We Need A Little Christmas

((OOC: The second flashback picks up right after the one from last post))


He didn't want her to touch him. If she did, Keiran was sure she would feel how stiff he was – how badly his hands were shaking. But she did, of course, and he hated himself for starting to lean into her touch before he spoke. He didn't deserve it. He didn't deserve her worrying about him. He could've stopped Avery but failed. Then her touch was gone, and he was frozen entirely, his eyes flashing to parts of the room until they landed on Elliot on the couch.

“I-” Merlin.. He couldn't tell her with Elliot sitting there. He didn't want to be attacked by anyone, and if he phrased things right he might be able to explain properly without her panicking. His brain wasn't really wanting to work right, he had discovered, so he didn't know how badly this would go. The wheels in his head turned rapidly, considering any escape at this point. All he could come up with was lying and that didn't sit well with him – not when he'd already insulted her.

Keiran couldn't remember the last time he'd used her full name. Maybe that day with the shower – it had turned into a sort of word that he only used when warning her about something. Fitting, he mused darkly. Now, he wanted to go back to his old names for her. But after already having messed it up, it was too late. Better to leave off the names, he decided. Was he still tipsy? His thoughts weren't quite going in the right direction.

He had to get them out of the living room. He couldn't breathe with Elliot lying there, even if the man was asleep. “Avery wrote me earlier this evening..” He began, letting his feet take him to the kitchen. There was no way he would be able to eat, but just being in another room felt better. His breaths were coming normally again. He turned once he reached the bar, facing her way and praying silently that she'd followed. His eyes landed on her again, another round of guilt hitting him as he saw her expression again. Keiran's words started falling like snowflakes in a blizzard and he was at a loss for how to stop them.

“She really messed up, Millie. She yelled at Robin and left and.. she wrote to me, saying we needed to meet for drinks.”

An owl had tapped at the window, breaking through the sounds of Christmas tracks that his mum had left on while she went to do laundry. He left the gifts on the floor of the library to meet the owl at the window, frowning at the words on the page. Ten minutes? It was only ever five. That meant that she had unfinished business, or wasn't sure how long something was going to take. That was bad. Really bad. In true best friend (and brother figure) fashion, he'd dropped everything – rolls of paper, tape, and the last gift he'd been wrapping – and gathered up his coat. Not a minute later he was at the pub waiting for her and braving the cold to see her when she landed.

A crack, and Avery's feet had hit the pavement. Her face was already wet with tears, despite the cold and despite her usually stiff demeanor when something bad happened. He was definitely in for a night.

“Mind, this is something she does when she needs a chat more than anything else.” He added belatedly, realizing it sounded odd otherwise. He hadn't been out for drinks in ages, except maybe once or twice with Cael and Robin for a guys night. “But Merlin she got drunk. I think she had been drinking a lot already.” Keiran's hand pulled on his hair, his eyes unable to hold hers for very long but inevitably finding them again after a moment. “She was crying and I couldn't fix it. I wasn't helping, apparently, because she asked for another glass of whatever the hell it was. I mean, obviously I'd said no – it was definitely time to cut her off.”

Keiran tried for a laugh, but failed. Instead, he went and sat down at the table as he had the first night they'd been home and put his head in his hands, elbows propped on his knees. “I shouldn't have let her drink at all. I mean,” He sat up to look at her again, “one minute I'm telling her that she needs to go talk to Robin, and the next she was staring at me. I mean, I used the word 'love,' but for her it's more like a habit than it meaning anything. I don't know exactly what was going through her mind, but she kissed me.”

"What, Avery?" He had asked, eyebrow raised at her expression. She looked a sort of mixture of amazed and surprised. Keiran set his drink down to offer her a hand if she was feeling unsteady. But as he turned to look at her again, she was leaning towards him and before he could think about what was going on, she was kissing him.

Keiran felt rather like a brick wall. His mind flashed to the night of graduation when she'd done the same thing - only that night he hadn't been so disapproving. He froze for a second before pushing her away - though he remained careful considering she was precariously perched on a bar stool. "Avery, no. What are you thinking?"

"I'm not."

"Avery." Keiran groaned, rubbing his face with his hands. "Robin is going to murder me." That thought surprised him, making him sit up straight. "You have to tell him. If it accidentally comes up they'll be so much angrier. We have to say something."

"What? Why?" Avery pouted, tilting her head to the side. She was too far gone to understand what he meant, Keiran thought.

