beeline. Nothing in the kitchen interests him and they have to pass the master bedroom to reach what will be the nursery. He slings his knapsack into the bedroom and locks his arm around Lola's waist as they peer in over the threshold.
It smells of fresh paint and free air. He draws a deep breath as they look in at what used to be storage for things no one would come to claim. Huffs out a breath at the realization that she had gotten the bed's frame and mattress out of here on her own.
"Whoa," he says in a hush. Rubs her hip as he leans in to see what's in the corner. "We're gonna have to move all this stuff, huh? So I can build a crib?"
He doesn't know a whole hell of a lot about carpentry but Lola's seen him whittle a flute and put together a bow so far. A crib can't be too far outside the realm of his learning ability.
Lola Hawkes
Lola was content to stand in the doorway of the freshly painted room for a moment, Hector's arm about her thickening waist and hand rested on her hip through the half-sleeved charcoal colored dress she was wearing. It was easy to imagine standing this same way while staring wide-eyed at a little black-haired infant, feeling profound and terrified all at once. Then she started to think that the summer wasn't very far away at all. That it was 2014 and January was nearing its middle already. How fast time had whipped by since Celduin had first come back into town a pack of two with sad and terrible news to bear as well as wounds to lick and heal.
He said that he was going to build a crib, and her impulse was to laugh (because really, how much furniture has a boy from San Jose ever had to build from scratch?), but she did have the bow that she tested and tried to practice with twice out in the shed while Hector was away, and that damn flute is still laying around here somewhere as well. So the laugh was set aside for a consenting nod of her head. "I think we can find time for that. I was thinking to go to the swap in Boulder sometime to find a rocker too." She figured it was more important than a stroller could ever hope to be in their lives. Soothing an upset infant was bound to be a frequent task when the moon were as heavy as it was tonight.
Which led to the thought of how Hector's presence had filled the car, how his hand had set on her leg while they drove, how it was at her hip now and how he felt warm and alive at her side. She settled her hand overtop of his and looped her arm around his waist and tucked herself more firmly into his side.
She'd encourage him back to the bedroom, and from there they'd play out the spirits in his eyes and the passion of the moon in his bones.
-----------------------------------
Some hours later they were in the kitchen.
They'd come together and showered (independently or together as well), and Lola had insisted on cooking. She made a stew of rabbit and vegetables, for the nights were cold and this one was no exception. She'd redressed in a skirt and shirt and socks and had been hovering near the stove while waiting for the stew to finish. She stood leaned back against the counter with the heels of her hands on its edge.
"Hector," she spoke through a mutual, content quiet between them. "At the next moot... If those fuck-offs at the Spire Sept haven't gotten to it on their own, you need to guide them to scope out the airport."
Hector Ghosh
"A rocker's probably a good idea."
That was as far as he got with that thought. As far as he's gotten in his reading of the stack of books that Anthony gave them. He has not been reading ahead in part because he can hardly find ten minutes in the day to sit and read one chapter but mostly because he has never done well with the future. Preoccupation and planning are not his strong suits.
His father had said something to that effect while they were stood in the kitchen. An argument brewed overhead. In his father's mind he was still as irresponsible and immature now as he was four years ago but it's not his place to criticize him anymore. Even if it were, his own son intimidates him with his presence and the seething animalism beneath his skin.
Until their firstborn arrives they won't know just how terrified his presence will make their children. The first one may be stronger or weaker than the rest. No point dwelling on it when the day they become parents instead of expectant will arrive.
She draws him back into the bedroom. It doesn't take much effort to seduce him. The effort is always in moving him from where they stand.
---
Afterwards he was reenergized and spent both. Went into the shower with her because two days apart was enough to have him wrapping himself up in her. Two weeks was the longest they'd been gone from each other since he came back from Winnipeg. He joins her in the kitchen in jeans and a long-sleeved t-shirt. His hair is damp and shiny from its shampooing.
He's at the island drinking juice the way some men drink beer. Beer isn't much of an option for him anymore. His eyebrows go up when she says his name and back down again when she says what needs to happen at the next moot.
