Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The sound of the front door unlocking roused Loba from sleep. She had the day off and was trying to relax, but she hadn't remembered her roommate going out the night before. As the door opened, Andrade couldn't help but let the daylight creeping through her curtains catch her eye. Honey gaze snapping open, she sighed slightly to herself. Lifting her head a little, she looked to her shut bedroom door.

"Jamie? Darling? Is that you?" Andrade called through it, straining as she heard a pair of footsteps down the hall. Not hearing a response, she pushed aside her irritation and got out of bed. Pulling on the usual robe she kept on the back of her vanity chair, Loba moved to her bedroom door. Just as she opened it, Jamie emerged from his room. He was just as bleary eyed as she, blinking at her in confusion.

"What do you mean, Loba? I'm right here."

Suddenly alarmed, she darted down their hall to the front door.
Upon turning the corner to see who had let themselves in, a sudden rush of air entered Loba's lungs in a sharp gasp. Before she could help it, she sank to her knees.

It was impossible.

Before her stood an older Marcos and Alanza Andrade. Her father was occupied with taking off her mother's fur coat to hang on a coat rack, but her mother noticed right away. They were older, but exactly as they should have been.

"What's wrong, darling?"

Rushing over to her, the woman with an elegant streak of gray in her hair knelt down to look her over. Loba looked at her in abject fascination, before turning back to Jamie as he trailed behind her.

"Is this some sort of joke?" She questioned softly, scowling.

"Loba, I'm pretty sure you were the one that scheduled brunch with your parents." Jamie responded incredulously, as if nothing were out of the ordinary outside of her behavior.

"... What? … I did?" Looking back to Alanza, she placed a hand to her daughter's forehead in concern.

"Maybe you're ill, beautiful… We can reschedule."

"I'm sure she's fine, she was just out late." Her father chimed in cheekily, finally walking up to her. "Weren't you, bebe?" He too had several shocks of gray in his hair, as well as a nasty scar on his neck just peeking out from under the collar of the suit he wore.

Loba looked between them in shock. Then back to Jamie, who gave her a pointed look of concern.

Something was off, she could feel it in her gut. What exactly she was growing increasingly unsure of. Last night she fell asleep sure that her parents had been dead for the better part of the past 30 years. That she had taken up the cause of seeking revenge for their brutal murders and joined the Apex Games.

However, here they stood before her. Alive. Healthy. Idly, she pinched herself to see if she'd wake up. Nothing.

Had she fallen asleep in an interdimensional portal?

Everyone still looked at her, Marcos now even starting to look concerned at her prolonged silence.

Taking a deep breath, Loba smoothed over her immediate concern with a smile. It was mostly genuine.

"... Of course, ahah, I must have celebrated a little too hard last night." 

Loba managed, placing a hand on the wall, she brought herself to her feet. Suddenly, both of her parents looked between each other before back at her proudly.

"A good heist, I take it?" Alanza queried with a gentle smirk. With a playful laugh, Loba shrugged.

"Isn't it always?" She replied, pulling out the charm she usually reserved for parties she was trying to crash. It worked, for both Marcos and Alanza burst into laughter.

"That man of yours not giving you trouble?" Her father threateningly teased, causing Loba to freeze. Lashes fluttering, she pursed her lips.

Man?

Regretfully, the first thing to come to mind was a certain simulacrum. Unsure how to answer, Loba moved to her kitchen. Before anyone could tag along, she poured herself a glass of water and began to down it. By the time her parents had followed, she was mid-swallow. It was just enough time for her to think.

Lowering the glass, her heart refused to quit twisting up her throat.

"I just hate to do this, but I do think we should reschedule." It pained her to refuse her parents, even as confused and suspicious as she was. The vaguest look of disappointment crossed her parents faces and broke her heart on the spot.

"Tomorrow perhaps? --Or tonight? I should feel better by then." Loba added urgently, increasingly desperate to keep the dream going.

Alanza nodded and came up to her, giving her cheek the softest pinch. It threatened to bring tears to Loba's eyes.

"We'll have to make it the day after, as papai and I have some business to attend to."

Again, Marcos sent a happy smile to his wife and daughter. Loba wanted so desperately to believe that they were real. For a moment, she allowed it, and smiled back at them.

She saw them off shortly after that, heart aching each more with every passing moment, enough that she nearly didn't let them leave after all. However, with the door finally shut behind them, Loba returned to the kitchen to find Jamie. Now in the process of making coffee, the scent alone managed to wake the thief up. Focusing on the fact that he was on his phone watching some of the Games, she subtly looked over his shoulder, under the pretense of getting more water.

Sure enough, she caught sight of several faces she recognized… and some she did not.

"Jamie, dear, do you still happen to have my application to the Apex Games on file?" Loba questioned off-handedly. Giving her another confused look, he shook his head.

"You never applied… Did you want to?"

That alone sounded off like a bomb in her head.

Her parents were alive. She never joined the Games. For some reason the air left the room.

"I can get on that today if you want me to." His comment shook her out of her thoughts.

"No… no, but thank you. I'm just going to… lie down." Loba managed before she wandered out of the kitchen, ignoring the way Jamie shook his head in confusion after her. Finally heading back to her bedroom, she gazed around. Nothing seemed out of place.

Everything was the same.

Even her fan lay on her nightstand where she remembered leaving it the night before. Retreating back to bed, Andrade tried to will herself awake, in her own universe. Eventually, Loba accidentally took a nap. Upon waking, it struck her what else might have changed.

Rushing to her closet, she threw open the door to look at one of her shelves. Where there would normally be a few to several Revenant heads… none were to be found.

Before she could react, there was a knocking on her bedroom door.

"Not now, please –" She started in a groan, but the door opened anyway. Glaring at it... again, she gasped as her jaw dropped.

It wasn't Jamie.

A towering lanky blond sauntered into the room, holding a giant bouquet of lush long stemmed roses. Roses the same crimson color as the vest and tie he wore, set against the black of his button up shirt.


"Aww, now is that anyway to talk to your fiancée?" Kaleb Cross' playful bass struck her like a blow to the head. 

"My what?!" Loba spat, turning to face him with a sharp glare. No matter how he looked, nothing would change.

Setting down the roses on her vanity, he took a backward seat to face her. Very also alive. Flesh and all. Cross scoffed, shooting her a grin.

"Didn't think you hated me that much, doll." Giving her a once over, she realized she was still in her night clothes, haphazardly hanging off her shoulders and hips. Flush falling over her, she let out a soft 'tch'.

"Out of everyone and everything in the Outlands, I hate you the most." She shot back, smirking just the same. He glowered deviously.

"Well, that will make eventually stabbing you in the back all the easier. Just… let me take an insurance policy out on you first, dearest ." Kaleb pushed back, although he continued to sit comfortably. His icy gaze fell on her with a glint of affection, and again Loba found herself confounded. Pushing off the way her chest fluttered, she sneered.

How could he be there? Unless he was in some new kind of skin, or a hologram, it made no sense for him to look like that. For her parents to be alive. For Jamie not to know anything was wrong.

"Does the name 'Revenant' mean anything to you?" Andrade asked before she could help it. Kaleb gave her a funny look, before shaking his head.

"No. Should it?" Gaze narrowing, he looked at her with the same amount of confusion everyone else had that day.

Opening her mouth to speak, Andrade found herself at a complete loss.

"... No?"

Chapter Text

They stared at one another for an extended silence, brows mutually knitted. Just when Loba thought to ask him to leave, the floral scent carried from the roses.

"Why are you here?" She finally asked instead, haughtily folding her arms across her chest. Kaleb again scoffed, moving his attention to the cigarette case he pulled from his vest pocket. Pulling one out to place between his lips, icey blue eyes finally leveled back at her.

"'Heard you cancelled brunch on your folks." His response was oddly punctuated by the striking of his lighter before he leaned in to light his cigarette. Not knowing whether it was this or the mention of her parents, but it had her sneering and waving the resultant smoke away as she stormed up to him.

"Who told you that?" Loba heaved, glaring up at him.

"Marcos." Kaleb replied flatly, as though it was obvious. "You were supposed to tell your parents about us today."

Again caught off guard, Loba wilted vaguely as she stood before her apparent fiancee. Not wanting to appear as confused as she was, she continued to storm off to her nearby dressing screen. Not appearing to follow her, she sighed in relief. At least here, she could hide from his striking gaze and confounding presence.

"What do you say to lunch, doll?" Cross asked flirtatiously from across the screen, and Loba could hear the smile in his tone. Her stomach finally rumbled at the question, and she huffed softly to herself.

Realizing that she should finally dress, the thief began to look for things to slip on.

"Fine."

Ultimately, Andrade had insisted on going to one resturant in particular. Plenty of light, modern with open air patios. It was the same as she always remembered it, which was a relief. Unlike other things. Loba hadn't spoken much to Kaleb on their way there, still unsure as to how she found herself in this situation. She found it hard not to glare at him, as it was his presence that spoiled what was ultimately otherwise a very pleasant reality.