"Robin. You must promise me you'll tell him that we kissed." It was more of a one-sided thing, but Keiran couldn't avoid feeling responsible. He hadn't exactly taken good care of her. "Promise me, and then I'll take you wherever you want to go."

"Yes, okay, fine. I'll tell." Her words hardly sounded like English with the way she was slurring them. Finally, though, he caught Mira's name and nodded stiffly as he stood to get them out of that blasted pub.

He shook his head, squeezing his eyes shut. One deep breath later and they were open and he was talking again. “I could have stopped her but I was drinking, too. I should have known better. I- I made her swear to tell Robin, though I can only hope she'll remember to, and dropped her off at her old flat with her friend. You deserved to know and so does he.”

He could practically feel her getting ready to either hit him or flee. He didn't like the sound of either. He needed her, regardless of where they had started out or where the relationship had come from. Keiran was serious about keeping her, and he would be damned if Avery screwed it over.

There it was. The end. The collapse of her fragile world. Their world. At its brink. Over the edge. Over again. Her heart began to race. A lump had formed in her throat. Her watery eyes began to flow freely. Her breathing lapsed and came in again wheezily. Her chest began to rove desperately, trying to bring air to her lungs. Her arms curled in around herself and she stepped away, jumping as her back connected with the counter. She turned, sweeping a glare at the offending counter, a sob ripping from her throat. Her hands grasped up at her mouth and she shook her head, unable to fully believe his word, refusing to understand, to accept.

Her hands dropped and groped out for anything to steady herself on. She found a tea towel she’d used to wipe up the plates and balled it up in her hands, trying to ignore the way they shook. Millie turned suddenly and with a flourish she hurled the cloth at Kieran, knowing it would do him no harm and secretly glad of it though she did cast a half glance in the direction of the knife block. Her hands covered her mouth again as she crouched a little, tears returning again before bursting out her words, her face reddening with strain and immediate lividness.

“You bastard!” She shrieked. “You absolute tosser, Kieran Hayes! How dare you… how dare you!”

Despite herself, she found herself feeling regret for Avery’s sake. Livid for his blame on her. Devastated that he had the gall. The nerve. The sheer idiocy to try and play it off. To blame his friend.

“It takes two to tango! That’s how it works! For sex! For a kiss! For … for…” She blinked, an absent hang tracing over her stomach. She closed her eyes, her head shaking again.

She turned away and she found herself being carried through to the foyer. She flipped the lights on and reached for the coat closet door handle. She wrenched it open and took out her coat, throwing her arms into it before hastily trying to contend with the zipper. She had to leave. She had to go. She couldn’t stay. That was it. It had to be. Didn’t it? They were finished. How could she be expected to trust him? It wasn’t just Avery. Avery didn’t just kiss him. It went both ways, didn’t it?

“I was a fool, wasn’t I?” She spat, returning for a moment, flipping off the switch behind her to stop the light from alerting anyone upstairs.

Millie pulled up the zip and threw her shoes onto the floor, shoving her feet into them.

“I was a fool to think maybe I was good enough for you. That maybe you’d want me. That maybe you’d want to love me as I do you.” A sob snuffled from her lips and she closed her eyes. “How stupid was I?”

She lifted her head, a touch of defiance within her.

“But that’s fine isn’t it? I forgot. It’s just a law, isn’t it? We’re just biding our time so we can go our separate ways. I overstepped myself, clearly. To think that maybe … maybe there could’ve been something real for us. How stupid. Stupid girl.” She sniffed. “Well, that’s fine. Don’t worry about it. I won’t get in yours and Avery’s way.”

We won’t, she thought. We won’t get in your way.

No. No this wasn't right. How could she just not believe him? He told the story, even said it was partly his fault. He couldn't find words, though the instant she panicked he wanted to take it back. To say nothing. To have ignored Avery's letter. He didn't know. Just to do anything differently so it wasn't like this. Her throwing things didn't offend him; she needed to let out frustration or anger or whatever it was and he wasn't going to stop her. Merlin he wanted her touch back.

Keiran practically choked when she suggested it had been anything more than Avery drunkenly deciding to kiss him. He would never. He couldn't. The very idea burned a hole inside of him. Even looking at someone else the way he looked at her felt impossible.

He wanted to tell her she was being dramatic, or that she was mental, but he knew it would only make her hate him even more. She probably did hate him now. Millie was leaving the room, forcing Keiran to his feet. She couldn't leave. He'd already decided. No leaving. She couldn't imagine what he felt, he was sure, just as he couldn't understand just how deeply she hurt right then.

