Marriage is Murder

He did eat, but he wasn't really hungry. He understood the reasons for that. He had hurt for too long and had said nothing about it, and in the time that he had hurt, he hadn't been eating at all--just swilling down potions.

"How did James get to my wife again?" he asked Jess quietly. He hadn't wanted her to try to go anyway. Now he had made up his mind. She wasn't going anywhere. Not unless there was truly no other choice.

He wasn't going to lose her, and he wasn't going to lose his baby. That just wasn't even an option.

"It does no good to tell her, but I'll have to try. I don't want her going out at all unless we have no bloody choice. At least not before the baby is born. Or until James is dead. Whichever comes first."

Brian listened to the briefing Jess gave. How the hell was he catching up with her very single place she went? A department store? Not Diagon Alley? How was he finding her so quickly? He couldn't protect her if he didn't know how he was doing this.

Jess took the tray, reminding him to ask for help. She was right, but he didn't exactly know why he hadn't asked days ago. Except that before, Robert had wrestled the horrid beast that seemed like it was threatening to rip Brian's brains out of his skull when the migraines did come. Robert had always won. But Robert didn't battle the beast this time.

When she left, Brian pulled himself up a moment later and, working to regain his balance, he stepped out into the hallway. He intended to go see Edward, but he met Escobar instead.

"Your bedroom is the opposite direction," Escobar said.

"Uh...yes, I know," Brian said.

"What it is you need to know?" Escobar frowned, feeling Brian's frustrations and his need to know something.

"I need to know what brings him to her so damned fast," Brian said.

"I can answer that," Escobar said. "He's an animal. He knows her. He smells her. He has tasted her blood. He tracks her. He knows her better than any proverbial bloodhound. He is the ultimate bloodhound. Its primitive, but in a magical creature, it is amazingly efficient."

"Could you track her that easily?" he asked

"I am less a beast than he is," Escobar replied. "But, to answer your question, yes. I can. And I have. As for the question you haven't asked, you can not do more than what you're doing. Except perhaps attempt to not ever screw up with what you are doing so that you don't give him an edge. Aside from that, I think you're doing all that is humanly possible. Now--reassure yourself. You'd be amazed at how much comfort you'll find to be able to be in the same room with her. Goodnight."

Escobar pointed Brian towards the bedroom, and then the vampire headed downstairs to go join Robert in going to the greenhouse. Brian sighed and went upstairs to bed.

"I know very little about him," Escobar said. "Nor do I need to. I think, though, he is fearful that he might lose his wife to James. Perhaps Mr. Quinn has lost someone he loved once before. He seems like he thinks his life is too good to last and that it is all going to slip through his fingers. He behaves as if he's going to lose it and it will be all his fault. He's trying to watch everything all at once. Now, if you'll excuse me. Minister Lupin wanted to go check the greenhouse, I believe."

He went downstairs and found Robert putting on his winter coat.

"Whenever you're ready, Minister," Escobar said. He offered his arm to Robert, who drew back. Escobar frowned. "I am not subject to mortal curses, Minister. Your curse will not affect me." He pointed outside. The wind had kicked up fiercely during dinner. There was very little light outside tonight. The heavy snow storm was blocking the starlight and the moonlight, but even so, Robert could see the damage that was happening to the trees. His best guess was that the wind was over 80 km per hour. They were all fortunate to be in the house.

"You shouldn't risk it for a greenhouse, Robert," Kate said. Robert pointed to the barn, where one of the doors was flapping. It had been damaged. He needed to go secure it before the animals were killed.

"Let us go to the barn and return," Escobar said. He looked at Kate. "He will be safe with me--if he lets me do the apparating. I am capable of this." Robert stood unyielding.

"For God's sake, Robert," Kate snapped angrily. "We need you. Take the help when you can get it, you old fool!"

"You surely can't be that concerned for my wellbeing, now, are you?" Escobar laughed, amused, knowing that, although the patriarch of the Lupin family had no reason to hate him now, Escobar knew there was no love loss there either. Robert scowled at Kate and took Escobar's arm. "I suggest no one go out, and if any of you are capable of adding a shatterproof spell to the windows that you do so as soon as possible."

Escobar apparated himself and Robert out to the barn.

"You don't understand him as well as I thought you did, Jack," Kate said, coming in with two mugs of nighttime tea, one for herself and one for Robert. They were very, very hot, bubbling in the cups. She figured he was going to be awhile, and she wanted it hot for him when he came back.

"Jess is right, but that's only part of it," she said, determined to remain calm with him. "Before this, we did live on our own farm, if you remember. And Robert did the farm chores himself. He enjoyed it. It was all he thought he wanted to do with his life. Its how he manages his stress.

"Its just a bloody barn door, Jack. Don't be so critical of him. You have no earthly clue what he lives with, with this curse, how the curse is designed to rip his heart apart. And how he has to keep it inside because he has no voice to speak to utter even the slightest sound of his pain. You have no idea about the torture that is constant in his mind.

"For God's sake," she was frustrated. "The whole wizarding world is counting on him, and he can't help himself. If he feels like he might have some value to us by repairing a barn door, then let him had a moment to work off some of the negativity that he is trapped in. Stop taking everything that does not go your way as a personal attack against you, Jack. Believe it or not, sometimes he has issues of his own."

She sighed, heavily, trying not to be angry with him. It was hard, though. She saw how he was thinning, how he was becoming pale and gray, and how he was losing his physical strength and toning because he was obsessed with research to free himself somehow from the curse.

No one but Kate or Michael understood the deep depression and hopelessness that gripped him, and the dark thoughts that he could not always push aside. It made her sometimes fearful for him, and she had asked Michael to stay closer to him--just in case.

"I'm going to bed," she said abruptly.

She turned and went upstairs, her steps quick on the stairs as she went to her room quickly to avoid become openly angry with Jack. She didn't want to see him anymore tonight or deal with him.

Robert had managed to fix the barn door and he had returned on his own while Escobar had proceeded to the greenhouse. He had returned just in time to hear them discussing likening their jobs to being prisoners.

Evidently his efforts to go outside had affected everyone. Had irked them. He could say nothing. And even if he could, there was nothing to say. And in listening to them, he had not heard Michael coming back into the kitchen from the pantry.

Robert didn't wait. He merely apparated out.

"No!" Michael jumped, swiping at him to try to catch him, but it was too late. Robert was gone. "Oh, shit," Michael sighed softly.

Upstairs, Khaat hadn't been asleep long when she felt the energy shift. Her father wasn't on the estate. He was suddenly gone. She woke with a start.

"What is it?" Brian woke, laying his hand on her to steady her.

"He's gone," she said, feeling lost.

"Who?"

"Daddy. He's gone."

"No," Brian said. "Not in this weather. He wouldn't do that. And he knows there are very few places he can go in the state he's in."

"I'm telling you he's gone," she said.

"I'll go see," he said, getting up and putting his robe over his pajama pants and his t shirt. He left the bedroom quickly, heading for Robert's bedroom. He knocked lightly and found Kate sitting alone on the bed.

"Where's Robert?" Brian asked.

"He's gone," Kate said. "I just felt him leave."

"He can't go! Not like this!" Brian said. "Where would he go?"

"I have no idea," Kate said quietly, looking up at him.