All of this lead to her sitting across from him at a neatly set table, trying not to glare at him from over the rim of her mimosa. Kaleb, meanwhile, hardly seemed to care about the dirty looks she was giving him. The fact that he was able to sit there and actually drink a whiskey from a glass only further drew her attention.

Dearly wanting to know more about how they got to the point where they were planning a wedding, but not wanting to come off any more oblivious than she already had, the thief pursed her lips in thought. Finally, an idea sprang to mind.

"I want to push back the wedding." The statement came firmly as gold eyes narrowed. Cross balked slightly, although his expression did not change much aside from the way his pupils narrowed.

"Why is that?"

"It's too soon. There's too much to do." She quipped, tapping her nail against her glass.

Kaleb scoffed, "It was your idea to push up the date. This whole thing has been your idea, Loba."

Again, the thief was countered by her own apparent behavior. She was dying to know who this version of her was, the one everyone thought her to be.

"Yes, well, I've changed my mind." She tossed back testingly with a casual flip of a braid over her shoulder. Cross only laughed, grinning cunningly before taking a swig of his whiskey.

"Good thing I kept that deposit for the later date then, huh?" He teased, glint in his eye as he looked back at her. Chewing on her tongue, Andrade seethed mildly at him. Finally, his expression darkened.

"What's with the cold shoulder?"

Loba waited for him to shoot off some eerie threat at her, something that would give her the revelation that she needed that this was all some sort of trick. When it didn't come, the thief's brows knit again. Surely, he must have done something in this universe to warrant her ire. Thinking back to the surreal encounter with her parents earlier, she recalled the odd scarring on her father's neck.

"What you did to my parents…" Andrade finally started testily, loathing laced in her tone.

Cross scoffed, rolling his eyes. "You don't get to be mad about that still. Your dad isn't even mad about that anymore."

Nostrils flaring, Loba's expression hardened. Noting it, Kaleb's shifted to match.

"He's the one I nearly took out, not you." The phrase landed defensively and practiced. They've had this conversation before. Heaving in aggravation, Loba sipped her mimosa and wondered how she was somehow engaged to the man who in every universe, had tried to kill or killed her parents.

"Doll, we've been over this…" Kaleb pressed under his breath to avoid being heard by those at surrounding tables. Across the room, Loba noticed Octane and Lifeline, or whoever they were in this universe. They must have been dating, because they both appeared very uncomfortable and stiff.

"Explain it to me. Again." She dared him, raising her chin. "I need you to tell me what happened as if I had no clue."

Cross leaned in, taking her hand gingerly into his own across the table and squeezing it.

"Of course, dearest." The last word was spoken with a spike of annoyance. It was the sort that Andrade trusted from the demon, enough to bring a near smirk to her lips.

Kaleb stared down at Loba pointedly, and she lifted a brow in wait. Giving the room a once over to be sure they weren't overheard, he scoffed softly and looked back to her.

"Nearly 20 years ago, an idiot kid botched his first hit, almost killing Marcos Andrade." He stated flatly, while the scar on her father's neck suddenly made sense. Not so much how Kaleb was alive, but at least how her parents were.

"Forever spiteful, ten years later you tracked him down. Finally a real thief, after a real assassin."

At his explanation, a slow flush rose across her skin. Even when he didn't kill her parents, she would have still hunted him down. Trying not to let off how tense she was becoming, Loba only straightened to look down her nose at him.

"And?"

Bemused, Cross brushed a thumb across the back of her hand.

"I would say you stole my heart…. But you also planted a bomb at the base of my skull, dearest." He crooned sweetly, a wry smile creeping across his lips while a dark look crossed his gaze.

Loba realzied three things in the illumination he provided. Once of which was assurance that their relationship wasn't as earnest as she feared. The second was that Kaleb must now be working for her family.

"Happy now?" He quiried cheekily, narrowing his gaze. He didn't let go of her hand. "Is this why you haven't told your parents yet?" The last thing was that they truly were a couple.

"Do you really want to marry me?" Andrade couldn't help but scoff, shooting him an incredulous look. Then, Cross gave her a look she couldn't place. A sad affection sank into his eyes.

"You'll never let me go, girlie."

Left staring into his eyes over the table, it was the first time she felt like they were a couple at lunch.

It took too long for Loba to return to her drink after his response, slowly slipping her hand away from his and draining the flute when she did. Not knowing where to take the conversation, her eyes fell to the half eaten plate.

In the distance, she could hear Octavio and Ajay bickering. Why weren't they behaving the same way? Why did everything still feel so normal?

"Is this real, demonio?" Loba pressed, gold gaze rising to meet his again. The question took him off guard this time, and he gave her a long, studious, stare. Finally, he shrugged.

"I stopped asking myself that a long time ago."