Chapter Text
I don’t sleep much that night, tying myself into knots with guilt and frustration.
I’m a horrible person… I never asked for this… but I promised her… she's already been through so much… maybe I should go… this was never supposed to happen…
By the time the sun rises and lights my room a pale orange I’ve resolved myself to apologise.
Maybe this wasn’t what I thought I wanted but I’m no coward. I’m not going to leave her when she still needs me.
I still love her.
I leave my bedroom in my pyjamas, hair still messy from a night of tossing and turning. I know exactly where she’ll be at this time.
She’s always the first awake now, unable to sleep past sunrise no matter what.
She’s half-laying across the couch and wrapped in a blanket, facing out toward the open window.
King lays sleeping across her lap, his head resting on her curved stomach. I envy his innocence, how simple it is for him to be at ease with her pregnancy. He knows there’s a baby inside but he’s just too young to question how it got there.
Her languid petting comes to a halt, fingers caught in kings' fur and she turns her face toward me.
She probably heard me coming.
"Uh… hi Luz." I fight for the right thing to say. "Is everyone still asleep?"
She gives a half shrug. "Eda is, Lilith went out to get some food."
"Oh" I flounder. "Can we talk?"
She bites her lip, hesitating. "…Sure."
I approach slowly, desperate not to accidentally make anything worse.
Sitting beside her, I pull my feet up beneath me and swallow anxiously.
"Luz, I’m so sorry."
When she meets my eyes again her expression is so sad. "It’s fine."
"No, it’s not. I should never have assumed - or told you what to do. Titan knows you’ve had enough of that. It wasn’t my place, I-"
The sensation of her hand soft against mine has my voice catching in my throat.
"Amity, I know this is hard for you. I know it’s not what you wanted for us. You wanted us to have a life together and so did I." For a moment her voice is so small. "I still do. But you need to understand, this - this baby, their safety is the most important thing in the world to me now. That won’t change."
"I know that now, i guess I was being immature. You’re right that this isn’t how I imagined any of this going but it doesn’t matter. I love you… and if this baby is what you want then… it’s what I want too."
Slowly, cautiously, I lift my hand. At long last I face my fear head-on and press my palm softly against the swell of her belly.
She smiles faintly, looking down toward where my fingers rest.
"You know, last night I kept waiting for something to happen… something bad. I could barely sleep because I just knew it was coming… the yelling, the locked door, the punishment for fighting back with you." She sighs, closing her eyes. "But nothing happened. I told you to leave and you left… I need this to be the kind of home my baby grows up in. Phillip, he’s already ruined me. We can’t let him do that to anyone else."
Instinctively I pull her towards me. "Luz, no. You’re not ruined."
To my surprise she clings to me, letting me hold her but when she looks up again her eyes are brimming with unshed tears.
"You don’t have to lie to me, Amity. We both know what he did - most people never get over things like this." Her lips quiver and suddenly she’s sobbing. "He ruined me and he ruined us… he took my magic, even if I tried to cast a spell now all I would see is him."
"Luz, patata…" The old pet-name slips out like second nature as I cup her face in my hands. "How does that ruin us? Look, I’m still here. We can figure it out."
Rapidly, she shakes her head, gulping back tears. "He- he took my power, my chance to be the same as you. Now we’re too different. I’m too weak."
I catch the words that hang in the air unspoken and suddenly feel nauseous.
"You know I would never do anything like that, right? I would never hurt you."
She turns her face away. "It doesn’t matter. You could- if you wanted to and I wouldn’t be able to stop you… maybe it was okay once but… it’s different now."
I’m almost crying now, desperately hoping this isn’t what I think.
"What are you saying?"
For a long moment everything is silent and then before she can speak Lilith comes running through the door.
"Amity!" She stops, looking between us before anxiously continuing. "I thought you should see this, I…. I’m sorry."
In her hand she holds a newspaper folded across one page.
I snatch it from her and suddenly I have no more breath.
In bold spread across the top of the page.
"Blight manor ablaze: Home of Blight Industries founder brought to the ground."