Chapter Text
After being with Mare Barrow for over five years, Tiberius Calore the Seventh, had decided that not only did she enjoy making love during lightning storms, she seemed to channel that energy into the whole act. It usually left him breathless, and half dead the next morning though. She had never seemed too bothered by any of it, in fact, she always seemed to get up happier than when she went to bed.
Tonight had been no different from any of the previous nights, except for the fact that the storm had been loud and had lasted for over four hours, from the moment they had sat down to eat dinner until long after they had finished the act. Mare had slept through the worst of the storm it seemed, but Cal had tossed and turned through the whole thing, somehow not able to sleep. Eventually, he had gotten up, determined to simply sit in the small kitchen and watch the rain. Mare was still asleep when he left the bed, with her hair spilling across her pillow, and her arms tucked under it to support her head. His lips quirked up in the slightest of smiles at that, and he watched her to make sure she didn’t wake up as he dressed slowly and closed the door behind him.
Their small house was worth it, the upstairs consisting of only their bedroom, and a guest room, while everything else was on the ground floor. But the cost was made up with the garage that he spent almost all of his free time in, doing exactly what he loved. He’d refurbished over six vehicles since the end of the war. The first one had been an excuse to avoid everyone, but eventually a few later, it had become something that helped both him and Mare. Now, she came down and learned from his steady hands, and her nimble ones made it easy to reach into the tight cracks between belts and valves. She hated getting her hands dirty with the grease and oil, but she still came down to help him when she wasn’t off doing her own job. She had been offered a position as a trainer for the New Bloods, but she had laughed in Davidsons’ face and had promised him that she would keep herself out of trouble. Now, she worked in a small power plant, keeping the machines running, and the electricity in the small town pumping through the wires. He visited her when he wasn’t working in the mechanic’s shop, and she’d spend hours telling him about each and every little gear that broke and she had to fix. Sometime, she called him to fix them.
There was nothing miraculous about them anymore, and he and Mare had found that they liked it like that. There always were the odds and ends people who arrived in the little town with a broken down transporter, who gapped and stammered when the saw him covered in grease fixing their engine. And there was always the group who passed through the town and stared when he and Mare went to the little café in the center of town to have dinner together. He supposed that was earned though. It was strange to see legends sitting at the table across from you bickering about who’s turn it was to the laundry, and over which dessert would be better to have.
Sinking into one of the rickety kitchen chairs, Cal looked out at the dark landscape. A flash of lightning illuminated the acres of land that were behind their property. Once, he had imagined small children running around that space, all of them screaming and laughing. Mare had never mentioned that she wanted children though. He wasn’t about to push it on her, he knew how she felt. He knew about the nightmares that she sometimes had. About waking up screaming for her brother, or for people who were long gone. Those nights were always the hardest. She normally sat in the bay window of their bedroom and stared out at the horizon until the sun rose on those nights. He couldn’t imagine asking her to try and bring something so small and defenseless into their lives. Something that could so easily be killed or hurt.
Maybe he should ask her about it though, it certainly wouldn’t hurt. He sighed as he set his head in his hand then. On second thought, maybe it was a better idea to eat. At least then, he could think about the whole idea of even bringing it up to her.
Could they even afford kids? He thought bitterly as he rose from the chair and made his way to the counter. After all, being an electrical technician or mechanic didn’t exactly leave them in a surplus of wealth. They made ends meet though, they had food in the cupboards, and were never hungry, something Mare was always trying to avoid. They had heat during the winter, and during the summer, they could fling all the windows of their home open to catch the breeze without worrying about thieves. They had what they needed, but if something, or rather, someone, got added into the mix, would that still work out the way it did?
Sighing, he reached for the light switch next to the doorway and flicked it up. The bulb overhead flickered for a moment, and then went out. Frowning at that, Cal squinted up in the dark at it, and saw that there was still a tiny pulse of light, but it was as if the bulb itself had been dimmed, like some of the energy was being sent elsewhere. He sighed again. Mare had probably been fooling around with the thing earlier, and had done something and not told him, typical.
He shuffled through the semidarkness then, which was broken only by the repeated flashes of lighting. The storm must have been directly overhead by this point, he thought as he opened the cupboard and pulled out a mug. He filled it with water, and then turned to open another cupboard to get some of the tea out. As he did though, his eye caught movement out the window. Squinting through the dark and the sheets of rain, he could just barely make out what looked like a stumbling figure, wrapped in a blanket.
“What…” he began to ask himself as the figure slowly came closer, stumbling through the edge of the trees and into the open view of their backyard. The wind and rain threw them back and forth and he watched hesitantly for a few seconds wondering if his tired mind was playing tricks on him. A few seconds later though, they tripped in the open space and collapsed into the mud.
Cursing softly, Cal dropped the mug without thinking and sprinted for the door that attached the kitchen to the back porch. The mug shattered on the ground as he sprinted out into the rain.