"About that."
Uh oh. He puts down his glass and braces himself on the countertop.
"Last month a bunch of people stood up and said they were willing to risk... pretty much everything... if it meant it would reopen Cold Crescent as a sept. Not just an outpost or a building we'd have to level eventually."
Hector wasn't a deliberate orator as a Cliath. He's going to have to learn how to speak as intelligent and impassioned as he acts. Galliards don't get to be Adrens on the strength of their claws and tales alone. And he wouldn't have said 'we' if he were referring to Forgotten Questions.
He takes a deep breath before he says:
"I didn't agree to go to all those septs on behalf of Forgotten Questions. I went for those fuck-offs." He swipes his hair back from his face. "So, yeah. When the next moon happens, we'll have to have that conversation."
Lola Hawkes
The look on Hector's face and how he segues into what he's about to say gives Lola pause. She looked at him with a hawk-sharp gaze and an expression that was nearly warning him. She didn't want to hear something bad, but at the same time it was a gaze that was hard to get out from under. It said 'tell me what happened'.
As he spoke, she slowly adjusted how she was settled against the counter. Her hands moved away from bracing herself against its edge so she could cross her arms under her chest. Granted, the difference wasn't drastic, but for someone who had a daily ritual devoted to speaking to an infant growing within her stomach, Hector would be able to tell the time that he'd lost in how more apparent the swell to her stomach was. There was no doubting that she was anything but pregnant now, she could only hope to cover it with a heavy coat or her cloak. Folding her arms against her shirt like that drew attention to this fact.
When he'd finished, she didn't flash hot and begin to yell. Quite the contrary, and perhaps this is worse for how deliberate it appears.
The Kinfolk stood up straight, away from the counter, with her stocking feet planted on the hardwood floor. Arms still crossed, she leveled a stare that may as well be a physical hold.
"I'm not quite sure what you're getting at here. Hector, be clear, which Sept are you calling yours now?"
Hector Ghosh
Their tribe specializes in gray areas. A morality born of knowing better than the others what breeds in the shadows. Doesn't make it any easier to deal with moments like this when it's clear Hector has something to tell her but he won't just start from the beginning. His strength as a storyteller comes from his ability to divorce himself from the narrative but it also doubles back to serve as a hindrance.
One day he'll either stop making decisions that he doesn't feel the need to divulge right away or he'll learn better how to own them that he won't be stood in front of Lola like this. Caught in omissions of information and knowing he ought to have told her sooner.
But just as Lola doesn't flash with anger neither does he grow pale with shame.
"At the moot," he says, "the same people who've been saying they want to keep it open stood up and said they would reopen it themselves. Without the elders' support. People like Javed, and Erich and his pack. The elders all gave up on that place already. Their answer was to just keep bodies inside the building to fight off attacks and live with the fact that they had no clue what it is. I'm being clear: this is bullshit. People way stronger and smarter and higher-ranked than any of us already decided they'd had enough and decided to just live with it."
He's getting himself all wound up thinking about the situation and he hasn't answered her question yet.
"I'm not going to sit here," he goes on, and points towards the northeast corner of the house, "and let those boneheads make the same mistakes everybody else made. If Beloved Horror tears through them, then they'll get at whatever's in that basement, and then we're all fucked." He puts his hands back on the countertop and blows out a breath. "I stood with those Spire Sept fuck-offs at the moot and said I'd help reopen it on the condition that we figure out what's in the basement and kill Beloved Horror. Once this is over I'm coming back to Forgotten Questions. Alright?"
Lola Hawkes
It's difficult to predict how Lola would react to hearing that her mate had switched allegiances from the Sept of Forgotten Questions to the struggling, fallen, and trying to stand Sept of Cold Crescent. She was a woman proud of her family history, of her heritage and her home. They all mingled into one concept for her-- protecting the Bawn and keeping this Sept safe was what she'd considered her life's duty to be for a long time. She'd never approved of the Cold Crescent Sept, for it didn't have a Caern to protect and it made no sense to her to have a full and independent society operating within the city when they should be devoted and paying mind to the spiritual heart that existed to the southwest.
