The last gift Danicka gave Lukas on Christmas, on his birthday, for their anniversary, was a slender box that rustled with paper. Inside were printouts of emails, since Danicka is not the sort to do much slowly and tangibly that can be done electronically. Their flights to Prague, their hotel reservations, their full travel itinerary from one place to another within the Czech Republic. Her father's family vineyard. Her sister Sabina, Athro Philodox and carrier of a fetish sickle, mother of one child to her twin sister's six. Lukas's own family estate, which Danicka had to ask his parents about before she could even search for it on a map.
Of course, she made all of those plans before anyone ever came to their den for Christmas. Before two teenagers, two younger children, grandparents, and siblings crushed the space in their house. Before Emanek and Irca snuggled into bed with them, Emanek to her side and Irca wiggling between her and Lukas. Before their true anniversary, when he made her breakfast and they talked about his parents buying him all the Calvin & Hobbes treasuries plus the new one and she sighed and said:
I want to have a baby.
Not after a few more years, not later, not after graduation, not idly thinking that it would be nice to be a mother one day, but very specifically a baby. Going off the pill, taking vitamins, getting pregnant, dealing with that for forty weeks (give or take), and then childbirth and then... a baby. Living, breathing, screaming, pooping, getting sick, nursing, spitting up, kicking, all of it. A real child, and hers. Lukas's. Theirs.
By the time Danicka's spring break arrives and the time for their trip is imminent, she's had nearly three months to confirm that those words were not just blurted out because she was high from having a house full of family. She's seen Dr. Katz. She's stood on the balcony of the apartment at Kingsbury Plaza and had one. Last. Cigarette. Forever. She's tapered off her coffee intake, her alcohol intake, and though she doesn't make a particular point of it, she does pay more attention to the calendar and there are certainly nights when -- even tired, even busy -- she climbs on top of Lukas in their bed or on their couch and kisses him the way that makes his mind melt.
Danicka has never been the sort to want something and just let it go, or forget about it. What she does, she does with quiet passion and sometimes frightening determination. If Lukas had gone much more than a couple of weeks without going to that motel with her, he already knows she would have ended up coming into his room at the Brotherhood, locking the door, and -- rather than throwing herself at him -- opening her legs and touching herself until he couldn't remember why he wasn't inside of her. She seldom gives up. She certainly never lets something go just because it takes time or is difficult.
But for the most part, things are as Lukas once said: one day, she'd just go off the pill, and then they'd just... do what they usually do. Which, as it happens, means making love sometimes as though they aren't sure they'll ever see each other again.
Sometimes they aren't.
By spring break, Danicka is already having some quiet, passing thoughts about why it's taking so long. Two and a half months isn't very long, but her desire overwhelms some of her sense. She doesn't let it get her down. She doesn't cry every time she gets another period. She doesn't spend nine hours a day decorating an imaginary nursery on Pinterest. In fact, by the time spring break rolls around and they are packing for their trip and she's checking them into their flight on her phone, Danicka is so worn out from school that all she can talk about is having a vacation.
They are lucky: this year, the break between winter and spring quarters at the University of Chicago falls on a week when the moon is thin and waning to new. By the time it even begins waxing again they'll be headed back to the States. They leave while it's still dark between Friday and Saturday, and the crescent moon is still visible in the sky.
Danicka wants him to check every single lock before they leave, and make sure the spirits are happy. Kando is already deposited at the Kingsbury apartment, and a neighbor who has now known Danicka since she moved in 3 years ago is going to check on her each night. They have an hour-long layover at JFK and Danicka is, as they head to the taxi waiting at the curb, texting Lukas's mother.
Who, like everyone else in their lives, has no idea that Danicka has decided a year is quite long enough to be married without babies, which is about as far from the person she thought she was three years ago as one can get.
"She says they'll meet us at the Peet's in the terminal," she says to Lukas, as he and the driver are loading their luggage into the trunk. She's not usually the sort to wear pajama pants on a flight, even a very very long set of flights, which his parents surely approve of, but tonight she's opted for a pair of slim-fitting black yoga pants that flare slightly in the lower leg, a set of charcoal-colored flats that are in actuality lined with shearling and are basically slippers in disguise, and layers of a blue camisole with no lace along the neckline, and an effervescently soft pale gray cardigan. Her hair is down for now, but there's an elastic around her wrist, just waisting to pull it up and off her neck if she gets irritated by it.
As casual as she is, one might never guess that Danicka has never flown overseas in her life, nor even been on a plane for more than it takes to get from New York to Chicago.
She looks back at Lukas as the trunk thuds shut, smiling. It's cold outside, but she doesn't want to dig a coat out of a suitcase. For now, the cardigan is enough. "She's talking like it's been a full year since she's seen you," she adds, amused and smiling. Then corrects, because she is learning that she is important now, that she matters, that she is loved even by people who do not strictly have to love her: "Us."
LukasTruthfully, Danicka's decision to Get Pregnant hasn't really changed life at large for Lukas. He doesn't pay attention to the calendar. He pays attention to the moon, but then he always pays attention to the moon. He mounts his mate when she indicates through a glance or a word or a touch or a certain way her body brushes past his as they head to bed that she would be quite receptive to that sort of attention tonight, and afterward, when they've finished sweaty and breathless in the cave of their comforters, he thinks
just the way he always does
that this time there'll be cubs on the way, a den full of life and noise and laughter by the end of the year. But then that, too, is nothing out of the ordinary.
So he doesn't fret that it's been two and a half months. He's preoccupied with other things. Some of it has to do with The War and all its associated considerations. Some of it does not. He has other things to attend to beside slaughter and strategy; he's redoing the exterior of the house, trying to get all the disparate materials and colors to match. He's working on the cabinets that Danicka's fathered advised him on, and in truth he does this because he thinks he might make Miloslav, who is very quickly slipping into the fog of his own mind, happy. Miloslav, though he doesn't strictly have to be, is important to Lukas. And when the date of their long-foretold flight to Prague draws near, Lukas is preoccupied with that: with preparing the den for their long absence, with making sure all the windows close tight and the faucets don't leak, with keeping all the spirits extra-happy because they'll be left quite alone for a while.
