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i. the return
The morning they reach the shore is brisk and rather blueish, but it is undeniably Briny Beach. There is something comforting about its coarse sand and bitterly cold waves and fog. And, of course, Mr. Poe is there, coughing into his handkerchief and staring out over the misty sea. He looks nearly a decade older now, sadder and maybe wiser.
He turns to see the four Baudelaires standing in the mist, with sunburned faces and salt-stiffened clothes, and stares. For a moment, it seems as though he might be about to offer the first help he ever has. But before he can, Violet steps forward, Beatrice in her arms, and simply says, "Good morning, Mr. Poe"
Instead of responding, Mr. Poe simply faints into the hard grey sand.
Two weeks later, the Baudelaires are living in an apartment two blocks from the Poe house where they are visited every day to determine their wellbeing. Violet gets a job at the mechanic's and Klaus works the night shift at the library. It's a simple life, simpler than its ever been.
Maybe that's what makes it wonderful.
It didn't happen overnight. Even now, a clock chime will echo across town and Violet will flinch, or Klaus will hear a lawnmower and be convinced for a long moment that it's a blade ready to saw him in half.
But there were the quiet moments, when all four Baudelaires could sit by the fire and feel something like contentment, or when Violet sang Beatrice to sleep with the same lullaby the first Beatrice had sung to her years ago.
For the first time in too long, there was no one after them. There was no looking over their shoulders at every corner, no desperate inventions or futile pleas for help. There were only late nights with books and coffee, afternoons on the coarse, grey beach and rattling trolly rides into the city every month to the farmer's market so Sunny could pick fresh ingredients.
Of course, the Baudelaires were perhaps doomed to never find peace. Klaus noticed it in his sister before she knew it herself. She lingered by the newstand, stared up at the sky even on the sunniest day and ran to check the mail before the birds were done singing in the morning.
"I'm sure he's looking for you" he says one morning.
Looking back, he's not sure why he said it. He's only sure that Violet looked up almost accusingly and frowned.
"I don't understand" she says understandingly.
And Klaus smiles and tries to hide it. "It's alright. You don't have to talk to me about it"
"Good" Violet says shortly.
"But you should" Sunny says, not looking up from the pancake batter.
Violet doesn't answer again, and as soon as her mug is empty she leaves, newspaper tucked under her arm and a ribbon around her wrist, to lock herself in the garage.
When she finally emerges, hours later, her eyes are rimmed with red and she goes straight to sleep without even bothering to take her hair down.
ii. the reunion
It's a cold September morning when Klaus sees the mobile home through his telescope.
Violet's in the kitchen, barefoot with her frizzy hair pulled back reading the manual on how to fix their stove. Sunny's sitting on the countertop, watching sternly.
"I'm doing my best, Sunny. I promise not to break anything" she says. Beatrice gurgles indecipherably from her high chair.
Klaus comes down the stairs slowly, but his sisters know him too well.
"What's with you?" Sunny asks.
Violet barely notices, looking back at the manual and frowning. Klaus waits for a moment, picking at a thread on his sweater.
"They're back" he says.
"Who?" Violet asks, not looking up from the manual, and had Klaus been anyone else, that spark of hope in her voice would have been lost to all. But he was Klaus, Violet's brother, and he heard it and tried not to smile.
"The next door neighbors, the Lowes. They've just got back from Canada" Klaus teases, throwing a wink at Sunny.
Had Violet been anyone else, the mischief in Klaus' statement would have gone unnoticed. But she was Violet, Klaus' sister, and she looked up from her manual.
"Really? I thought you didn't like them" she says, sounding almost disappointed.
"Well, you know" Klaus replies with a shrug, "I spotted the mobile home, too. But it's nearly a mile away, so I didn't suppose - "
For all her pretending, Violet's eyes are brighter than they've ever been in all her sixteen years.
"I'm going" she says. "Stay here with Bea. I'll go meet them"
She's trying to sound so grown up, like a Samaritan assisting a neighbor, but the childish excitement and love in her voice is all too unmistakeable. Maybe she was selfish, she thinks later, but somehow she's never minded all that much.
Before Klaus can say anything, she sprints to their car like a madwoman, two different socks and hair only half-brushed.
By the time Klaus and Sunny arrive at the window, Violet is gone.
As Fate would have it, the mobile home airship lands on Briny Beach on that cold September morning.
Violet arrives in their taxi car and steps out as Hector is tying off the airship ropes at the dock.