Were she younger, and had she not been tempered by the experiences she's had since Celduin blew back into town, she would have no doubt reacted irrationally. She would have yelled about loyalty and refused to listen to excuses or reasoning behind the decision. She was a woman of strong convictions, and she would defend those however she needed.
But here, today, she stood and listened and more importantly <i>heard</i> what was said. For Hector she would do this, at least. It's yet to be determined if she'd learned to extend this same courtesy to people less entrenched in her life, less capable of understanding how she reacted and operated overall.
So, instead of fighting and baring her teeth and yelling, she simply nodded her head and turned her back to him-- not to end the conversation, but to lift the lid on the pot and check the stew.
"Alright."
At first that's all she says. She concedes, and it seemed at first that this was precisely where she was going to let the matter lie. But, after stirring and checking a potato chunk's consistency by jabbing it with her wooden spoon, she added:
"You know I can't switch my alliances, though. For now... We're gonna be split between Septs. However that changes or impacts things, I don't know right now. Hopefully it won't matter."
Hector Ghosh
Braced for a fight as he was Hector looks shocked when his confession is met with acceptance. Or he would look shocked if Lola were turned to look at him. She can't read the expression on his face with hers turned towards the stove but she has known him for a good amount of time now. When the tension goes out of it she can all but hear it. He lets out the breath he had not fully released and sinks down into the chair that had thus far been at his side and ignored.
Thank Gaia he does not say as he rakes his damp hair back from his brow and sits to watch her stir the stew.
That single word is not all she has to say about the matter. Lola explains her position and Hector straightens up as she goes on.
"It doesn't matter," he says. Preparation for argument gone out of him his tone is mild. She can hear what his time back home and up along the Pacific coast has done to his voice. He normally speaks with a vague coastal accent but his vowels are more fluid now than they were before. His tone has nothing to do with his accent though. It's mild and reassuring for the brevity of the sentence it supports. "I just... I can't not do anything. You know? Even if I weren't aligning myself with them until this is over, I'd still be up there all the time trying to sort out the portal and get a lock on where Beloved Horror is. It's not like I'm moving into the Broadway building, either. It'll be alright."
Lola Hawkes
He wasn't wrong to be braced for a fight, really. Up until recently that was how many of their hard conversations were handled. When Lola told Hector that she'd visited his old Alpha they'd fought. When they had to talk about Lola trying to pick a fight with an Ahroun on a full moon in the middle of a park, they fought. When the pit of her belly had gone cold and sick with realization and they discussed probability and the baby's parentage, they'd fought hard enough to make the toughened Kinfolk cry.
It was absolutely reasonable to expect the same when trying to defend a decision to switch Septs.
That no fight came could be for any number of reasons that Hector could think of. Lola might have learned to grow up more, tying her life around another person's and learning to forge a life with them could do that after all. Or she could simply be making an honest, concentrated effort to <i>act</i> more grown up. Patience was a muscle that she'd flexed and tested much through the last month and a half, so it could be that she was just getting better at holding in her knee-jerk reaction.
It could also be that his informing her the switch was purely temporary was saving him from the real earful.
Either way, they continue without raised voices or scorched tempers. Lola lifted the wooden spoon from the pot to taste progress, and apparently decided that it was good enough because she followed up by fetching a pair of bowls and a ladle. The bowls were brought over to the counter, spoons put in them. One was set in front of Hector where he'd sat on the stool. Lola opted to remain standing in the kitchen and set up to eat at the counter, right across from Hector.
"I wouldn't ask you to sit by and do nothing. You've never done that to me, after all." Her eyes flicked up from her bowl to land on his face, and a small grin that situated itself more dominantly in one corner of her mouth than the other was shown. "Means that you'll keep me in the loop, too."
Her spoon swirled about the stew. Rabbit, potato, an assortment of vegetables, some spices. It was hardy without being impressive, as was the case with much of Lola's cooking. Utilitarian and perfectly edible. "I've been thinking to go check out the airport myself, honestly. Maybe bring Milton-- he's got a way to get past all kinds of locked doors and alarms."