Footsteps sounded in the hall leading to the garage but Keiran ignored them, praying it wasn't Elliot coming to sneak up on him or something. Wouldn't that just be the greatest?

She returned, surprising him more than he cared to admit. Millie still wanted to talk to him? Why would she? Keiran wasn't entirely sure, as he hadn't seen it before, but he was almost certain she was crying. The light was poor, but his heart broke regardless. It was a misunderstanding, an accident. How could he have managed to hurt her so badly when it was only trying to help his friend?

“No, Millie. No, I-” Keiran tried to get in between her question and her putting her shoes on. She didn't want to get in his way. What?

Hang it all. He couldn't believe it, but he had somehow started to do the thing he refused to even admit he could do. His eyes stung and all he could think to do was reach out for her, but he stayed his hand part way towards her. She'd hate him. She probably did.

“Wait,” He started suddenly. “How- How can you think that I would just go off and do something like this? I pushed her away. I mean, Millie you know. You have to know. I couldn't let myself run off to someone else when the only person I can think about anymore is you. It's not just that I care about you. Or love you. Missie, I.. I'm in love with you, and that's completely different. You can't leave. I don't want to lose you. Especially when I'm fairly certain we're expecting. I'd rather die than-”

“Keiran.”

He stiffened immediately. Bridget's voice was too low, and cracked as she said his name. He sent Millie a desperate look before glancing over his shoulder. His mum stood in the kitchen with huge eyes that leaked tears down her face. “Mum, no. I'm trying to tell her – I would never!”

“No, no.” She shook her head. “Not that. I know you wouldn't.”

“Then what's the matter?” He asked, brow furrowed as he walked over to touch her arm. The door to the garage was open. “What..? Dad?” Bridget let out a gasping sob and bent over much like Millie had earlier. What the hell was going on?

He shot one last pleading glance in Millie's direction before taking off into the garage.

Somewhere in her chest her heart soared. That did nothing to dull the ache in her, though. Deep within her, old feelings of rejection, of inadequacy all compounded on each other and her happiness seemed to collapse under its weight. It was all very well that he loved her. That he knew. He knew. Merlin, he knew. Though, none of it took away the damage or the sorrow or the anger. Merlin, though, she adored him. She would forgive him anything, she could see it just by looking at him with her glassy, teary eyes. She couldn’t ignore the betrayal, though. She couldn’t ignore how ridiculous she felt. How damning it was for her relationship with Avery, someone who she had difficult truly dealing with to begin with, again born out of the jealousy of the way she was with Kieran. This. This was it. The clincher.

She was so ready to storm out and throw up dust of her own, cause her own problems. She so desperately wanted her revenge, to let Robin know what his darling wife had done. She couldn’t, though. She didn’t want to. She didn’t really want to hurt anyone. She just needed an outlet. She perhaps would’ve just cried. Cried and huddled herself up with Cordella and Gisele. There she could hide, perhaps. Then she’d emerge a little wooden and bruised but she’d survive it. Like she’d survived everything else. Felix. Her father. Her mother. Trent. She’d survived them. She’d survived. She’d do this, too. She’d live it out.

Bridget was there, whiter than the ghosts of Hogwarts. Illuminated in the low moonlight, Millie could see the tracks of the woman’s tears, the smiles from earlier as she’d gone to bed, the kiss she gave both Millie and Elliot before departing for the evening. That was all stolen from her. Stolen and done away with. Just like Millie’s smiles were. Just like Kieran’s were. Just like Avery’s must’ve been. They were all at a loss but there was something else. She hadn’t just overheard them shouting. Perhaps she had but it wasn’t that. Not in the foreground.

Millie inhaled a shaky breath as Kieran turned and disappeared and she herself moved, jolting into the front room, her hands grasping for Elliot’s shoulders, shaking him into wakefulness. He grunted out a half-question as his eyes seemed to load into wakefulness and he reached over to grab his glasses off of the end table before throwing them onto his nose. Elliot blinked, opening his mouth to ask after the look on Millie’s face but she herself took off before he could.

Elliot threw himself to his feet and hopped over the coffee table before stumbling out in the low light after his sister, following her trail as she followed that of Kieran and Bridget’s. None of them seemed to stop until they reached the garage and it was when they did that the Finnigan twins seemed to be caught, stuck in a memory, one that was so very much like the one that was presented to them in the stark, painful light that had been shed over the lab.