Then the day is here, and they're up quite early in the morning, before dawn has begun to touch the sky. Danicka makes him check all the locks again. And the stove. And the furnace. Lukas frets a little about Kando, because of course he does, and Danicka assures him for the twentieth time that she'll be all right, she's familiar with the Kingsbury apartment, it's her den, she'll be safe and looked after.
Their luggage rattles down the front walk. Lukas helps the driver load the back. They've brought gifts along -- for her sister Sabina, of course, and her father's family in the Czech Republic. Little remembrances for Lukas's parents, too, and Danicka's father as they fly through JFK. And gifts for the current occupants of the house Lukas grew up in. Lukas's parents weren't very clear on that detail. They think it may have been given to another Shadow Lord clan after the dust had settled. A couple weeks ago Lukas called ahead himself, made inquiries and introductions. He was a bit quiet after hanging up, weighing his phone in his hand, thinking for a while. Then he looked at Danicka and said:
A Galliard owns the property now. She lives there with her parents, her sister, and her mate and her children. She said we're welcome to visit.
She could see he wasn't quite sure what to make of it. Despite all logic, the house was ever in his mind the same way he left it when he was five: big, a little bit magical, full of orange-flavored delights, and his. He's had two weeks and change to process it, though, and now some of the luggage they're bringing along is for this unknown Galliard and her family.
The trunklid shuts. Lukas goes to Danicka and wraps his arm around her, thinking to himself that it's cold even if the cardigan is enough. He opens the door and ushers her in; seems to take up a lot of room when he climbs in himself.
"She'll never let me live down those years when I didn't go home," he says. "We're going to O'Hare, terminal one." That's to the cabdriver. And then to Danicka: "Can your father make it?"
Danicka"Well, she shouldn't," is Danicka's response to that comment about what his mother will and won't let go of. It's starting to come out, in bits and pieces: there are similiarities between Lukas's mate and Lukas's mother. Small ones, really, but they have to do with an intense devotion to one's family, a certain grace and class that seems uncommon and even a little out of place in the modern age, and a firm certainty of their own rightness on some things.
Mercifully, perhaps, Danicka doesn't say anything else about Marjeta's feelings on her son, on the distance between them, on the time lost because of fears and selfishness, on the reality that she will never relax about the time she gets to see Lukas because every time really could be the last. She just scoots over, lowering her phone, and buckles herself in as Lukas tells the driver where to go.
He mentions her father and her brow wrinkles a bit. She nods. "I don't think he should. But he wants to. I feel better that your parents are picking him up."
They pull away from the curb. Danicka looks past her shoulder and out the windshield at their house, giving a small smile, turning back to him and leaning over a bit, against his side. Naturally, easily, she slips her arm over his midsection and rests close to him like that, knowing his arm will come around her and over her any second now.
This early, it's only about a half-hour trip up to O'Hare. Danicka doesn't fall asleep, because as calm as she seems outwardly, her excitement is buzzing in her like the heart of a hummingbird. She's glad, but doesn't say it while they're in the taxi, that Lukas is flying with her instead of running on moonbridges. Sure, everyone in the cabin will be on edge and taking tranquilizers and wondering if there's a terrorist in their midst, but she's glad. The moon worked with them. There's no way they could do this, like this, if it were full.
At the terminal, curbside, they get out and unload the trunk rapidly. They aren't in a rush by any means, but it's chilly outside and the wind has picked up. They check what bags they need to check right there, taking their carry-ons in with them to security.
Danicka is checking her phone again. "It looks like everything is on time," she says, staring at the screen as she walks alongside Lukas, knowing that he'll walk them around poles or other people or warn her of cracks she might trip on. That kind of trust is still surprising, sometimes. She told him she loved him long before she told him she trusted him. She showed him she loved him long, long before it was believable that she trusted him as much as she does. And the truth is, it was a very, very long time before she trusted him that much at all.
Now she doesn't even think about it.
Going through security is about as entertaining as it always is, though at this hour there's so few people that it goes quickly. Shoes off, jackets off, scanners, phones and keys and Danicka's tablet -- an early birthday gift to herself, she said -- going in the bins. Then shoes back on, jackets back on, picking up phones and luggage and electronics and moving on, heading at a more leisurely pace toward their gate.
People look at Lukas. But they don't meet his eyes. Everyone who sees him has fantasies ranging from serial killer to wife beater to secret agent to some things far, far more unsettling. Nevermind the slender blonde holding his hand, swinging their arms gently between their bodies because she's excited to be going on a big trip. Nevermind that. She's not the one that catches their attention.
Finding a seat at their gate to wait for the plane to come and to wait to board, Danicka ends up watching a young woman across the way who is holding a ten month old on her lap, babbling right along with the baby who keeps pulling on her glasses, waving her arms, bouncing in every attempt to get up and walk away when that's far from her abilities. Danicka isn't looking at her phone or at her tablet or taking a nap. She's just staring, idly, not even realizing she's staring.
LukasThe people around them have thoughts on them. On Lukas, particularly -- some of those thoughts quite outlandish, and at least a few of them quite dark -- but on Danicka at well. Most people wonder what on earth does she see in him. A few consider her with pity; think things like Stockholm and poor woman just doesn't know.
They ignore these things. It's a certain thickness of skin you have to develop as an Ahroun, as the mate of an Ahroun. It's a certain level of confidence, too, that comes with time and age: to be able to care less about what everyone else thinks about you. To be able to see who matters, and who doesn't matter. In a way, it's a gentler, milder form of the lesson Danicka's mother tried to teach her when she was quite young: you are better than them. Or at least, in their case: what my loved ones think matters. what anyone else thinks doesn't.
So they make it to the gate, where they sit and wait for their plane. Lukas stretches his legs out. They'll be cramped for a couple hours over to New York. Then they'll be cramped for considerably longer, crossing the Atlantic. They paid for a minor upgrade to economy-plus, but the expenditure of business class hardly seemed worth it. Plus, they've never been adverse to physical contact. They can always lean on each other. Share space. Move about inventively to relieve strain.