He was soaked in seconds, and his bare feet were freezing by the time he got to the huddled figure on the ground. He crouched down over them and then shouted over the crack of thunder, “What the hell do you think you’re doing out in the middle of a storm like this?”
Whoever it was, was a young woman, who couldn’t have been any older than him. She mumbled something to her pale hands which were squished into the mud. He pulled her to her feet, the coarse fabric of the cloak she was wearing rubbing against his hands. She shivered, and he wrapped his arm around her shoulders before bringing her toward the house. When he glanced up, he saw Mare standing on the porch with his jacket on while she shielded her eyes from the rain. Seeing that he was half carrying someone toward the house, she opened the porch door and hurried inside. The light in the kitchen didn’t come on though.
As he reached the top of the porch steps with the young woman, he paused outside and demanded again, “What are you doing out in the middle of the storm like this?”
She shivered and mumbled something incoherent. Shaking his head at that, Cal turned her to face him and asked, “Who are you? How did you find your way out here?”
Slowly, as if in a daze, the woman lifted her head. She brought delicate fingers up and pushed her wet hair out of her eyes. Her irises were pale brown, like dirt that was on its way to drying after the rain. She opened her mouth to speak, but froze as she took him in. Her eyes widened and her jaw slowly went slack, just barely though, enough to make her thin lips open in a startled expression. Those eyes widened and she closed and opened her mouth in surprise before whispering, “Tibe?”
Shaking his head in surprise, Cal scrunched up his brows and replied, “That’s not… how did you… how did my father tell you… my father’s dead.”
The woman’s eyes widened even further and she blinked for a heartbeat before replying softly, “Father,” her voice broke, and he saw her eyes water as she choked, “Cal?”
Frowning, he pulled away a little more, shocked that she knew who he was. Maybe she was one of the people who lived in town and she had seen him around. He doubted it though, this town was tiny, and everyone who lived here knew everyone. He would have seen her before.
“What the hell are you doing?” Mare’s voice rose above the pounding of the rain on the roof. She stood in the doorway, holding almost all of the towels they owned in her arms. “Bring her inside!” Mare shouted as she held the door open.
Shaking himself out, Cal grabbed the woman’s arm and brought her inside. She wouldn’t stop looking at him with that look though, like she was looking at him in an entirely different light. He guided her into the small living room they had, and slowly helped her to sit on the couch. She gripped the edges of her soaking wet blanket tightly in her hands and watched him as he backed away and grabbed from the pile of towels Mare had thrown on the ground. Upstairs, he could hear the water running. Mare must have drawn a bath.
He dared a quick glance at the woman on the couch, and caught her staring at him again. She was looking him up and down, a curious sort of look on her face. He looked away quickly again, unsure what to think of feel, he knew deep down, knew what this was, knew who she was, and yet, he couldn’t bring himself to really acknowledge it. It just wasn’t physically possible. Yet, here she was.
She looked up at him, and then whispered, “Cal…”
He pulled away again though, and shaking his head he said, “You can dry off, I’ll… go get you some tea.”
He hurried away, his heart in his throat. He kept shaking his head, thinking that he was just seeing things. But there was no mistaking it, the shape of her eyes, he had seen that same eye shape every morning when he looked up in the mirror. Had seen it in countless portraits too.
As he passed into the kitchen, he shivered, and had to lean against the counter to think. His head was spinning, and he wondered if it was because his heart was racing so fast that he couldn’t breathe. This whole thing was impossible, it was a trick of the light. He was tired, it was completely logical that he was just… dreaming. Maybe he had fallen asleep, and he was going to wake up any second.
Squeezing his eyes shut, he tried to make himself wake up, tried to make himself snap out of this. Shaking his head rapidly, he murmured, “Just wake up, just wake up.”
He felt a soft hand on his lower back and jumped, his head snapping around as his hand came up to grab the hand that had touched him. Mare watched him in surprise and then whispered, “Cal… what’s wrong?”
Dropping her hand quickly, he grabbed the tea kettle, and hurried to the sink to fill it with water. He could still feel Mare’s eyes on his back though, and he looked out the window at the backyard, and the pounding rain. At least the lightning had stopped though.
“Cal,” Mare choked as she quickly turned the faucet off, and pulled the overflowing kettle out of his hands before setting it in the sink. Taking his hands in her own, she asked, “What is wrong? What is going on? Why are you acting like this?”
He glanced beyond her at the doorway and then said, “I need to wake up.”
Rolling her eyes at his comment, Mare reached up and slapped his cheek a few times, not enough to hurt, but enough to jar him. Stepping back, she quirked her brow and said, “Are you awake now? Because guess what, we have a random woman sitting in our living room, alone, because you left her there.”
“She’s,” he paused and then looked back at the doorway for a moment before shaking his head quickly, unable to continue. Mare reached up and cupping his cheek gently she asked, “She’s what? Do you know her?”
“I, I think so, I’m not sure though.” Cal murmured as he broke free from Mare’s grip. Glancing at the kettle he whispered softly, “Can you make some tea, I’m going to… go talk to her. Ask her where she’s from and how she got here.”
Nodding in understanding, Mare turned to the stove and began setting up to make tea. Cal watched her for another heartbeat for heading out into the living room again. The woman was slowly toweling off on the couch. Her hair hung in limp brown strings around her head. She still had the blanket wrapped around her body though. He approached her slowly and then said, “Mare’s making some tea right now, and I think she drew you a bath upstairs. If you want I can take you up there and get you some dry clothes to wear.”
The woman looked up at him, her eyes soft as she tilted her head to the side slightly. Suddenly her expression was pained and she whispered, “you look just like him,” rising from the couch, she pulled the blanket tightly around her and then reached out to him, “but you are taller, Sara promised you would be.”
Cal pulled back quickly from her hand and watched her in terror. She knew Sara, the evidence was mounting against reality and for a moment, he really did think he was dreaming. Shaking his head at her words, he said, “Sara, you know Sara Skonos?”
The woman looked physically wounded by his words, and her lips drew into a tight line as she said, “Of course I knew Sara, she is…was my best friend.” The correction took her a little bit to figure out, but it had been made all the same. Swallowing past the knife in his throat, Cal glanced away and then whispered to himself, “I need to wake up.”
“Then I do as well,” The woman whispered, her eyes watering as he pulled further away from her. Shaking her head softly she sank down onto the couch again and whispered, “I never, I never thought that Tibe would, that he would keep me from you, keep who I am-“
“I know who you are,” Cal wheezed, because at this point his throat was filled with lumps the size of his fist. He could barely breathe around them and the fist that was gripping his chest in a vice. She watched him for another second, before whispering, “why are you so afraid of me?”
“I’m not afraid, I’ve seen plenty of messed up shit in my life to not be afraid of you, but you’re… you’re dead, you died almost twenty-four years ago.”
Her eyes widened, and she glanced out the window at the storm, her eyes watering as she whispered, “I don’t remember that day, I don’t remember any of it.”
Breathing heavily around the band that was wrapping tighter and tighter around his chest, Cal choked, “You, you…” He couldn’t even bring himself to say it, couldn’t bear to tell her the truth of that day. All he could muster was, “You died, you died and left us.”
Behind him, he heard something shatter on tile. Flipping around he saw Mare standing in the doorway to the kitchen, the mug of tea she had made was shattered on the floor and the liquid had exploded everywhere as she took both of them in.
“Forgotten gods,” Mare croaked as she walked to Cal, stepping over the tea stain. She grabbed his arm and then whispered, “I know who you are… I’ve seen your picture.”
The woman looked at the two of them and then whispered, “Where is your father?”
“Dead,” Cal replied as he turned his head away. How was this possible, how was any of this possible? She was dead, and had been dead for his entire life, how could she possibly be back now?
“Coriane,” Mare whispered the name like it had a power stronger than what pulsed through her veins, and in the moment it did, “Coriane Jacos, the Singer Queen.”
She flinched at the title and then looked away at the fabric of the couch as she whispered, “That is what they called me, yes.”
Mare’s grip increased on Cal’s arm as her eyes widened and she gasped, “But you’re dead, you’ve been dead-“
“I’m well aware of what I have been for the past twenty-four years.” Coriane whispered, but that whisper carried the power of a queen behind it. Mare flinched at the biting tone, it had been so long since she had heard something like it. Looking them both over again, Coriane whispered, “And who are you exactly.”
“Mare Barrow,” Mare’s voice was soft, but panicked as she tugged Cal toward the kitchen and whispered, “we need to talk, we need to talk right now.”
“I couldn’t agree more.” Cal replied as he turned and pushed Mare into the kitchen and closed the door behind them. Mare paced at the counter and then flipping around on Cal, the lightbulb overhead flickered and buzzed as Mare’s worry manifested as power, as she hissed, “Your dead mother is sitting in our living room looking very much alive!”
“I am well aware!” Cal reply was in the same tone but both of their voices rose in magnitude as their panic fed each other’s. Gesturing behind himself in surprise Cal said, “I didn’t exactly realize that until I looked dead at her though! Now you know why I was having an anxiety attack in here before you came in.”
Shaking her head Mare replied, “It’s not possible, she should be almost…fifty years old! She looks like she’s the same age as Gisa!”
“I mean that is how old she was when she-“ Cal couldn’t get the words out again, and shaking his head he said, “This could be a scam, she could be playing a part and is leading someone to us right now.”
“That seems a little extreme, even for this entire… situation.” Mare replied, her panic subsiding as she sat down at the kitchen table. She watched Cal for a heartbeat before looking at the door out of the kitchen. “We should… let her take a bath, and settle. I’ll get her set up while you… call Davidson, or Farley… or whoever the hell is going to pick up at this time in the morning.”
Cal nodded, and Mare swallowed before she stood up. She glanced at the puddle of tea on the floor by the door and then said, “We also might need to buy more mugs…we broke two of them this morning.”