The sunshine streamed half-light into the bedroom through the blackout curtains that had been pulled off of their rings and torn from the pole in the skirmish the night before. Elliot woke first, his arm over the waist of the young lady he’d brought home with him, a souvenir from the party that he and his sister had been to the night before. His head was dizzy, heavy with the budding hangover and decent from whatever it was they’d smoked. He exhaled his first wakeful breath and disentangled his legs from around hers, taking in her face with blood shot eyes with furrowed brows overtop as he tried to work out her name. Sophia. He landed on. Or was it Jenny? Izzy? Penny?

Bugger, he thought.

Elliot rolled out of bed as best as he could and stood up, his bones cracking and his muscles groaning into life. He brushed his fingers through his hair. He pulled his glasses off of his desk and threw them on before pulling a fresh pair of boxers out of his chest of drawers. He slid them on and grabbed a hoodie off of the back of his desk chair. With that pulled on over his head he slowly made his way out onto the landing, sticking his head briefly around the door of his sister’s room to check on her before making his way downstairs.

The Gryffindor paused at the bottom of the stairs and looked down at his feet, blinking at the packet of cigarettes on the floor. He leant down and picked them up off of the carpet before removing one. A lighter was conveniently nearby and once his cigarette was lit he moved down the hall and into the kitchen. Coffee was the order of the day. Then they’d order pizza for breakfast and somehow they’d get through the day. Then the drinking would start again.

Elliot put the cigarette between his lips and trudged sleepily into the kitchen, reaching to take and fill up the kettle. Once the kettle was on the hook and beginning to boil, Elliot turned around to gather some cups up for everyone who was in the house asleep. However, when he did so he found his father still asleep at the table with his glass of Firewhisky unfinished, exactly where they’d left him last night.

“Mornin’, pa.” Elliot chuckled, shaking his head as he took down the cups. There was no movement from Seamus. Not even so much as a grunt. Elliot frowned a little and set the cups down before crossing the room to the table.

“Dad. C’mon, wake up. You’re not going to be able to move.” Elliot reached out and shook at Seamus but stole his hand back immediately. He was ice cold. The shout exclaimed its way from his chest before he could so much as stifle himself and he stumbled back towards the counter, throwing himself up against it. Footsteps pounded on the floor above and at once, Millie was in the kitchen. She approached him but her hands went to his neck, feeling for what they both knew wasn’t there.

He was … he was…

“Dead,” Elliot whispered, his eyes stealing around the lab, trying to look anywhere… anywhere but at Aiden.

Millie’s legs seemed to give out at that moment and Elliot jolted forward, catching her under her arms. The blonde grappled for him and Elliot brought one arm under her legs, wrapping the other around her waist. He hoisted her up into her arms and turned away from the scene, unable himself to fully accept what he knew was there, stark for all of them. Painful, devastating. Devastating for all of them. For Bridget and for Kieran. For Elliot and Millie all over again. Over the edge. Over again.

Elliot stole her back into the house and set her down in the nearest arm chair to the fire. He threw his wand in the direction of the fire and sent sparks into the hearth, the fire exploding with sudden heat and fierceness that came not from the spell but from the tumultuous emotions that seemed to crackle through the air. He tossed his wand away from him and headed for the drinks cabinet, tearing out a bottle of Firewhisky, and old twenty year bottle, and four glasses. He filled two the way propriety stated and forced one glass into Millie’s hands before collapsing, himself, back onto the couch.

Silence stretched between them. Stretched through the whole house. The only sound the whistling winds, the soft whinnies of the horses and the sniffling tears of the girls, breaking the silence just a slice before it returned and ebbed and flowed, disappearing and appearing again with the evening’s tide.

He couldn't breathe again. Only this time he literally stood there holding his breath. Like in a moment Dad would move and proclaim that he had been testing the Draught of the Living Death or something. Keiran knew that wasn't what he was working on, though. No, he had picked up subtle hints here and there. About the Ministry. His wedding. How stiff Aiden had been at Avery's side and at his. This had to be about his dad's work, but he couldn't figure what it was. He hated not knowing. The worst was not knowing how he'd died. If his work had to do with the Ministry, who was to say someone hadn't come after him? The thought made him want to throw up.

The part of Keiran that grew and shrunk depending on the people around him and where he needed to fit was collapsing. He didn't know what was expected of him or what to do. Millie was crying. Elliot said something, really quietly, and then the siblings were gone. Bridget spoke but he didn't hear anything besides the general wave of sound. No words formed in his mind, explaining what she wanted. Her hand touched his shoulder and he shrank to the ground next to his father.