Hector Ghosh
Just what he wants. His pregnant mate kept in the loop so she can go gallivanting off with her gun loaded. Her acquiescence based on being kept in the loop has Hector laughing a tired laugh like that's going to be the end of the conversation. The steam from the stew is enough to remind him of his physical exhaustion even if the night outside is still nattering at him.
Four walls and a roof are more substantial than a train car loaded with anxious humans but his skin itches with unspent energy all the same. The train stopped every eight hours or so to let the conductor get off and switch with his relief. People would go out onto the platform to smoke and Hector could wander across the tracks to stretch his legs but he couldn't go far. Thirty minutes was all the stillness they had and most of the places they stopped led off into the desert. No woods nearby and the Weaver turned the Gauntlet to concrete.
More than once he bummed a cigarette off a couple of middle-aged French ladies he wasn't entirely sure weren't Kinfolk based on their blasé attitude towards him. Or maybe they were Hunters. He couldn't tell. He just smoked their cigarettes and avoided eye contact.
Now he's home and he looks as if he'd be content to prop his chin on the heel of one hand and talk about inconsequential things now that they've gotten that out of the way. Then Lola goes on. She wants to go check out the airport. Maybe bring Milton.
Needle-thin shards of anxiety swim up his spine and thread anger through him on their way up to his head. The red haze of memory has his eyes unblinking and his jaw taut. Hector sits up straight and frowns as he rubs at his left shoulder with his right hand.
That battle scar is not near as impressive as the one on his right side that aches when the weather turns on them and has taken away what was left of his alcohol tolerance. With the exception of the thickened tissue where his bones once snapped through the muscle and fur the damage to his shoulder is largely internal. Bones and nerves grown back odd.
Sometimes he thinks it's all in his head. When he realizes what he's doing Hector frowns harder and wrenches his hand away from its ministrations.
"Yeah, well," he says, "I told him he'd better start bringing healing talens with him when he knows he's doing recon with you. If you end up in the hospital again because his answer to 'I went on a mission with a kinswoman and shit went south' is 'Take her to a hospital!' I'm going to fucking kill him."
Lola Hawkes
Lola had been looking down at her bowl to pay attention to where her spoon was going while she ate. Though she wasn't looking up to see Hector tense and his expression change, she could still sense the ripple of discomfort, pressed forward by Rage, as it coursed and trembled its way through the room. In her peripherals she saw him shift about and rub at his bad shoulder, then straighten up and consciously move his hand away from what it had been doing.
The tone of his voice told her clearly that he didn't care for the idea-- not the fact that she'd be actively pursuing information and possible danger, but the fact that she would choose to go with the Ragabash of all people. Not for reasons that some may expect men to have when their woman wants to run off alone on adventures with another man, though. Hector could hardly host any concern that Lola would leave him for the Glass Walker, even if that might tickle Pokes the Mind's Eye pink and occasionally inhabit his wild action star fantasies.
She glanced up to him, leaving the spoon still in the bowl for the time being. Traced his frown with her eyes and then settled her hands on the counter to stand up straighter.
"Oh, I know what ya told him. And how ya told him." For some reason the structure of the words seem like they should be scolding, but her tone was bland and to look at her she didn't seem to really care whether Milton got his shit kicked in or not. Clearly he survived it unchanged-- for better or worse.
"I know he fucked up with that, but everything turned out alright, didn't it?" She said, clearly under the impression that loss of limb and life was something that she was supposed to be brushing elbows with on a regular basis. As though having to go through emergency surgery to save her life was no big deal at all. "He's worth what weight he has if he shuts the fuck up-- useful in ways that Glass Walkers can be, in their own element. He's the first place I'd go if I needed information or eyes or eyes in any part of the city that's got security systems in place. Like an airport."
She finally returned her attention to her food and took another spoonful of stew up, but added before filling her mouth with food: "Couldn't I just bring some talens? Instead of relying on him to supply?"