Lukas is playing with his phone. Danicka is staring at a baby. A few minutes later boarding begins, and Lukas looks up to the call over the intercom. He follows the direction of Danicka's gaze; sees the baby. Looks back at his mate.
And quite without explanation or preamble, he leans over. He kisses her on the cheek, his shoulder pressing warm against hers. "You're staring," he whispers, smiling, and then gets up. Their baggage is checked; he has a messenger bag as a carry-on, which stores his laptop, a Kindle reader he got sometime in the early spring, and some snacks for the trip. Also an inflatable U-pillow, an eyemask, headphones, a small toiletry kit. A well-prepared passenger, Lukas. He holds his hand out to help her with her carry-ons, and then they get in line.
"I was thinking," he says as they file toward the ticket scanner, "maybe we shouldn't tell our parents about the family plans until you're pregnant. I don't want them calling every month and asking."
Their tickets beep. Their passports are examined one last time. Welcome aboard, the flight attendant says. She gives Lukas a long measuring look, and a little later she radios the head attendant and tells her to keep an eye on the man in 12C.
Lukas[DANICKA paid. i forgots.]
DanickaA kiss on her cheek. Danicka blinks and turns to him. He's leaning into her, smiling at her, whispering that she's staring. She looks back at the baby, who is being gathered up and slung to her mother's hip as the mother picks up this bag and the other, then smiles
a little softly, a little achingly,
before leaning over and picking up her own things. Lukas has his messenger bag, Danicka has one of her larger purses to hold the tablet, her odds and ends, the pillow and eyemask that Lukas gave her, telling her that she'd want them. She takes his hand, firmly, and gets her phone out to prepare their boarding passes. That's what she's doing, and looking at, when he says he's been thinking.
She glances at him as the attendant scans the QR codes and they walk on in. "Oh, laska," she says, with a faint huff of a laugh, "I thought that went without saying." But there's something hanging back in that, something she mulls over without saying. They enter the plane and find their seats, waiting every few steps as people load their luggage overhead. Danicka moves to her seat and settles in, but that's when she finally circles back:
"I think we should wait a while after we find out, too," she says quietly. "Just in case."
LukasAll down the boarding tunnel Lukas can sense that Danicka is holding something back, not quite saying it. He doesn't push. They're in public; he'd understand if she didn't tell him until they'd landed. Until they were at their hotel, sixteen hours from now. He'd understand if she never told him at all.
She does, though -- after they shuffle onto the plane, after they're greeted by the flight attendants, after they settle in, after Lukas puts their carry-ons into the overhead compartment. It's warm on the plane, and he sheds his wool coat, folding that atop their small bags. He wears a thin sweater underneath, charcoal grey, and comfortable dark jeans. As he buckles himself into the seat, he rolls his sleeves up. He is, of course, the type to read the evacuation flyer quite seriously, and he's midway through learning how to brace in event of impact when she circles back.
Just in case, she says. He pangs. The laminated emergency procedures placard gets tucked away; he reaches for her hand and laces their fingers together.
"Are you worried about that because of what happened when you were young?"
DanickaThey've both changed. She takes time and instead of deciding not to tell him something at all, she tells him after she's come to terms with the thought itself. He sees she's holding something back and he doesn't tear at her like prey, open her up, demand to know. He waits, and if she doesn't tell him at all, he doesn't mind.
This time she does. She's still in her light cardigan, and not bothering -- yet -- with the flyer or any of it. He holds her hand. Asks what he does, quietly, though no one is listening to their conversations.
"I'm thinking of it because it's a possibility," she says after a moment, with a faint shrug. "For anyone. But ...yes, a little." Danicka shakes her head. "It's all right, I'm not worrying over it. I just don't want to have to make a second phone call, telling everyone --"
Danicka doesn't finish that sentence. She shakes her head. "Your parents didn't know about us until you sent me your books. I think it's all right if no one knows about this until I'm showing."
LukasHis mouth quirks. "We'll just tell them when we've finished counting fingers and toes."
The last of the passengers file into their seats. The door shuts; they're told to put away their electronic equipment. Flight attendants begin to run through the emergency procedures as the plane pushes back. O'Hare is a massive airport; taxiing takes a very long time. On their way out the door this morning, Lukas only had time to eat a bagel as he ran through a final check. His stomach growls as he looks out across the tarmac. He thinks wistfully of the beef jerky and chocolate-covered orange sticks he has tucked up in his bag; he considers buying one of those overpriced in-flight sandwiches.
"It doesn't matter to me," he says as they're waiting to take off. "If we lose the first one. Or if we have to try for years. Or even if we never have kids. It'll be sad, but I won't love you any less. When we first got together I didn't even think you'd ever want kids at all. I was okay with that.
"I just don't want you to feel pressured, okay?"
DanickaDanicka huffs a little laugh, but that quirk of his mouth does put her at ease. He's gotten better, too. Easier. Calmer. When he aches he does not circle and circle and circle as much, unable to let it go. He just never wants to hurt her. He just never wants her to hurt. But it isn't the end of the world. Even if she's uneasy about jumping the gun on telling people she's pregnant long before she actually becomes pregnant.
She squeezes his hand, and then they're being told to turn their toys off. Danicka hates this part. She mutters, and grumbles, and then makes sure she's all buckled in. They keep holding hands. Lukas thinks about food. Danicka thinks about the book she's reading on her tablet.
But the plane is moving, and Lukas is saying something that makes her heart twist in a knot: if we lose the first one. It hits close -- too close -- to home, and she winces away from the words, a bit. She's tender around this, a wound that has never quite closed. How could it?
Every time she calls her father's house, she wonders if Vladislav will be the one to pick up.
"I know, baby," she says softly, when he tells her he won't love her less. "I'd never doubt that. And I don't." Feel pressured. Feel burdened. Not by that, at least. Not by the fear that Lukas might not love her, might leave her, that something like that could break them. Her hand squeezes his again. "Let's just keep everything to ourselves for now."