Something had to be done. He just wasn't sure what. Who did one talk to about this? He couldn't remember ever having gone to a funeral or worrying about someone after they were gone. His grandparents hadn't ever been around, so how could he possibly have known what he was up against?

His eyes were burning again.

“Keiran.”

Her voice broke through again, sounding oddly strong considering how she was earlier. One glance at her said she was doing it for him. Being strong, that is. Maybe for Millie and Elliot, too. Keiran knew their father wasn't around anymore, either. He hadn't ever asked about it, though. No one wanted to be asked about something like that.

“Sweetheart.”

“Yes.” He said suddenly, standing and forcing his emotions back. He had to shrink to fit this time. Millie had let him grow for a while, but today he had to shrink. “Um, okay.” He searched his memory for any spell that could keep Aiden – no, Aiden's body. He wasn't there anymore. - safe until someone came to help them. He failed to think of anything, angry at himself. “Right. I need to.. I need to write a couple letters.”

“I'll stay with him..” Bridget replied, sitting down on the garage floor and taking up Aiden's hand. It must have felt freezing. Keiran wished he had the strength to touch him one last time. That he'd been home to have dinner with him – or to force him inside for dinner.

“I'll try not to be long.” He promised, unable to look back as he left the garage. He couldn't stand how pale his father's face was. No, he couldn't look again.

Keiran's feet carried him through the hallway, past the two sitting in the living room, and up the stairs. Taking a left at the top, instead of a right, he pushed open the door leading to the small library Aiden had made out of an under-sized room. Maybe it had been meant for an office. Keiran wasn't sure. But he had spent a lot of his time in that home for books, to the point where just walking in made his relax his shoulders. But Aiden had chosen to make it this room that his son needed so badly.

The weight was back, pushing against his chest.

Keiran closed the door, effectively shutting himself away and shrinking further into the place he was now meant to fit. He snatched up parchment on his way to the table nearest the window, where the lighting was poor at best, but where he could push open the glass and let the chill get to him.

Robin,

Mate, I hope I'm not waking you, with it being – what? 2 am? I just need a favor, even though I don't quite deserve it. Millie and I had a huge row and Mum went to see Dad but.. He's dead. We don't know how, or if someone did it to him or anything. I don't know what I'm asking for, exactly, but no matter what we're angry about or what we fought over in the past, I could really use your help.

-Keiran

He'd re-written the letter three times before it hid enough of his emotion to be presentable. He didn't think Robin would have cared, but the part of him that suggested that someone needed to keep strong for his mum wouldn't let him send any of the other letters. Especially considering that the ink was smeared from the tear stains. He'd forced himself to stop crying in time to write that one.

Even though he expected the man to hate him after everything, Keiran couldn't think of anyone else he would want to ask for help. He was Keiran's best friend regardless of how horrible the older man had been or how irresponsible he was around Robin's wife that night. He would gladly take whatever angry response he got when the other man found out. Feeling like he did right then, he'd have been glad for a distraction. He left the stained parchment on the table.

A second letter was sent to his dad's closest friend, asking for help on what to do. How to plan things he didn't want to plan. How to convince his mum that he wasn't broken completely.

After sending them, Keiran sat back down in the chair, staring at the bookshelf on the other side of his table. Maybe he would just spend the rest of the night – or morning, depending on how you looked at it – reading books. He was never getting to sleep at this rate. It hit him, then, that it was Christmas Eve. He'd not even attempted their family tradition – a game of sorts where whomever said “Christmas Eve Gift” to someone else first got to open something before going to bed. He couldn't imagine walking downstairs and saying it to his mum. Aiden had started it, and he could just see Bridget's reaction in his mind.

Better to stay where he was.

“Why?”

“Why?”

“Why has this happened?”

“Why has this happened?”

“What have we done to deserve this?”

“What did we do? Why didn’t we see?”

In a distant room, a clock chimed the change of the hour and the domino effect scattered the clangs and climes throughout the house until the small one on the mantelpiece burst out its exclamation that it was a different day. Christmas Eve. There they were. Two o’clock cum three. Their hearts were shattered all over their floor. The Firewhisky didn’t dull what they needed to. He abandoned his before she abandoned hers, the latter untouched while the former was drained clear. Neither were sated and despite themselves they cried, their anguish different and differing at every changing moment.

Millie rose finally, removing her coat once more. She tossed it into the arm chair and brushed her fingers through her hair before steeling herself. She’d come a long way from the girl who had found her father dead one morning. This was something she knew. This was a pain she understood. She was a veteran. Kieran was not. This was something she would have never wished upon him. It was something that couldn’t have come at a worse time. They shouldn’t have rowed. She should have believed him. She should have just been angry at Avery, plotted her death or something instead of shouting a Kieran.

But she hadn’t known. She hadn’t known otherwise perhaps she would’ve been delicate. Perhaps she would’ve just accepted it and moved on. She hurt but it was nothing compared to the way she felt for Kieran. Her sorrow for him was something that was as debilitating as the agony she felt when she realised that her father had died. Knowing it had happened again to someone else was enough to finish her off for that evening. The whisky couldn’t wash away that pain though as Elliot poured another few fingers she found that for him it was consoling just the slightest bit. It was numbing the pain.

Kieran had departed to the upper story of the house and after a time Millie followed. She removed her shoes along the way, discarding them somewhere on the stairs or on the half landing, and followed the light to the room that she was sure he had disappeared into. Her hand twisted the door knob and she opened it up a little, enough to peek her head through, before stepping into the room and closing the door behind her. There he was, her man who, as she thought, she forgave in an instant.

Millie crossed the room and laid a hand on her husband’s shoulder. Her other felt for his other one and she pressed a kiss into his hair, tears threatening to make their return but for his sake she warded them off, determined that she was going to be strong for him when he couldn’t. He was strong for her. It was her turn to be strong for him. And she would be. She just didn’t know what to say.

Millie decided silence was golden and rested her chin on Kieran’s head, her arms winding around him, rubbing across his upper arms, hoping to breed some warmth into his body that was beneath his skin. She wanted to reassure him. She wanted to tell him something, to promise him that it would be alright. That eventually it would be okay. But it wasn’t just then. As far as he was going to be concerned it would never, ever be okay again.

“I love you,” she whispered into his hair, nudging his jaw with her fingertips. She was there for him. That’s what she wanted to say. That through thick and thin, for better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health she’d always be there.

Keiran wanted to tear his eyes from the spines of the books in front of him, bathed only in part by the light from his lamp and the moon outside. He couldn't have read the titles of any of them even if he wanted to. He was stuck, trapped in his head. The door opened and he hoped it wasn't his mom. Or Elliot. Yes, he knew he wanted it to be Millie. But he couldn't let himself admit it. He frowned at the books.

A hand touched him and he knew. Keiran deflated entirely, desperate to look at her but not being able to. Maybe what had happened wasn't as important as this horrible, scary mess with his father. But there he was, a grown man of twenty six years, fighting back tears in front of his wife. This was so wrong. Not at all what he should be. He had promised his mum that he would go back, but he couldn't get himself to move. He silently hoped Elliot would help her. The man seemed to like her.

Millie was wrapped around him, kissing him, and her words were going into him. His shoulders shook once before he turned his head and kissed her arm where it draped over his shoulder. She loved him. You shouldn't, he thought, the darker part of him chiding him as her words comforted him. But at least one of us does, the voice added.

But why shouldn't she? What had he done, in his past, to make himself this person that had to fit whatever was thrown at him? He had decided at some point along the way that whatever he was wasn't quite right and that changing for people wasn't a problem.

But it sure seemed to be one, now.

Now that he'd looked away from the bookshelf it was like he could push away everything that was happening and focus on Millie as she shadowed him in his chair. In an instant he was moving the chair so it faced her and wrapping his arms around her middle from where he sat, looking up at her.

His head fell forward so it rested against her middle, and he sighed audibly. “I just don't fit, Millie. I try to change, to put away parts of me that don't fit for certain people. It's exhausting.” Keiran knew he probably wasn't making sense. But surely she had noticed how stiff he was around the professors then how simple things seemed around her or at home. At home he was sort of mental, actually. “I don't want to, but I have to. For Mum. But I don't know if I can after that.”

It was so late. What had he asked Robin to do? He couldn't remember. He hoped the man showed up at some point. Someone had to tell Avery. Someone had to take care of his mum. When had his eyes closed? No, he had to go downstairs. Keiran stood, brushing her hair back with a hand. If he could get through this night, he could wake in the morning and try and convince everyone to go on with Christmas that next night. He had a feeling they wouldn't wake until late anyways, if anyone managed to sleep well. It wouldn't quite feel like Christmas, but he couldn't just sit around all day thinking about his father. He would rather just sleep all day if they were going to be stuck in a cycle of tears and wondering what happened.