Hector Ghosh
Despite the nearness of the stew and the gnawing in his stomach where two days on a train and two weeks in the Umbra had left an emptiness Hector is not setting upon supper with the voraciousness she knows would take him over any other time. Of all the times they could have this conversation his first night back with the moon fat overhead is not the best but of all the infuriating disagreements they've had he has never frenzied on her. Never even come close.
The only time he's ever come close to frenzying he was in the downtown library with Tamsin and she had had to escort him to the restrooms in hopes that he would pull himself back together before he wrecked a piece of public property and punched a security guard in the face. That time he yelled at a driver and nearly hauled the poor bastard out from behind the wheel but for Lola's intervention was not the fault of his Rage. That was that side of him that has grown protective of her since the hospital breakout.
Everything turned out alright, didn't it?
Hector snorts an unhappy snort and rakes his fingers through his hair again to give himself something to occupy his hand that will not be easily thrown if the conversation takes the turn he thinks it will. And he's willing to concede that Milton is useful. For kicking the stuffing out of him the Galliard has also stood up in front of the sept and praised the Ragabash for his inventiveness and quick thinking when dealing with technology.
Then she asks a question and Hector laughs a laugh no more contented than that snort and rests his elbows on the countertop. Presses the heels of his hands into his eye sockets.
"What's the point in bringing them if you can't use them?" he asks. He takes his hands away from his eyes and laughs that laugh again before he gets to his feet again. "Don't you think I would have given you a gourd that night you went to scope out Fentress's office if you could have--?"
Reel it in, Ghosh. He takes a deep breath like a portent of an impending explosion and puts his hands on his hips like that's going to keep him from lashing out if he can't talk himself calm again.
"Even urrah have a connection to their spirit half, you know? It lets them cross the Gauntlet and call on blessings they've earned. Some talens and fetishes you can use just by concentrating. That necklace I gave you, the one that looks like a whistle and would go fetch the nearest Garou if you broke it? Or the herbs that make you stronger. Those are things I made you because you can use them. The spirits I bind to those objects are easy to talk into it. That's what talens are, you know? Contracts between the binder and the spirit. Those gourds I make, the spirits bound up in them won't answer you if you just concentrate. It goes against their nature, being bound up like that. You have to pay them back. It draws off a Garou's energy. That connection we all have. Some Kinfolk have it but they're really fucking rare. So... no. You can't just bring some fucking talens. He would have to be the one to crack the gourd open--"
He'd calmed himself down with his pedantry but now he's getting wound up again. Lola can see it when he gestures towards the northeast corner of the house again.
"--and if he doesn't have the sense to bring them in the first place I don't even trust him to think to use one if you end up bleeding out again!"
Lola Hawkes
Since Hector had stepped off the train just before 8:00pm earlier this evening, Lola had been mellow if nothing else. She had made the decision to give Hector the night back to just settle back in and be happy to be home. He brought with him good news-- he'd been recognized as a Fostern while he was away-- earned his rank, gave himself more say-so in the decision making that was going on with the Spire Sept and its approach to the dangers that lay in the basement. Both of them, Hector and Lola alike, had done well to respect the peace of the first night home. Reveling in one another, showering off the sweat that would follow, eating something warm and comfortable before bed.
Leave it to Lola to find the topic that mixes it up. It hadn't been the confession of switching loyalties to do it, much to even Lola's own surprise. It was the topic of Milton and healing talens and future adventures.
The lecture that followed from Hector about talens and how they operate was listened to quietly, not interrupted, but the more he went on the more the soft edges to Lola's attitude fell away, the more her irritation rose. He got to the point of talking about paying back spirits with energy when Lola let her spoon rest in her bowl so she could cross her arms over her chest instead. She stood up straight, frowning and listening alike.
When he finished, she waited a few seconds as though making sure that he didn't have anything else that he wanted to add. Her expression didn't change, but even without canted eyebrows or pointed stares the quiet still had the feeling of 'Are you quite finished?' to it.
"I know that I can't use healing talens myself, Hector. I'm a Kinfolk, but I learned some shit before my birthright was brought to my attention. What I'd meant was that if I carried 'em, I could slap them into the hands of a Garou and get them to use it in case of emergency." Her tone was cool and her words spoken slow, like keeping her speed of speech down would keep her temper from flaring up and running away with her.
"I'm not gonna discount someone's usefulness because they fucked up once. Yeah, he neglected to bring healing talens, but he also killed the thing and got me into hands that could keep me alive when his couldn't." She paused here, and Hector could sense her confidence slipping just a little bit. Not because she lacked conviction or belief of what she was expressing, but because she hadn't gotten much further than this in her mind. She wasn't sure how to close her argument.
She tried anyways.
"I'm not gonna just sit and let the City Wolves fail to do their fuckin' job. I'm not gonna let any feelings Forgotten Question might have about letting 'em drown get us all killed either. If everyone else is going to put their faces in the pit in the basement and completely disregard the one at the airport, then fuck 'em. I'll get it taken care of instead."
Hector Ghosh
What Lola had meant was Hector's bone of contention. Though he'd lowered the accusing finger that pointed towards the city like the entire municipality was responsible for Milton's behavior now he was standing with his hands planted on his hips again. Breathing hard through his nose like that's the only way to keep himself from blowing up.
Even with Luna calling to him the way She does he hadn't spent the entirety of the ride back from Vancouver dreading reuniting with Lola. He had no reason to. He had not seen her in two weeks and she had thought him dead. Left him text messages and voicemails. Called his packsister crying and unsettled looking to confirm the vision she had had. He heard about that. He hadn't died. What that monster made her see had no true basis in reality other than it had somehow locked onto the only thing in the world that could strike crippling fear into her.
Lola isn't discounting the Ragabash's usefulness and Hector is about grinding his teeth to keep himself from interrupting her. Though her confidence slips and it becomes clear she didn't know how to end her argument without giving him a chance to retaliate he reads that in her. He's gotten better at reading her these past few months. So he stands like that all rawboned murderous limbs and fire in the eyes and he lets her find her own end.
"For crying out loud, Lola," he says like for the first time he's admitting to his weariness, "I just got back. I didn't even stop at the Broadway building before I got on the train to come home. We're going to check out the airport, alright? Just..."
He covers his eyes not to keep a strong show of emotion from her but to let himself blink the grit out of them without her seeing. When he drops his hand he eyes the chair he'd abandoned and the bowl before it but he doesn't trust himself to sit down just yet.
"All I'm trying to say is, you're not Garou. It isn't your responsibility to bring healing talens on a mission. He knew beforehand he was going with you, he didn't bring any, and you can dance around it all you fucking want but you could have died that night. He and I already had this conversation and he said he'd fucking bring talens the next time. Why are we even talking about this right now? You don't have to convince me the kid's useful. I know he's useful. He also lacks common sense and you almost died because of his inaction once, so excuse me if I'm asking more of him and telling you--"
Some thought he does not share with her sets Hector's nerves alight again. He grits it down and throws up his hands.
"You know what? Fine. If we end up sending you two in first, I'll make a talen for you. But don't wait until your guts are splashed all over the floor to give it to him. Give it to him as soon as you get there."
His stomach growls loud and warning then.
Lola Hawkes
Even though she'd paused and almost stumbled in her presentation, Lola stood solid and stern none the less. Her arms remained folded over her chest, tucked up just under her bust. Her feet stayed squared on the hardwood floor, and her expression was still stern. Hector mirrored this in his own way-- feet firm on the floor and hands on his hips. They both looked unmoving, but the difference was that Lola's was cool indignance, while Hector's was a thrumming humming effort to keep his temper and Rage in check.
It may or may not have been strategy, but whatever insult Lola was fostering was sapped away when Hector lifted a hand to cover up his eyes and pointed out that he just got back. Her change is subtle, arms stay folded around her chest and she doesn't move much, but her eyes hopped away from his face and found his chin, forehead, cheekbones or chest instead. Her shoulders rounded in, her feet shifted bare on the floor, causing the low hem of her skirt to sway a bit.
The rest of what Hector had to tell her was received by a Kinswoman who looked like she was being scolded, who was trying to look as though the scolding wasn't being heard or accepted but Hector could tell better than that.