"Here" she says, "use this knot instead. It's better for tying down vehicles"
She demonstrates. Hector shakes her hand gratefully with no recognition and she realizes for the first time she must look quite different these day, older and sadder.
"Violet?"
The voice is not Hector's, although his face lights up when he hears it. Three figures, two identical, scramble down the sides of the mobile home like spiders, landing ungracefully in the sand before struggling to their feet and running to surround Violet.
Duncan is taller and Isadora's cheeks are not so drawn and pale as they once were, but Quigley might as well have been exactly the same as on that mountain, cheeks red and eyes shining in the reflection of the snow.
"Hello, Violet" he says.
"Hello, Quigley" Violet replies, and all three Quagmires tackle her in a hug before he can respond.
"We're so glad you're alright!" Hector says, beaming and not as tired as he used to be.
"I wrote so many new poems for you to read" Isadora says.
"I mapped the entire eastern hemisphere" Duncan says.
"I missed you" Quigley says, and Violet looks down at the sand.
They pile into the cab and Violet drives them home, to a real home, and Klaus and Sunny are waiting on the porch steps waving.
They're kids, just as they've always been, but they're laughing and screaming and holding each other until the neighbors take notice and stop their watering and weeding and rocking to scold them.
Inside, the stove is warm and Beatrice is awake and terribly curious.
"Oh, she's beautiful!" Isadora says, holding the infant close to her chest. "Be it tall mountains, sky, or snow / none shall surpass you when you grow"
"Bravo" Klaus says, and they're laughing together like lovers in the rich coolness of May while Duncan hands Sunny the paprika.
"Nice place you got here!" Hector says, oblivious.
"Thank you" Violet says politely. "The Poes are renting it now, but as soon as I'm eighteen we'll buy it for real"
"Guess it'll be nice to have a home of your own, eh?" Hector asks, and for all his foolish wisdom, he's right.
"I guess it will" Violet agrees.
The triplets move into the guest room and Hector (who insists he'll visit but says he still wants to see Australia) takes off two weeks later with new books and fresh home-cooked food.
As they watch the balloon take off and float away, Quigley slips his fingers through Violet's and they stay that way, even as the balloon fades from view.
iii. the inheritance
The money is theirs when Violet turns eighteen and she wastes no time using it. They enroll Sunny in a proper primary school and cooking lessons and repay the Poes for all their well-meaning help. There's two dozen books, and another dozen toys for Beatrice.
Best of all, they buy the Quagmires a home across the street.
That's the beginning.
There's something almost comical about it. Quigley takes Violet to the diner. Violet takes Quigley to the museum for its special exhibit on Nikolas Tesla. They both walk up and down the street late at night, talking about times that seem all to much like a fantasy story now.
When she comes home late, vivid and soft, Klaus often wakes to hear her humming a strange song, the kind he felt certain he knew but had never heard before.
Violet doesn't talk about it.
"Do you love Quigley?
Sunny's never stopped being curious but for once her question catches Violet off guard.
She doesn't answer, not yet. She doesn't know the answer.
"I don't know" Violet replies finally, slowly setting her screwdriver down on the workbench.
"I think you do" Sunny says, and Violet bites her lip, refusing to turn around and give her little sister the satisfaction of seeing the red flush creeping its way up her face.
"I won't stop you from thinking anything, Sunny" she says.
Sunny gives a somewhat petulant huff. "You're no fun!"
Violet turns and crosses her arms over her chest looking every bit her part in a stained apron and with grease marks streaked across her cheeks and forehead.
"Maybe not" she agrees. "But I am careful. It's a trade-off"
"Too careful" Beatrice gurgles, and Violet rolls her eyes like a mother. Sunny giggles and scoops up Beatrice to give her another cooking lesson, leaving Violet alone in the garage.
She wonders why she pretends she doesn't feel affection for Quigley, doesn't think about him every day, doesn't have sketches of his smile and his eyes in her notebooks.
She just doesn't know enough about love, that's all. It's the scientific method, and she's still in the experimentation phase.
Upstairs, Beatrice starts wailing and Violet's time of contemplation is over as she shucks off her gloves and apron and makes her way back up to the kitchen.
The next day, she and Quigley take the trolly up to the beach and return with sunburned backs and sand between their toes and faces red from laughter.
Sunny comes to see Violet late in the night as she stands at the window, coffee in hand, steam licking against the glass to make misty, abstract patterns.
"Why are you up so late?"
Violet doesn't answer for a long moment. Instead, she lets her eyes linger on the golden light in the second floor of the Quagmire's house.
"I think I love him" she says to the window.
Sunny shrugs, walking over to the kitchen table to sit.
"I know" she replies, and Violet's sheepish, breathy laughter coats the glass in another layer of frosty white.
iv. the living together
Violet is twenty-six when she moves to the city to start her own company.
Quigley comes with.
She never asked him to, and, indeed, maybe she didn't want him to.
But whether she liked it or not, she couldn't live without him.
She doesn't need a company, and she's certainly spoiled because she wants to be wealthy but she wants it to be wealth she's earned so she takes a small chunk and gives their remaining fortune to Klaus to send him to Oxford and leaves to make her way.
They rent an apartment on the tenth floor and fill it with plants and books and paintings and all the other things they'd missed having in a childhood home.
The routine is almost instinct. Quigley gets a job mapping storms at the local weather station and Violet begins her journey. He sleeps on the couch and she sleeps on the bed, and in the morning they drink tea together before going out to face the world.
At night, Violet brings home groceries and they follow one of Sunny's recipes and sit at the table, laughing quietly to each other as the sunset fades into starlight.
One evening, Violet gets her big break and they go out for drinks to celebrate. They share the bed that night, and it sticks.
Quigley watches Violet change. Her eyes get brighter and her face gets more flushed and kind as the days roll by. She doesn't toss in her sleep so much, doesn't stare absently out the window as blackened, aching memories gnaw at her psyche.
He comes home one night to find her in the bathroom, examining her now cropped hair.
"It was getting tiresome" she says.
"I think you look wonderful" Quigley replies.
He means it, of course. He's never lied to her and he doesn't plan to.
"Not too boyish?" Violet asks, almost cautiously.
Quigley puts a hand to her cheek, watching her face flush gently under his touch.
"You're beautiful" he says, and then, after six months apart and over ten years together, she kisses him again, wrapping her arms around his neck and pressing their lips together.
It's different from their kiss on the mountain, with fumbling hands and frozen lips, breath hot and ragged from climbing. Instead, he kisses her and it's like the melody rain makes on the roof during a storm. He presses his tongue to hers and she tastes like the sunrise.
She's so used to thinking before doing that by the time it's over and they're staring breathlessly at each other, foreheads pressed together and lips red, she almost thinks it was all a dream.
It must show on her face because Quigley catches her jaw again and asks, "Are you okay?"
He knows the answer, of course (at some point, all their questions had become rhetorical), but Violet answers anyway.
"I'm not sure" she admits. "I want to be"
Quigley smiles in his half-mischievous way. "No rush" he says, and Violet knows he means it in more ways than one. No more running, no more racing from place to place, afraid and alone and tired.
She leans into him and he holds her close, not saying anything more as he runs his hand through her hair.
When the sun comes up he's gone and Violet doesn't waste time wondering where he is. She has to trust him, even if trust is the thing she almost can't afford.
She does trust him, and part of her hates herself for it. After all she'd been through, naïveté still lingered in her mind, as if hoping one day the world would be good enough to trust again.
"I love you" he says one night, and Violet freezes. They're lying side by side, and he doesn't even look at her as he says it. He just looks at the ceiling, content.
A long silence passes, and Quigley turns to smile softly at Violet's eyes, which do little to hide the chaotic whirring and buzzing of her mind.
"You don't have to say - "
"I think I love you, too" she says, and laughs.
"You think?"
His voice is not angry or even confused. He's innocently curious, just as he's always been.
Violet sighs and rolls over to face him. His face is cut softer in the moonlight coming in through the window, pale and gentle.
"It's just..."
She stops herself. She doesn't know what it is that makes her hesitate. She's all grown up now, with a house and a job and a car and when she was little she was certain everything would have fallen into place by now.
Quigley reaches out to cup her jaw, running his thumb across her cheekbone. "It's alright"
Violet brings her hand up to her face and clasps it around Quigley's. The callouses on his thumb from hours of writing rasp against her skin.
"It must be exhausting to always be so brave" he says.
Violet lets out a soft sigh. "I can't remember the last time I wasn't scared of something"
Her...she's not sure what to call him yet (boyfriend seems too shallow and husband certainly isn't right), but he's smiling and kissing her and she's pressing herself into his chest like the child she used to be, years ago on a frozen ledge when the world was ending and beginning all at once.