One day he would find out, and it would be settled. It would be solved. But it was Christmas Eve and he would be damned if he let everyone have an awful holiday. Dad would have given him that disapproving look if he did.

“C'mon love. I need coffee.”

Her man, her precious, precious man had been reduced to a boy caught in headlights he didn’t understand. He wasn’t on his own though. Her arms came around him again as he turned in his chair and tipped his head against her. Her fingers combed in through his hair and she listened carefully, closing her eyes and blocking out any other sound but his breathing and his words. Everything was unravelling like an errant spindle spitting out its thread.

“We’ll all love you regardless, my darling.” She murmured, smoothing out his hair. “Your mother loves you. Your friends love you. None of us want you to package bits up and choose what you show to certain people. You need to be honest with yourself. We’ve all got our fronts but you are hiding from your family, too. You need to just be. Breathe and sleep and wake up and just be. Wear odd socks. Put your jumper on inside out accidently and laugh about it. You don’t have to hide. Not from your mother. Not from me. Not from anyone who loves you.”

Millie smiled a little, a small sad smile, when Kieran touched her properly for the first time since the world had fractured so disastrously. She took his hand, lacing her fingers with his own, and slowly they moved from the library which felt like a sullied zone that no one belonged in anymore. That had been Aiden’s space, just as his lab had been and the ground was as sacred as it was somewhat cursed in that respect. They had no right to be there, not really, but every right at the same time.

Downstairs, Bridget and Elliot had gathered themselves in the kitchen. Elliot had wound his arms around the shorter woman, his cheek leant against her hair as she neither seemed to cry nor to do anything in actuality. They stood and merely stayed. Cocoa had been poured but left to go cold and while Millie walked to the kettle she did not let Kieran go. She flicked it on with her spare hand and brought him close to her, determined that, if only through touch, she’d have him secured, buoyant once more, away from the way his head had tumbled underwater. She had hold of him. He was safe.

Surprisingly, Millie was quite adept at making coffee with one hand and soon enough she held up the steaming cup for Kieran to take, a soft smile on her lips as she carefully extricated her hands but remained before him, her eyes studying his face fervently for any signs of, well, anything. He wouldn’t be alright, this she knew, but to get him onto an even keel meant that bed could be had and while sleep would be fitful, staying up any longer wouldn’t help them,

“I can deal with it.” Elliot piped up gently, breaking the silence momentarily. Millie looked over at him and frowned a little before realising what he was alluding to. He’d done it before. While Lavender had clucked and Millie had run away he’d dealt with Seamus’ funeral. He’d laid their father to rest. He’d ensured all of the trappings that came with it. He could do it again.

Silence returned once more and Millie picked up the cups and plates that had somehow multiplied and returned, no realising they were the ones she’d washed earlier, and ran the water to clean them again to give her hands something to do. She closed her eyes and shook her head briefly before steeling herself, brushing away the weakness and setting the plates on the draining board to dry. She then got herself a glass of water and took her place by Kieran’s side, her body just brushing against his. Thus they were all left to wander what came next: what to do with themselves.

Keiran couldn't find anything to focus on except her hand holding his. He more stared ahead as the world moved around him. Elliot had seemingly taken his mother in when Keiran couldn't. He couldn't find it in him to be affronted by it. She needed something he was unable to give.

A great yawn broke over Keiran and he wondered briefly if coffee was a good idea. But Millie was already making it. He had things seemingly on the mend and refused to do anything that might set it off. Instead, he took the cup silently, looking down at her for the first time since they'd left the library. He had a ridiculous urge to return. At least until someone new showed up and could attempt to bring with them the sense of something new happening rather than their infinite waiting around for something.

Deal with it. Elliot would deal with it. It. It being Aiden. His father. He understood that Elliot was being sensitive about it, as best as he could all things considered. Avery would kill him if she didn't get to help. Keiran was loathe to mention her again, though. Especially as Millie was returning to his side and she somehow seemed to breathe more life into him than the caffeine from the coffee could.

Keiran looked down at her and saw the breakfast from three days ago play before his eyes. Things were easier. Lucy-cat showing up was the strangest bit of their morning. Aiden was there, greeting them and laughing at the ridiculousness that was his son and new daughter-in-law. Millie had so quickly lost another potential father-figure. Sure, his dad was often not in the main parts of the house. But the house felt bigger now, like the lack of his life meant that everything else had grown to accommodate how empty they felt. The space he'd been taking up was now needing to be filled by other things. Like an empty chair. A silent hallway. A place on Bridget's arm. He should have been there. Whoever had done this to him was just...