She doesn't let go. She breathes in and exhales. "I've never flown overseas before," she tells him, and
the plane is picking up speed.
Lukas"I haven't either," Lukas quips, "in a plane."
They're quiet as the plane takes off. He remembers the last time they flew to New York together. Thanksgiving, he thinks. The first time she met his parents and his sister and his sister's boyfriend since they were all kids together. It wasn't so very long ago, but it seems like a lifetime ago. They've changed so much. Their interactions have changed. She's no longer the girl he's bringing home to mom and dad for the first time, though even back then she wasn't quite that, either. She's family now. His mom wants to see her, too. His parents are picking her father up, bringing him to the airport, even though Danicka worries about it, thinks he might be safer at home.
Privately, Lukas is glad Mr. Musil is coming. There's a poignant similarity there between her parents and his. It might be the last time Miloslav sees his daughter. It might be the last time he remembers who she is.
It was an overcast day in Chicago, and it's still early when the plane breaks through the cloud cover. Sunlight pierces the cabin, golden and brilliant. A few sleepy passengers close their shades, but they leave theirs open. The sky is very blue up here; the clouds beneath colored by the peri-dawn light. Danicka looks out the window. Lukas's hand is loose on hers, but he holds her hand until they have reason to let go.
Beverage service, for one. And the little bag of pretzels that comes with beverage service. Lukas decides to wait til he's at JFK to see about food; he supposes it's too late to try to convince his father to bring him a sandwich from Katz's. He gets beef jerky out of his bag and munches it as they fly, offering it to Danicka every so often until she gives in and has a few pieces.
She reads on her tablet. He leans his seat back and dozes a little, a large warm mammal sprawled out beside her. It's a relatively short flight, not long enough for a movie, so they show sitcoms instead. By the time they touch down Lukas is deeply asleep, startling ferociously awake as the flight attendant touches his shoulder. She recoils. He apologizes and puts his seatback up, and she recovers smoothly, but it was there for a moment: stark terror.
It's raining in New York. There are a few light bumps as they go down. Lukas is quiet, a little tense out of some primitive instinct to stay alert, be alert, just in case. His thigh is taut under Danicka's hand, but his hand covers hers after a moment, warm and sure. He's not all instinct. He knows they're perfectly safe.
On the ground, they have a little over an hour and a half before they have to board again. He yawns as he deplanes, carrying their carry-ons, passing Danicka her bag after they're free of the masses in the boarding tunnel. "Peet's," he mutters to himself, looking for signage. "Peet's, Peet's."
They exit the secure areas of the terminal. There's the cafe, rich with the aroma of fresh-brewed coffee. There are their parents. Lukas waves, breaking into a broad grin, fording the milling airport masses to give his mother a hug.
"Maminka, tatínek. Pan Musil."
Danicka"Show off," is all Danicka says to that, shaking her head. She leans back, glancing out the window. It's been over a year since they were in a plane together, since that Thanksgiving. Her thumb rubs over his knuckles idly as they take off. Danicka does actually close the shade against that harsh, searing light, but opens it again when the plane turns so that the sunrise isn't blinding her anymore. She is tired, she realizes, but too wired to sleep or even close her eyes for more than the occasional blink.
Lukas munches pretzels. Danicka gets some water but wrinkles her nose at the jerky. He keeps offering it to her. She keeps turning it down. He keeps trying. She keeps saying no. He tries again. She steals his damn pretzels. "And you are not kissing me again til you brush your teeth," she informs him, getting into her bag to pull out her tablet. It wakes with a stroke, opens her reading program with a tap, and resumes her book at her last page. She reads, stroking her thumb over his hand again while he sleeps. It, in fact, helps put him to sleep.
When the flight attendant comes by, she has to touch Lukas to wake him up. His wife is in the bathroom, or she would have escaped the possibility by mentioning it to Danicka and letting her wake him. Danicka isn't there to see the look on the woman's face, the recoil when Lukas jerks to consciousness again. She does scoot past the attendant on her way back to her seat, stepping over Lukas's lap and back into her seat, clipping her buckle again.
Lukas, as they descend, is tense, alert, but Danicka is just peering out the window, at the rain splattering on the windows. She can't think of any time she's ever been in a plane while it's been raining. She's flown so little in her life, all told. She's a bit fascinated by the view from the window.
There ends up being no reason for Lukas to keep trying to carry Danicka's bag. It's a purse. She shoulders it as they head into the terminal, her hair up in a ponytail now, checking her face in a small mirror while Lukas mutters to himself, looking for the coffee shop. She sees them about at the same time Lukas does, waving, and breaks away from him to rush ahead
lest her father rise from his chair, and stand, for too long.
She puts her arms around him, and moments later Lukas is hugging his mother, and Jaroslav is waiting patiently for his turn. Danicka embraces Marjeta, though lightly, kisses her cheek. Her hug to Jaroslav, however, is almost as warm as the one given to her own father. Danicka has pictures on her phone to show her father, tells Lukas what she wants from the counter -- a green tea smoothie, not coffee -- while she swipes her finger across the screen to show him shot after shot of the work Lukas is doing on the house, and pictures of Kando, and some of the photos from Christmas.
He's quiet. Not detached, not distracted, merely quiet. He's a quiet man to begin with, but they can see in those crystalline blue eyes of his: some of these things, he is trying to remember happening. They seem so long ago. He asks her a few times when things he sees happened, clarifies that it was just a couple of months ago. They talk about her sister, the children. He says: Milos is at Stark Falls a couple of times, as though etching it on a wall, reminding himself where one of his grandsons is. At one point, he gets incensed about something going missing at his house, that Vladik's wife stole it.
"No, tatinek," Danicka says quietly, without putting her hand on his arm, not wanting to patronize him. "She wouldn't. Just ask her where it is. She'll help you find it."
He is not soothed, but is soon distracted. Jaroslav brings up a story from a bridge game, a fourth friend of theirs who they are teaching to play. This story makes Miloslav laugh, jumping in to fill in the blanks. He repeats himself, but it's a picture of him as he used to be: bright, quick-witted, more than a little cunning, willing to play a long and quiet game.
Danicka drinks her smoothie. She holds Lukas's hand under the table, on top of his thigh. Neither of them mention their intentions. Their plans. Their hopes. And when Lukas checks his watch and says they should probably leave soon if they want to board on time, Danicka holds all three parents tightly one last time, promises photos to Marjeta and Miloslav and a postcard to Jaroslav, and already she's speaking nothing but Czech, something she fell into while talking to her father. They have to go back through security.
Her hand slips back into Lukas's as they head toward TSA again, a little more hurried this time.
LukasLukas's hugs are long, warm things, even if the one for Miloslav is just a little awkward. In some part of his mind, Danicka's father will always be Mr. Musil, who made excellent kolaches and was quite mild about it all when Danicka fell out of the tree.
The parents have coffee from their wait. Lukas gets Danicka her smoothie and gets himself a chocolatey coffee drink. He also gets a sandwich, plus two of the cold plates to share. They sit around one of those small tables, nibbling on cheese and fruit (or wolfing down a sandwich in Lukas's case). Danicka shows pictures, and when Lukas is done with his sandwich he fishes presents out from their carry-on bags.
They're small things, inexpensive, more mementos than grandiose gestures. A hat for his father, a scarf for his mother. For Miloslav, a leather-strapped wristwatch.
Lukas doesn't say a lot. He watches his family-pack interacting. He smiles often. Sometimes they're quick grin, delighted by some story his mother tells, some remark his father makes. Sometimes they're slower, quieter things. Once, when Miloslav grows agitated and irate, unable to control his temper because of the betrayal of his own brain, Lukas's brow furrows. He's hurting, even as his parents politely make small talk with him while Danicka calms her father. He holds Danicka's hand tightly under the table.
"Drive safe," he tells his father as they're parting again. An hour isn't a lot of time. And a little quieter, out of Miloslav's hearing: "Make sure he's got everything he needs at home, please?"
Of course they will, his father assures him. He believes it; he's comforted by it. They're his parents, and they're good people, and Miloslav is their friend. They part, and as they're going through the security song and dance again, Lukas asks:
"Who does your dad live with these days? Your brother?"
DanickaIn some ways, Lukas and Miloslav are both stuck nearly twenty years in the past. When Lukas hugs Miloslav like that, the older man is stiff at first, uncertain of what to do with this exuberant and yet serious and yet wild little boy, so he just puts his hand flat on the other's back and gives it a mild pat or two.
And of course, Lukas comes back with food. He nudges some toward Danicka, who only had her cottage cheese and fruit for breakfast and a few of his pretzels on the plane. She must be starving, he thinks. Starving. She shares the nibbles -- slices of apple and bites of cheese -- with her father, breaking a small scone and giving him half. Danicka just shakes her head gently at Lukas's gift-giving, amused and fond. She helps her father put the watch on, not because it's necessary but because it's tender. She informs them that her presents are going to come after the trip to Prague, and gives Lukas an archly superior look.
She does notice how tightly he holds her hand under the table when her father gets so upset that he nearly hits the table. She does notice how Lukas furrows his brow when her father is evidently stuck between the anger he can't help and the terror he is still trained not to express, lest it get him killed. And of course: she notices when Lukas quietly asks his parents to watch out for him. Make sure he has everything he needs, which in itself is the sort of statement someone who doesn't know what Miloslav needs would say. It would be easier, Danicka thinks, if it were about feeding him or keeping him safe from monsters. Lukas would know exactly what to do, then.
So would she.
They leave, after more embraces and promises, and they are still holding hands as they board. It's only when they have to separate to take off shoes and unload bags into bins that they separate. Danicka looks at him when he asks her what he does. She sighs.
"No, he's still in the old house. Vladislav owns it, but he lives in a different house with Emilie most of the time. He comes and goes as he likes. Emilie tries to help my father, as far as I know, but she and I don't talk like we used to." Like they used to, before Lukas came for Danicka and Vladislav cut her off and forbade both his wife and his father from seeing her. That works better on Emilie. "Mostly he lives alone," she says, and those four words are stiff and a bit tight, because they are rife with fears.
Lukas"If you want to move him closer to us," Lukas, having never put his coat back on, simply lays it in the bin, "I don't mind."
His shoes go in upside-down, the comparatively dirty shoes not touching his coat. Then a separate bin for his gadgets. He shortens the strap on his messenger bag to keep it from jamming and places it last in his small line, ferrying the whole deal toward the machines.
They pass through the scanner. Lukas forgets to take his watch off this time, and it sets the alarm off. He looks annoyed as he gets wanded, some alpha-wolf instinct bristling to have to place himself in so submissive a position. When the TSA officer goes behind him, his jaw is tight. Once the scan is finished he steps down, thanking the officer tersely, going to pack up his things.
"I can try to reason with your brother," he adds, reunited with Danicka. But then he says it himself: "I suppose it wouldn't do much good, though."
DanickaSecurity is a bitch. Danicka tenses when she looks back and sees the scanner beeping at Lukas. They swipe something over his palms and test it in a machine. She looks on, her brow furrowed not with concern but frustration and, frankly, simple readiness. A few seconds later he's putting his watch back on and they're slipping their shoes back on. She hasn't answered about wanting to move her father closer.
"If you could have everyone -- your parents, my father, my sister, the kids, your sister, Daniel, and your entire pack -- all living in one sprawling estate where everyone has their own little bungalow and everyone's babies grow up fighting and playing together and we bury our parents and ourselves on the same land... that's what you'd want, isn't it?" she asks him, and though the words started out as half-teasing, by the time she finishes describing it, she's not mocking him anymore. She's looking up at him, taking his hand again as they head toward their gate.
Regardless of his answer: "I don't think there would be any reasoning. It would be a challenge." She shakes her head. "I don't want to move him out of the house. I think it helps him remember some things. But eventually we might have to."
