faelans_folly | [Open - Folly Cemetary

Entry tags:

[Open - Folly Cemetary - Father's Day]

It was without a doubt, Maggie's least favorite day.

Mother's Day wasn't far behind it but she only had vague memories of her mother. She'd been six when the woman had dropped back out of The Folly. Long enough for Maggie to remember her, but not long enough for anything to remain in her mind beyond little shadows in her mind.

Her father's exit. That she remembered clearly, considering she'd been the one that found him when the last of his attempts to bring her back to the Folly had failed. Magic drained after five years of these attempts, he'd been unable to fight the depression, unable to see anything beyond the loss of the love of his life.

Unable to see the daughter he'd be leaving behind.

She'd seen first hand what magical exhaustion did now that she was fully in her magic now. When she'd been eleven and sent to her foster home, it hadn't been as easy to see at all. She still hated him for leaving, still wished she'd been enough to keep him from giving up, but now, she was a little more accepting of it all.

When she saw a vaguely familiar woman at his gravesite, it took everything she had not to pull the earth, wind and water to her to blast the woman, and the trash around the headstone, into the forest so deep even Bella wouldn't be able to find her.

"Excuse me, but who are you?"

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Alex didn't remember Mr. Donnelly all that much. She had only met him a handful of times, most notably the first time Alex had arrived in Folly with her parents. They had been here before but it was her first time. She was only 7 at the time but she remembered how friendly he had been. He'd given her hot cocoa and a cookie which pretty much endeared him to her forever.

She was sad to hear what had happened to him, or what he had done. She remembered he had a daughter near her age and how sad it must have been for your father to do something like that. Alex recalled wanting to draw her a picture to cheer the girl up at the time before realizing that would have been useless. Nothing could cheer a child up after something like that.

When a detective had asked her if she would like to be part of a community that honored the Donnelly's and did their best to support them, Alex and her entire family had been happy to volunteer. It was pretty much a given that someone would trash Mr. Donnelly's grave the night before Father's Day, knowing his daughter would be here. That's why Alex had come out early to clean it up. It hadn't been too bad, actually, so she had decided to pick up around the rest of the cemetery too. There wasn't much trash, but some.

Hearing the voice behind her though and the tone with it, she winced, wishing she had thrown the trash away directly before coming back here to clean up a bit more.

"Hi, you must be Maggie," she said, standing up and turning around with a smile. "I'm Alex. Sorry, I was hoping to be done before you got here. I think, technically, you're not even supposed to know we exist. I'm probably in big trouble with the Detective now."

"The Detective would be...?" Maggie started, but she was afraid she already knew. "Never mind. There's only one person it could be. It's nice to meet you, Alex, though I suppose I'd be happier if it was under better circumstances than this."

She looked at the trash around her father's grave and sighed. "This 'we' you mentioned? You do this often?"

"Not really, actually," Alex said. She would have lied if necessary but fortunately it wasn't. No one should think people came around and threw trash on their father's grave.

"Most of this is stuff I just picked up from around here. Gustav keeps this place pretty clean but his grandmother has been pretty sick. Sometimes I come here to leave flowers or something. I came here with my parents when I was just a girl and he was really kind to me. He- he gave me a stuffed rabbit. Said it had just dropped in right before I did and needed a little girl to go home with. Still have that rabbit."

Maggie nodded with a soft smile. "He's good like that. We're very lucky to have him here. He's helped more than a few of us when we lay our family members to rest. There was some talk that my father wouldn't be buried here, a few of the more disgruntled not allowing it on the pretext of how he'd died. Gustav told them all to get the blazes out of his cemetary, and that he made the rules here."

She bent and picked up an empty beer can. "Levi is behind this? You cleaning up?"

"Detective Astor? Yeah," she said with a nod, smiling a bit. The detective was pretty gorgeous. A player and not her type at all in that regard, but he was definitely easy on the eyes.

"Gustav used to be the groundskeeper for his family or something until they found out he was third generation DI or something. But yeah, a lot of your cafe regulars and stuff are part of the group. Which you totally don't know about, right?"

