Sometimes People Leave You Halfway Through The Wood [Oneshot]

Walking through the slush, the man's expression darkened, and his gaze fell to the grave that was as equally covered in snow as the path upon which he walked. He couldn't help but be disappointed by how it looked, so he drew his wand from his pocket, forcing his arm to put up with the cold that snuck up his coat sleeve for a time so that he could cast a warming charm on the top of the grave. The snow melted away, and Keiran found himself squatting beside the now cleared ground to set down the flowers his mother a chosen for Aiden.

"Are you sure you don't want to set these down yourself?" he asked, turning over his shoulder to look at the woman in question.

Bridget hesitated, but shook her head after a time, holding her arms tighter to her sides in hopes of keeping hold of the warmth she had left. When Keiran caught the movement, he set up the flowers quickly, then stepped back so he could come to stand at her side. His arm went around her shoulders to offer a bit of his comfort as well as his warmth.

"We should have come yesterday," she pointed out quietly, shaking her head.

He couldn't argue with that, even though a part of him wanted to. They had intended to go on the actual Christmas day, even though Aiden had passed on Christmas Eve. Bridget had suggested using the actual holiday, if only so they wouldn't be there on the exact anniversary of their loss. Wouldn't it be better to go after the one year date? Then we've made it 'more than a year' without him and we can prove it's all okay, she had said a few days before. Keiran hadn't thought of it that way, but he supposed she was right. Even if Aiden couldn't hear them anymore, it felt better to be able to pretend that he could.

Then, as though there was no escaping their fate nor their past, their Christmas morning had been ruined by the entrance of far too many Rookwoods for either of their tastes. Keiran had never seen Bridget so rigid or silently, internally angry. And as for Keiran, he was so unamused with the idea of his relatives holding his children that he had reverted to drinking more than he should have. He did not trust them, and he didn't want to. Theodore was okay, he supposed, given their past. But the others were not. So their plans to visit Aiden had been spoiled, too.

Keiran had ditched Theodore's sister within minutes of Millie leaving with the aforementioned brother, telling her he had something to attend to. And that was how he came to find himself standing next to his mother, half wondering if things could have been different. After things had started to settle down at the "party" the Rookwoods had created, Mairen had pulled him aside and explained things. Now he wondered if, had he not been so very like Robin, he would have married before the Marriage Law had come about. But, then again, Aiden likely would have done exactly as he had, anyways, wouldn't he? So perhaps it wouldn't have mattered. And, were it not for the Marriage Law happening in the first place, he wouldn't have met Millie. Or perhaps he would have, and they would have ended up the same, but with Aiden, too.

Dusk was rushing in over their heads, threatening to bring an even colder chill to ram into their shoulders. At least, he mused, it wasn't snowing as bad as it seemed to be indoors. A crack sounded from behind them, though, catching Keiran's attention, and he turned to see Avery rushing towards him, her expression weary and her hair left to hang straight. Keiran opened his free arm to her, wrapping her into his embrace as well. For a time, they were silent, but after a shuddering breath in, Avery finally spoke.

"My... father was in the hospital. And Mother called me to go see him. Him and his new girlfriend."

Bridget and Keiran froze, both turning to look at her. Bridget leaned around Keiran to lift her eyebrows towards the woman that was practically her surrogate daughter, and neither seemed able to ask the question that was so clearly written into their expressions.

"He's going to be okay," she clarified after a pause, realizing she had left that part out. "It was just... strange. And I didn't think to ask when you were coming because I was staying with Mother. It was all very uncomfortable," Avery explained, burrowing into Keiran further.

"I'm sorry, love," Bridget murmured, not quite sure what else there was to say.

"Are you... That is," Keiran stumbled over the words, not sure what he wanted her to say in reply, "do you intend on spending more time with them, now?"

Avery tilted her head to one side then the other, as though she was thinking it over very seriously. Finally, she shook her head and looked down at Aiden's grave again. "Not unless they reach out again. It only happened this time because they thought it was fatal. But it was just misdiagnosed. They aren't the people I remember, even if those people weren't perfect. I guess I just wanted them to be the same."

"I assume you saw Robin and the twins, then?" he asked, realizing she wouldn't have known where he and his mother were. She nodded, and Keiran mirrored her action himself.

"Poor thing. Three little ones to keep track of," Avery mused aloud, a little smile appearing. It fell as she registered what Keiran often noticed. "Aiden didn't see any of them. He didn't even know about them."

Sucking in a breath, Keiran shrugged a bit in order to break away from the two women and walked up to the grave once more, leaving a preservation charm on the flowers before looking at them with a guilty expression. He pushed his hands into his pockets, clearly not intended to come back and stand as they had been before. Bridget looked befuddled for a moment, but she took the silent cue from her son. "Avery, why don't you come back to ours for a bit, yeah? Then Keiran can go back with you to get the kids. I have a feeling that we need to talk."

Avery looked to Keiran briefly, caught his look, and agreed that it would be a good idea. So Keiran returned to their side and they all made their way to Bridget's home. It had been decorated quite nicely, which could be noted from the start of their driveway. The tree still glinted at them, despite the fact that Boxing Day had come and nearly gone. When they came in, though, Bridget decided that it was likely time to start putting things back into the attic. So Keiran made his way up to get the boxes and some extra wrap to protect the breakable ones. Returning downstairs, he sat himself down and thought about he would be doing this yet again when he returned to Hogwarts. Their tree was likely getting lonely by then. Glancing around, too, Keiran was surprised to find that the house had not been destroyed while they were out. Bean had someone to look after him, Keiran assumed, since only the cats were around. Both watched with disdain as Avery reached for the first item, starting at the top just as they always had, intending to wrap herself around the tree in circles in order to clear the lot of it without making too much of a mess.

"What did you want to talk about?" Avery asked after a time, speaking over the barely-there Christmas tunes that Bridget had turned on in the kitchen. The music was drifting through the house as the older woman brought out glasses of wine. They had missed their tradition, after all, since Avery had stayed with Robin for holiday. Avery reached a hand out but kept her gaze on Keiran, certain that he was the one who had something to say. Bridget was practically covering for him at that point.

"Remember Mairen?" he asked slowly, looking between the two of them.

"Of course. I convinced her to try and help you," Avery reminded him, not sure if he had gotten every bit of his memory back after the accident. But he had, and he murmured his agreement.

"Well, turns out she's staying with Theo Rookwood. And they burst in on our holiday yesterday with all of the other Rookwoods, so it was like a terrifying family reunion we didn't know we were attending," Bridget muttered from her spot by the mantle. Setting down her glass, she moved to help Avery remove the ornaments and lights.

Avery's lips parted in surprise before she muttered, "Gits," under her breath. Bridget gave a little snort of a laugh, raising a smile on the faces of the younger two.

"Well, it's not as simple as that, even." Keiran pointed out once he had sobered himself. "She pulled me aside because she needed to explain something to me. As it turns out, she has always known what happened to dad."

Both women paused, leaning around either side of the tree to look at him with equally confused looks. If the topic had not been so serious, he would have laughed at them for being so similar after so few years together.

"She explained that she had wanted to tell me, but that several people were under threat if she did so. People who were important to her and to us. But I think she's decided that there are enough people on our side and hers to keep those people safe. They found out he was trying to save people from going through with the law. He was working on a potion or something to make it seem like they could not have children. And though the Ministry would have known something was wrong, they would not have known who it was that was lying. They couldn't have done much about it," Keiran mused, pausing to take a drink from his glass. "Turns out that Levski had him murdered when she found out."

"But, I thought you got on fairly well with her," Avery mumbled after a pause, as if trying to make sense of it in her head.

"We did. But that was ages ago. And I sure as hell won't be nice to her now," Keiran replied, scowling down at the box as he wrapped up the next ornament he was passed.

Bridget looked down at her son, suddenly anxious. "Don't do anything stupid, Keiran."

"Like what?" he snapped in return, frowning up at her as she passed him a little set of mice ornaments for him to put back into their box. "It isn't like I have some guy on hand to send after her. Only she is that dreadful, it seems."

But he wasn't truly through with thinking about Ana, even if Avery tried to spin the conversation back to lighter things. Neither she nor Bridget wanted to think about the fact that Keiran had been right. The younger blonde's eyes shone with unshed tears, but she refused to make a big deal of it, and that only served to upset her brother-in-mind all the more. More and more, he just wanted to confront Ana and make her nervous. He doubted he could actually bring himself to do anything - as Bridget had said - stupid. But it would make him feel a bit better to know that she would be too afraid to threaten such things again. After all, Keiran had astounding connections now that he considered it.

It took them perhaps half an hour after that to finish up their cleaning of the tree, and Avery levitated the thing to take it out back. If nothing else, animals could nibble at it, or it could be used as fertilizer once the needles fell off, and then Bridget could always make firewood out of the rest if needed. Keiran wasn't worried about figuring how to get the cats back to Hogwarts; they always seemed to get to wherever they wanted to be. After all, he hadn't brought them out to Bridget's when he picked her up that evening, but they had just ended up there of their own accord. He did mutter to Lucy-cat that he would be back in a while, but he wasn't sure that the cat would truly understand it. Nobody seemed to think it was that odd, though, after everything the Hayes' pets had done in the past.

So Bridget cleaned up their glasses and pressed kisses to their foreheads as they made their way out of the front door and back into the cold in order to apparate away.

Upon returning to Robin and Avery's place, she asked him to make dinner while she helped Keiran take the twins back with their things, and promised to return soon. There was no promise that he would actually do so, but Avery hoped he would. Wine was not enough - nor was it good enough - for an empty stomach. She had offered, of course, that their friend and his babies could stay, but he supposed it would be better to get home before Millie did so that she wouldn't be completely furious upon finding him missing. The last time he had done that, she had nearly left him. Avery knew that just as well as he did. In fact, so did Robin. So Keiran, Avery, Liam and Kelly made their way through the floo Robin had installed to appease Avery a while back, and they found themselves standing in his and Millie's quarters.

The poor little ones, tired as they were, got settled into the nursery and Avery turned to Keiran just as they reached the fireplace so she could return home. "You didn't listen to your mother, did you?" she asked quietly. "I saw your face. Keiran, don't."

He frowned, his forehead creasing with disappointed lines to match the downward curve of his lips. "It isn't like I would do her any harm."

"She can't know that we know, Keiran. Think what she would to do Mairen's friends and family. To yours. Ours, really. You can't tell her you know. Please don't," she emphasized, shaking her head fervently.

The Slytherin deflated a bit, his shoulders sinking as he realized how right she was. And perhaps she knew better than he, given that she worked at the Ministry. Undoubtedly she had had more than the one run-in with Levski. Keiran let out a beleaguered sigh but finally conceded that she had figured him out. "I was thinking about it," he admitted, though he didn't have to. She had known the whole time. "But I won't. It may drive me mad, but I'll try."

"That's a shame. I like you so much better when you're sane."

Keiran rolled his eyes but pulled her into a hug anyway. When his chin came to rest at her shoulder, he mumbled into her ear, "You were awfully brave. Thank you for not breaking down in front of Mum."

"I hate that we left her," she whispered back. "Think what she might do..."

Keiran pulled back to look at her, his hands squeezing her upper arms. "At the very least, we know she's got the cats still, since they aren't back. But I think she would actually really enjoy seeing Ariadne and Robin. You know, if you can convince him to stay with her for a while. I think she could use the company. As usual, you're right. How is it that you're always right?"

"I don't have to be," she shrugged, seemingly pleased with his suggestion. "When I'm with you, I just am." Avery laughed, extremely happy with her rather impressive level of sarcasm given the circumstances. "But that does sound brilliant. I'll see what I can do. If you don't hear from me tonight, we'll have gone to stay."

"Yeah, let me know. If not, I'll figure something out with Millie. And she knows we'll be back for New Year's, so hopefully, even if Robin gets tired of being away from home, it won't be long before Millie and I return with the twins," He replied, releasing her arms.

As Avery made her way back home to see what she could talk Robin into doing, Keiran checked in on the twins who, thankfully, were fast asleep. It relieved him, somewhat, that they wouldn't know the loss of their grandfather. But it was equally distressing, on the other hand, that they would never know said grandfather. He knew the oddities that came along with small family get-togethers. After Bridget, he had no one left that he wanted to acknowledge. Besides perhaps Theodore. But the Headmaster would have his own family to spend holidays with, especially with Esme and now with Mairen staying in his home. The day before had been proof enough of that.

Being an only child had not helped, either. At least Millie had Elliot, he supposed. Still, the idea of Liam and Kelly without many family members in their lives made him a bit sad. He didn't trust the Rookwoods to take care of them as relatives should, but he had none of his own. Perhaps, he mused to himself as he moved to find a bite to eat, a bigger family would be better. For his and Millie's, that is. The worry, of course, of losing others had sunk in and stuck after visiting Aiden. But Keiran had a mental image of big holidays at their home in Galway, children running about - probably knocking into him or breaking things, but still endearing as they did their best not to bicker in order to preserve the happiness that was meant to come with the holiday.

That brought his gaze around to the door, wondering how long Millie would be out with Theodore doing whatever the hell they said they were doing. Posters or something? Keiran hadn't really understood it at the time, but went along with it so he could pop off and get Bridget. His anxiousness about her return only confirmed what he had thought his little bought of imagining had suggested. He wanted more kids. He had done a right terrible job of it so far, so he knew it would take his making it clear to Millie that he wouldn't be so shoddy anymore. But that much he could do, he determined, and even just one more would be fine by him - though, really, he hardly cared if they ended up with an entire football team. He could not redeem his father, could not bring the man back. But Keiran could redeem himself and make for a bigger, better, happier family.

Putting aside the fact that he had classes to prepare for the next term, Keiran pulled out a glass of wine and set it in their main living quarters' table, picking up a book though he knew he wouldn't read it, to wait for her return. In the mean time, he would flick through the pages and contemplate the best way to start turning their relationship - their family - around.