LukasLukas laughs a little -- but then he, too, grows serious. Or not serious. Thoughtful. His hand curls around hers. He meets her eyes; is struck again by her warmth, that core of compassion beneath her sometimes fierce, sometimes intellectual, sometimes rather aberrant exterior. He never would have thought, those first nights they met, that inside the stone egg was
spring.
"Yeah," he says. "I'd want people to be able to come and go as they pleased. And I'd like it if there was enough land that we didn't get sick of each other's faces. So there's privacy if we need it. But if we were all close enough to ... come together if we needed to, I think it'd be nice."
He looks at her, smiling. "It's how our people used to live, isn't it? But not anymore."
The smile fades as her brother comes up again. No reasoning. Just challenge. Lukas darkens. He's quiet for some time. He doesn't want to mar the beginning of their journey with vitriol and bitterness. In the end it seems to burst out of him, hushed but fervent: "I hate your brother."
DanickaEnough land to live on. Enough land to support a pack of mostly Adrens and their kin. Enough land for them to hunt on. Enough room for all of them to live on, live together, and yet be apart.
In a month's time, give or take, Danicka will remember this conversation as she walks across frost-covered ground into a village only silent for another couple of hours before dawn wakes them all. Blacksmiths and longhouses. Pillars carved like bears. Wolves and their kin. A little half-sister so young she only just realized that she has the same color hair as most of the people around her, and obsessed with it. She'll think of walking through JFK with Lukas, holding his hand, talking about having all of his family and his pack and his kin together like that.
used to. not anymore.
Her brows tug together in a gentle ache. "But back then, you never would have packed with Kate or Sinclair or any of the others. Only other Lords. " It's not a negative or a positive thing, really. She just mentions it, and squeezes his hand. Things are not as they used to be. They keep walking, and go to wait for yet another plane at yet another gate. There's no mother and baby at this one, so Danicka doesn't get as thorougly distracted.
As they're sitting down, though, the words come out of him. Danicka, moving her purse to one side and already digging out her tablet, tenses for a moment. She looks ahead, and is still, then just proceeds. Opens the tablet's case and turns it on, wordless.
Lukas[LOOK HOW MANY DICES I HAVE NOW.]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (4, 6, 7, 9) ( success x 3 )
Danicka[She isn't angry. That is likely the first thing that crops into his mind, given her tension and her silence, but it isn't anger. Not... exactly. There is a certain defensiveness about her then, though. Lukas hates her brother. But it isn't Lukas that he's ever laid a hand on. It isn't Lukas who he cut off from her family. It isn't Lukas he beat until she miscarried, til she nearly died, til she woke up and ran her hands over herself, trying to find scars from fractures and lacerations she knew she had to have. It isn't Lukas whose books bled ink in his hands for no reason but that Vladislav was in a fit of pique. Stalked, harassed, abused, terrorized --
Danicka thinks: you hate him.
And Danicka is quiet because she knows he does. But she doesn't want to talk about her brother right now, after leaving her father at Peet's a moment ago, while they're on their way to a long, long-belated honeymoon of sorts.]
LukasThere was a time when she was utterly incomprehensible to him. When he finally began to understand her, he thought of her in vaguely socratic terms. The truth of her was the light at the core. All he saw before were the shifting shadows cast from her, the shapes on the walls that sometimes looked ferocious and fearless, and sometimes small and scared, and sometimes sly and deceptive, and sometimes -- he feared -- world-wrecking, life-ruining.
It's different now. He sees past the shapes and the shades. He sees the truth at the core; understands immediately that she has a right to be ... not angry, no, but defensive. A little upset. Because it's true. He's angry at her brother; he hates him for what he did to her. But she was the one to live through it. His hate, at most, is a shadow cast from her experience.
So he's quiet for a while. She opens her tablet's case, turns it on. He looks at her hands on the sleek little machine. Then he puts his arm around her, hugs her against his side, kisses her temple. It's a wordless sort of apology. And acknowledgment.
They don't talk about her brother anymore. Or her father. She reads for a while, he jitters his foot quietly and waits for boarding. When the call comes out over the PA, Lukas is on his feet almost immediately.
DanickaShe's pulling up her book again, the same one she was absorbed in on the first leg of their flight. The next one will last longer. The next one will take them all the way to Prague, and last for two-thirds of a day, and he will be a wolf stuck on a flying metal box for all that time.
He squeezes her. Danicka startles slightly, already sinking back into the story she's reading, half-turning her face toward him. He kisses her, and her brow furrows in tenderness. She doesn't ask. He leaves his arm around her, and she turns a bit in the seat to lean into his side, and she reads her book while they wait to board. His foot jitters, so she lays her palm on his thigh and idly strokes him just above his knee, long sweeps of her thumb.
The boarding group just before theirs is called. Danicka turns off her tablet, stows it in her purse, and slips her feet back into her flats. Lukas picks up his messenger bag. Their boarding group is announced and, once again, she takes out her phone to show their passes.
"Are you all right?" she asks him, this man right on his feet as soon as it's time to go. She looks concerned, a milder form of worry, which is more Lukas's emotion than Danicka's. Danicka seldom worries. She usually just wrinkles her brow and either works out how to fix something or lets go of it. They are heading into the boxy tunnel that will take them aboard. "Are you worried about being on the plane so long?" she asks, quieter.
Lukas"Hm?" He glances at her. Thinks. Shakes his head. "No. I'm not worried. I'm ... excited." His smile is a little lopsided, a little self-deprecating. "Sometimes excited is almost like anxious."
They've held hands more times this morning than he can count. He reaches for hers again. Through the windows they can see the plane they're about to board: the clean white fuselage, the red lettering. An attendant scans their ticket -- or rather, Danicka's phone -- and welcomes them aboard in Czech.
"Dekuji," Lukas says automatically, and then continues, "I'm a little nervous about meeting everyone. Your sister, your father's relatives," but she can tell even as he says it that he's not that nervous about Sabina or the Musils, "the people living in my parents' old house. And just -- going back to Prague. I barely even remember it, I was so small when we left."
DanickaDanicka's smile in response to his excitement is gentle. Fond. "Me, too," is all she says to that. And they board, still holding each other's hands like they haven't been married a year, like they haven't been together for three. They were never sweethearts at the beginning, though. That, strangely, is a more recent development. Hand-holding in public, snuggling at airport gates. That's only happened in the past... six months? Year? It came as naturally as breathing,
as wounds healing.
They thank the attendant in Czech, while others titter about the foreign language. Americans, at least. There are plenty of people going to Prague who are just connecting from one place to the other, or people going home. In a way, Danicka and Lukas are in this latter group, even if one of them hardly remembers it and Danicka has never set foot in the country.
They, again, have to separate as they step into the plane itself and start moving through the narrow aisle. Danicka holds her purse out of the way of bumping against seats and shoulders. "I'm nervous about meeting them, too," she says, after they've sat. These are their conversations today, separated by minutes, chopped into pieces. She's setting her bag on her lap, looking at Lukas. "I've never met Sabina or Sarka's two eldest... much less my father's extended family." Danicka gives a small shake of her head. There it is. What are they to do about it?
But he mentions the house. Going back. She looks at him in sympathy. "Laska... do you want to skip the visit to the place you used to live? We don't have to if it will be painful. Or awkward."
Lukas"No," this answer is immediate; he doesn't have to think about it. "I want to see it. It'll be nice to know someone else is taking care of the house and land where I grew up. And enjoying the oranges. It is a little strange," his seatbelt clicks, he pulls it a bit tighter, "but it's good, I think. It's not my den anymore."
They're airborne again not long after that. By now it's mid-afternoon, New York time. Traveling is a little like time travel, Lukas muses. Days turn without warning, or slow to a crawl. There's a bit of turbulence leaving the eastern seaboard. He finds himself holding Danicka's hand again, though neither of them need to be comforted. They turn east; they cross the Atlantic.
It's a routine flight. They have a routine for this sort of thing; a subtle kind of crowd control programmed into the schedule itself. First there's the safety presentation. Then there's the takeoff and the climb. Midway through that, right as passengers are starting to eye their electronic equipment, the captain comes on with his welcome message; briefs the passengers on their itinerary, the weather, all that. Ten hours in the air; add a bit on the ends for taxiing, and it's an eleven-hour flight on paper. The seatbelt sign goes off. Seatbacks recline, mp3 players and the like are turned on. People play with their seatback entertainment systems.
Beverage service, after that. And then meal service. And then cleanup service. By the time that's out of the way, they're three hours into the flight, and people are settling down for a movie, a nap. Danicka reads. Lukas watches some Pixar movie, and sometimes he has to stifle a laugh; sometimes he presses his palm against his mouth, shoulders shaking, so he doesn't disturb everyone within a five-yard radius. Midway through Danicka wants to know what's so funny, and he passes her one of his earbuds, and she listens a little while before deciding to watch it, too. He restarts his movie. They watch it together.
Flying against the sun as they are, it's dark by the time the movie's over. Shades are drawn in the cabin. Passengers are sleeping. Lukas goes to the lavatory, where he brushes his teeth and washes his face. Takes off his belt. He comes back fresh-faced and sleepy, settling heavily into the seat beside Danicka. They put the armrest up, and he puts his arm around her, and she snuggles against his side. They share their blankets. He puts his eyemask on, grinning blindfolded as she teases him for looking like a stereotype.
Moments later he's asleep. It takes her a little longer to drift off, but once she's under she stays there. A couple hours later he wakes up, a little stiff, a little disoriented -- pushes his eyemask up and blinks blearily. A flight attendant offers him water, which he drinks greedily. Danicka murmurs, doesn't wake, settles, sleeps.
It's quiet in the cabin, and dark. The plane's engines are a steady hum. Lukas discovers he is happy. It's a quiet, warm sort of happiness. He has his mate near; they are together, safe inside strong armor, flying through the skies his pack and tribal totems own. Turbulence doesn't bother him. He is a son of the storm.
When Danicka wakes, Lukas's little table is down. There are two snack-boxes there. His is opened, demolished. Her is neatly waiting for her.
"They passed it out a little while ago," he explains, shifting gingerly now that she's awake. He's sore. He doesn't mind; he stretches, and it's better. "I didn't want to wake you."
She goes to the bathroom. He gets up too, strolls around the cabin to stretch his legs. When he gets back to their seats, he discovered their neighbor -- the unfortunate man jammed into the window seat beside a wolf and his half-wolf mate -- has wisely packed up and moved to an empty seat somewhere in the back. They have a row of three to themselves, which is rather nice. It takes a bit of maneuvering, but they end up sitting sideways across the row, piled comfortably together. She reads. He sleeps some more.
It's nearly midnight by their body clocks when the lights in the cabins flicker unceremoniously on. By then most the passengers are sleeping or resting. There's a muffled stirring; people waking, rubbing their faces, checking their watches. Some windowshades come up. It's still night outside, but dawn is near. They're over central Europe. The flight attendants inform them breakfast will be served, followed by landing. Lukas yawns until his jaw pops. One of his feet is asleep, the other nearly so, and as they bestir themselves and resume some semblance of proper seating posture, he bends to thud his fist lightly against his shins until they wake up.
"Almost there," he tells Danicka, though she already knows.
Dawn breaks as they begin their final descent. It's a clear day in Prague, a few clouds in the sky. The city is lovely, very old. Like so many other cities of its age and heritage, it was founded on a river. Bridges span that river, dozens crossing the blue. The layout of the streets is not nearly so regular as what they might find in Chicago, in New York. Broad, modern avenues follow the memories of centuries-old streets; those streets, in turn, follow the lay of the land. There's a lot of greenery down there, trees flush with oncoming summer. Not many skyscrapers. A lot of old, lovely architecture, the roofs red against surrounding foliage.
"It's pretty," Lukas says. He doesn't quite understand why this makes him ache. "I didn't remember that."
DanickaDanicka hates all this. All the subtle cues. She finds it patronizing. She could distract herself from boredom just fine if they'd stop fussing over electronic devices. Really, she thinks, 2013 and they're acting like they can't figure out a way to buffer the instruments against whatever interference there might be. She's tempted to do some research. But she can't, because they won't let her use her tablet. She pointedly and almost pettily ignores the flyer and the safety presentation and all of it, looking out the window or the like.
When they start to pick up speed and then take off, however, she's excited. She's smiling, and she's all but vibrating with enjoyment. She's going on a very long, very far journey. She's going to see family members she's never met, a home Lukas doesn't remember. Danicka is thrilled. Even after they are permitted their electronics again she's not reaching for them, oddly enough. She talks to Lukas instead, about the hotel they're going to, their own personal itinerary. Their first twelve hours or so there are just for them: settling in, eating wherever they like, sleeping until their body clocks adjust,
fucking in the middle of the night, the middle of the day, just because they can,
acclimating themselves to the new country. There is a schedule, albeit a thin one, after that. They're going to visit his family's old estate first. Meet the Galliard living there. It's convenient then for Lukas, if he chooses, to visit the nearest sept and pay his respects. Her father's family vineyards after that, which is far enough out from Prague that they'll be staying overnight somewhere else. Not a long trip the next day to see Sabina and her mate, then back to Prague to see the other nephews and other niece. There's more relaxed time after that, though: a few remaining days just to relax, to shop, to sightsee, to see family or tribemates if the opportunities arrive. They're traveling by car most days, despite the trains available. With Lukas's rage, it just made more sense to have their own rental car. They could stop along the way between locations whenever they liked. No schedules. No demands.
She settles down after a while, though. She takes out her tablet and reads her book, leaning her chair back and slipping her feet from her shoes. When beverages come she gets cranberry juice and orange juice and mixes them together with ice. Her tablet goes away when they eat; she's chosen a vegetarian meal, which likely mildly horrifies Lukas, but she points out that she got served before him. It doesn't help: all that green. And is that tofu? What is she thinking?
He pushes some of his roast beef toward her. Danicka shakes her head and eats a few bites of it, and he calms. There's a package of miniature chocolate chip cookies in Danicka's purse; they share it for dessert, and are nibbling it between them when Lukas puts in his earbuds and Danicka takes out her tablet again. It doesn't take long for her to be curious about the movie. She feels mildly cut off from him, suddenly, though it isn't uncommon at all for them to occupy the same space and do utterly different things. So she peers over, and he restarts the movie, and they curl up together with headphones in their ears to watch it together. Her arms wrap around his bicep. She rests her cheek on his shoulder.
And that is when she starts to get sleepy. They take turns washing up, and Danicka lets her hair down. She doesn't want an eyemask, but pulls the shade and snuggles against his side and puts the blanket halfway over her face, the other half turned toward his chest. It's an awkward position to sleep in, but they've done it before. She sleeps lightly, usually, but only when Lukas isn't there. She used to sleep lightly even when he was. Now she sinks under, motionless, heavy, the sort of sleep her body has been longing for most of its life and could never find.
She sleeps longer than he does, even. Her arm is limp over his waist. She does not dream vividly, or of people she knows. She dreams in snatches, like always, forgettable and jumbled. It is a long time before the plane dips, jolts a bit, and she startles awake. Her hand clutches at his side, her eyes blink rapidly open, and she remains tense for a few seconds until she's re-oriented.
He murmurs that it was turbulence. They're fine. She sniffs and looks around, looks to the window, wonders what time it is, checks her mouth to see if she drooled. She did not. That is because her mouth is painfully dry, and she drinks the bottle of water Lukas got for her in one long pull until its half empty. She wakes hungry, too, opening the snack box and eating the cheese first, the apple slices, the grapes, everything in it. Finishes off the water. She finds it doesn't matter what time it is; it hardly means anything.
Only after she's eaten does she dance over his legs and go to the lavatory, feet back in her flats for the trip. When she comes back she's got a freshly washed face and her hair is up again. She smells refreshed, too -- took off her sweater and gave herself a once-over with a washcloth, woke herself up from after a long nap and rapidly devoured snack. She wiggles back down into her seat happily, quite perked up despite not having slept for a full eight hours. Not even four.
She asks if he wants to watch another movie. He thinks about reading. They shift around, snuggle together, and in the end she reads a bit, he falls asleep with his head against a pillow against the window, arms around her waist. She puts in her earbuds and watches a few episodes of 30Rock off of her tablet. Well: two episodes.
And sleeps again, lying half on top of him. For a moment her body forgets where they are and what is happening; she wants to arch her back against him, rub her ass gently against his groin until he wakes and until he stirs to her. She wants to feel his hands slide up her sides and over her breasts, stroking her nipples to hardness. Danicka doesn't do any of these things. She nuzzles him under his jaw, and he grunts in his sleep, and she pulls a blanket over them both and naps once more.
Lights, then. Danicka likes this waking better than the other one. She yawns and looks for more water. The attendants are going to bring her coffee. Lukas bangs his shins on purpose, which she tells him bluntly she thinks is very odd. There's another little round of washing-up and then breakfast, and again Danicka's has very little to no meat, but she claims that with all the meat Lukas is going to be shoving at her this week, she hardly needs to worry about her protein intake.
Danicka watches the sunrise out of the window while she eats her breakfast and sips her coffee. She smiles at the attendant when they do their final clean-up. She buckles herself in, giddy, wiggling in her seat, too excited now to even think much about sore muscles, awkward cricks in her joints, any of it. "It's so old," she says, but quietly, because she knows how naive she must sound to those who are not new to the Czech Republic. Her fingertips are on the window. She's smiling, softly and fondly, when she turns to look at Lukas.
"You didn't remember me much, either," she reminds him, gently. It doesn't mean anything. It doesn't make it less important. "Maybe things will come back to you when we're there. Just like with me."