Maggie knew that smile. She'd seen it on nearly every female at school, and around town, found herself within a twenty yard radius of him. Since there wasn't also the accompanying satisfied sigh, she was pretty sure this Alex didn't know Levi in anything other than a professional way. Probably good for her since she was just as sure that Levi was off the market.

She smiled then and met the other woman's eyes, her own a little misty. "No, I had no idea. I mean, I knew Gustav had worked for Levi's family but not about this," she waved a hand at the grave, "and you're the same ones that made sure the cafe was cleaned and ready for me to open days before I thought I'd be able to manage it, I'm guessing?"

"Yeah, lots of little things. Sometimes the Detective calls about it and sometimes we just see a need and fill it. We're just happy to have a way to help in our own way. Support groups and things like that for DIs or watching the homes of especially unusual DIs during Halloween and stuff."

It wasn't much, not compared to what Maggie and her family did, but it was something.

"But I should go. I didn't mean to intrude. I just wanted to make sure the site was clean."

Tears had been close to the surface since she'd opened her eyes this morning. Now they flowed down her cheeks, but for very different reasons. "I don't know how to thank you, Alex. And I can't begin to tell you what this means to me, what it would have meant to him."

Hidden from the other woman, and from everyone else, was the anger at him for the things he missed because he gave up, because she wasn't enough to keep his grief from overcoming him.

"Don't worry about it," she said, giving the other woman a smile. "This is all done in thanks and because it's the right thing to do. Take care, okay?"

Without waiting for a reply, Alex quickly scooped up her things and left. This was an extremely private time for Maggie. Besides, she had her own father to go see and celebrate with.

I've been following Maggie around constantly for a while now. Fortunately she really likes me around, so most of the time I don't have to shadow her without her knowing. I worry that I'll come across as too possessive or controlling. While I do want to possess and control her, after a fashion, it's not like that. I want her to be her own person, I just want her to be safe too.

Following her to the cemetery seems like an intrusion of privacy but after sensing all the emotional turmoil she's going through I figure she could use a hand. Sure I'll have to explain how I came to be here, but I'll deal with that when it happens.

"Hey," I say, calling out to her while I'm still a ways off.

Maggie was sitting on the grass when he caught up to her. She'd felt him close to her on and off since the cafe had been trashed and she didn't mind it at all. If anything, she relaxed more than she probably would have otherwise knowing he was checking in on her.

She looked up when he called out and she held out a hand. "Come join me?"

I take her hand and sit down next to her, automatically wrapping my arms around her and pulling her into my lap. It's such a familiar and comfortable thing I almost don't think about doing it.

I know whose grave this is and how he died. I looked into it when I first arrived. A large part of me can't help but be angry at him for what he did.

"How you holding up?"

Maggie settled into him, knowing by now exactly where she fit best. She took a deep breath, breathing him in and letting his scent move through her and warm the chill this place left down into her bones. "I'd strike both of these damned days off the Folly calendar if I could," she said after a moment's thought. "But since I'm sitting here, and still missing him, that thought feels just a little hypocritical."

I don't know what to say to that. I'm not entirely sure I have parents, maybe I was grown in a lab or something, who knows. I do know though that she's hurting badly because of what her father did. I can't imagine what that's like, to feel like you weren't enough.

"I'm sorry," is all I say in the end as I hold her a bit closer.

Maggie settled her face into the crook of his neck. "I am, too. I'm sorry he missed so much. That he's still missing it. I'm sorry he let his magic consume him to the point he couldn't see any other way out." She smiled a little. "And I'm sorry he didn't get to meet you."

I nod. I can't say that right now I'd think too highly of the guy if I met him right now, but if I did he wouldn't be dead so... I don't know.

I wish I had training or instincts for this like I do for other things. I can kill someone hundreds of different ways but I can't find the words to comfort Maggie. Everything else seems useless in the face of that.

"I'd have liked to meet him," I finally say. Because I would. Even if it was to yell at him for what he did to his daughter.

Maggie was quiet for a long time, just staring at the headstone and letting her thoughts drift in time with the solid thud of his heart beneath her cheek. As they had for the last few days, they drifted back to the same place. That was how she knew it was time.