Keiran couldn't find words. His hand clenched at his side before realizing he'd never answered Elliot. “Um,” he attempted, cleared his throat, and began again, “I don't think we're quite awake enough to figure it out. But if it comes to that, we'd owe you big.”

Why couldn't he just speak his mind? Say how grateful he would be that his mum did have to do it? That Avery wouldn't have to try if she didn't want to. That he, himself, wouldn't feel so useless for not knowing how.

Bridget's eyes met Keiran's and he very nearly wanted to fall over. They weren't filled with the pain he'd expected. They simply stared at him. There was nothing to be done about this now, she seemed to say, though her mouth never moved. Pressing a kiss to Elliot's temple, Bridget stood to meet Keiran halfway across the kitchen. They hadn't even tried to touch each other since it had happened. He'd run off and she'd stayed to take in the moment. To say goodbye? He didn't think he would ever be able to ask.

“Sleep, now, love. Forget the coffee.” She whispered into his ear as he hugged her to him. He nodded against her shoulder. “Oh, and Keiran.” He pulled back to look at her face. His eyebrows pulled together as he saw a smile cross her features. What? “Christmas Eve Gift.”

An absurdly loud laugh left him and he pulled her back into a hug.

A few minutes later, Bridget had headed up to bed, suggesting Elliot do the same and thanking him quietly for, well, everything. Keiran had somehow made his way to the couch and was watching the lights on the tree flicker in whatever random pattern they had been programmed into repeating. Lucy-cat meowed from somewhere in the room but he didn't bother looking up. As if he expected it, the cat bumbled into the room and looked up at Keiran. He leaned forward to offer the cat a pat of his hand, not as surprised as he perhaps should have been when Lucy didn't move away. He was tempted to start talking to the cat, about how he couldn't go off and leave them, since Millie had tried to earlier. But she was still about somewhere and he didn't want to be a total git. His tiredness was getting to him now.

Half past two, the clock told him. His head fell back against the couch, leaving Lucy to his own devices, eyes staring blankly up at the ceiling yet seeing nothing. It wasn't too very long before they'd closed, though, without his willing them to.

“You don’t need that task.”

It was a gruelling, unforgiving road that a mortal had to traipse after the death of part of their heart. There was nothing left after that cruelty. There was nothing left to scare. There was nothing left that petrified or pacified. The heart was wild and restless thereafter. It was not a path that Elliot Finnigan wished for his brother-in-law. It was not a path that he had allowed his sister to traipse for she had dealt with her own wounded heart and did not need additional suffering. Adults, they had all held in their palms their own pain and they did not need more. Well enough that Aiden Hayes had been stolen from them, the insult to injury was attempting to orchestrate a poignant farce. It was not his place to impose, he knew, but it was his desire to prevent their pain.

Millie swallowed, her eyes meeting to reach her brother’s. At once, no more was to be said and Elliot’s leave was going to be taken of his own accord. Though regardless of Bridget’s urgings it would not be to bed that he would depart. There would be little sleep to be had. No, with the whisky and some light, perhaps a good book he would stay with Aiden just as he had done with Seamus, forcing Millie from the kitchen when they realised, when they knew. Even when the authorities arrived he would not leave. Throughout it all he stayed. Even dead men needed a friend.

The blonde man disappeared not a moment after Bridget took her own leave, pausing only a moment to take the bottle and a blanket with him out of the living room. Like that, as though time had been turned back, Kieran and Millie found themselves alone with their thoughts, with their bodies but not with each other. Both had tumbled miles apart though it wasn’t out of what had occurred earlier in the evening, it was the way ghosts had found them and taken things. Taken more than they knew.

Millie entered the living room after the cat but didn’t disturb the animal much, merely scooping him up and abandoning him in the chair near the fire. He mewed at her in half-thanks and began his own watch over Kieran, joining her in quiet wonder as to what to do. They had their place, she found: her, Elliot, the cat. The cat understood that. It seemed to understand Kieran was in safe hands. Not quite paws but Millie’s hands would do. Thus, not a moment later, after moment of consideration, the cat slunk off and made his way upstairs.

Millie picked up the covering she’d snuggled under earlier on and tucked it around her husband, her fingers softening across his cheek for the barest of moments before she reached to press her lips to his forehead.

“Good night, my love,” she murmured.

Then she returned to the kitchen, brewed herself some tea and took her seat the other end of the settee. There she would stay. All three Finnigans awake, unable to quite give in until every wounded party was consoled – even marginally.