When he finished his stomach growled punctuation to his words. Lola looked lamely down to his torso, then back up to his face. She was frowning still, worry and upset creased into her brow and her lips set firmly together in a way that was more difficult to read. Displeasure of some kind, but it was hard to say what for certain.
In the end, rather than arguing further or pressing the topic, she breathed in deep enough that her chest filled with air and pressed outward, then exhaled a long and low sigh.
"I don't wanna do this anymore."
She meant fight and bicker, but she forgot to clarify. This could lead to a flicker-flash moment of panic in Hector's chest, but sense and understanding would stamp that out quickly enough. She nodded her head toward the bowl of stew on his side of the counter. "You should eat what you can." From there, she glanced to the clock on the wall (she usually looked to that instead of the digital numbers on appliances) and said: "I'm gonna lay down, though, I think."
Hector Ghosh
Not just in his chest but she can see it spark up to his eyes. His hands fall off his hips and Hector looks torn between letting her go and blocking her path. Like if their relationship fell apart Lola would be the one leaving. This is her home. Her family has worked this land since before the white man got here.
That isn't what she's saying. He has more sense than that. But he's tired and hungry and trying to reason with a Garou on his moon is like trying to reason with the ocean. As strong a hyperbole as that is Lola knows he tries. She has met his great-grandfather and she knows the fire in his eyes is Rage and not a human temper or a depravity come out of enjoying the darknesses he chases.
When she says she's going to lay down Hector nods though the nodding does little to brush away the guilt swung back around to his side of the countertop. It isn't guilt that has him abandoning his position to find her where she sits and stand behind her.
He is running out of room to put his arms where he will not encounter signs of progressing pregnancy but Hector does not try to work around it. From the moment they accepted the reality of that sonogram printout Hector has loved the child the embryo promised to become. One arm hooks across her chest and the other fits across her hips. He rests his forehead against the curve of her neck and he breathes her in and tired as he is Lola knows he is stirred by his nearness to her.
That he doesn't want to leave her again but he's going to have to go out and run the land that he can sleep beside her tonight goes unspoken though they both know it.
"Okay," he says into her skin. Presses his lips where the words land though he doesn't step back yet.
Lola Hawkes
Lola wasn't sitting, but standing. She had opted to stay on her feet so that she could eat with Hector, facing him from across the counter. He'd been stationed up on a stool while she was cooking, so she'd simply set the bowl in front of him and stood with hers in the kitchen still, across the way from him.
That they love each other is highlighted here tonight. They disagree, they bicker and argue, but it doesn't last for very long and soon they both felt guilty even though neither of them necessarily should. Lola had been the first to relent tonight, though-- that was a change. With Hector gone tense and his tempers winding themselves higher and higher thanks to the Moon above, the Kinfolk had to swallow the bitter pill and take a step back. The reminder that he'd only just gotten back, that she'd been half-convinced that he was dead despite Tamsin's reassurance, had her wanting to step away from the discussion entirely and wait for it to pass.
So, she'd tried to do just that. She'd encouraged him to eat while planning to step away from her half-finished stew and going to lay down. It was nearly midnight without being there quite yet according to the hands of the clock on the wall opposite the kitchen. She was about to step back away from the counter and take care of dishes when Hector had rounded about the counter and come to stand behind her. An arm went over her chest, the other across her hips. This pinned the fabric of her dress against her, made the fact that her stomach had grown considerably compared to what it was a month ago all the more apparent. She glanced down at his arms around her, but closed her eyes when he tucked his head to her neck and breathed deep.
A hand lifted to cradle the back of his head and for a moment they stood. Then, with a kiss to her neck, he voiced agreement to what she'd announced, but did not release her. So Lola leaned back enough that her back was flush to his chest and stomach. She'd stay like this for about forty-five seconds and if Hector hadn't moved by then she would rub at his scalp with her fingertips (nails kept short and blunt and practical so they didn't scratch) and take her hand from his hair. "C'mon, then. I ain't going anywhere."
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