"I don't have many memories of my father before she dropped out, I have even fewer of my mother. When she left, he was insane with his grief. He tried everything he could to pull her back. Every magic, every spell. He didn't sleep, he barely ate. All he could think of was her. After he died," she said, then had to swallow down the lump in her throat. "I swore that I would never get attached to anyone that way. I vowed that I'd never have any relationships at all; never be with anyone more than once."

She pulled back to look into his face. "I've made a few exceptions, but never...nothing like you. From that first night, every vow I made went right out the window. I just wanted you in my life for as long as I can have you."

"I don't have any memories, not real ones, of before here," I say. I have memories of sorts, but not real ones. Just training and instincts drilled into me from somewhere and somewhen. There are no people or places or things though.

"So I don't know anything about myself. What kind of person I am or was. Once I met you I knew something about myself for the first time. I knew I wanted to be with you as much as possible and... and take care of you. You can take care of yourself, but I want to take care of you because you deserve it. I follow you around even when you don't think I'm around, even though I know it's... weird. But I can't help it. Every part of my being just wants nothing more than to be with you."

Maggie smiled softly. "I'd had a feeling that's what it was, or who, I should say. Her fingers found the places on his arms where the elemental runes were inked into his skin. "My magic can feel yours when it's near, when you are. And even though I don't feel heat and cold like the mundane, I feel warmed to my bones when it is. Like being wrapped in the warmest flames or, better, like being right where I am now, wrapped in your arms."

For emphasis, she snuggled into him. "And I feel freer because of it. Lighter. I swear, sometimes my feet aren't even touching the ground."

There's a strange sort of warmth that I get from hearing her words, that I can make her feel like that, that we're so connected. Ever since coming here I've felt what was done to me wherever I come from is a curse. Maybe there's a greater purpose behind it.

I lean in and nuzzle her neck and cheek, a completely animal gesture but one that just feels right. A lot about Maggie just feels right to me.

"I need you," I tell her. "I need you to be myself. I don't feel complete without you."

"Neither do I," Maggie admitted freely, no fear in the declaration even though part of her is afraid, the part that has a direct link to the man in the grave, the one so bereft at the loss of his wife that it consumed him entirely.

Because it didn't matter. The future would bring what it would bring and she'd handle it when it did. For this moment, and all the ones forward, she would not deny herself this. She wouldn't deny him.

And she would give him what she'd never given another living soul.

"I love you, Jack."

I can hear and feel her heart pounding while she's talking. Part of her is afraid and part is excited too and I can't tell which emotion is stronger. I feel the same way, I've never felt like this before and if she's too scared to accept it... I think even if she didn't feel the same way I could survive as long as she didn't reject me.

When she talks though, I feel my heart lurch and then I kiss her, hard and deep. I don't trust myself to have the right words to say but I can show her that I love her.

Maggie whimpered against his lips when he wrapped his arms around her and gave her just what she needed to feel complete. Without removing her lips from his, she turned in his arms until she was facing him, her legs settling around his hips easily. She felt everything in that kiss. Every touch, every smile. Waking beside him, feeling him around her even when she couldn't see him, the way her heart would trip over at the rare smiles he gifted her with.

A breeze ruffled the skirt of her dress and she started a little, enough to pull her lips from his. Both hands slid to his face to try and hold it steady. "Jack, please keep your eyes on me, okay? Don't look anywhere but my face."

Slowly, she used the air currents to lower them back to the ground from what she suspected was a height of about eight feet.

I hum happily as I kiss her, sort of a growl and sort of a purr. The feel of her lips on mine and her body pressed against me is distracting. In a good way though, powerful enough for me to ignore all my instincts and training and just lose myself in her.

"Why would I want to look anywhere else?" I ask her, reaching up to her the hands on my face with my own.

She was glad of that focus, even as the words he said warmed her until her insides felt like they'd been liquified. She breathed again when she felt the grass under her feet again. "You can look away now if you want to," Maggie smiled, "but I have to say, I'm perfectly happy with the view I have from here, too."

Maggie usually stayed at the cemetary most of the day, talking to a piece of stone about the town, what had happened in the past year, problem DIs and even what Levi was up to. Just now, she felt no more reason to stay. This was stone and grass. Her father wasn't here anymore. His spirit had moved on and it was time for her to do the same. "Want to get out of here?"

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject