Chapter Text
Faroe was curled up in the hospital chair, knees pressed against the metal arm. She had a palm-sized sketchbook in hand. Industriously, she scratched out the outline of a stone hallway – bars of a cell – a hint of a door in the distance. Colors that seemed far too magnificent eked out of the crevices, a stark contrast to everything else.
Well. She wanted it to look like that, anyway. She was doing all she could, with the cheap pencils and sketchpad purchased at the shop next door. Faroe kept having to pause to roll the sleeves of her dress up. Obtained from the hospital lost-and-found, the fabric swam on her. A little cozy, in its own way.
In the bed next to her, a man slept peacefully. He had been conscious – or, conscious enough – as Faroe dragged him from that terrible basement. To her relief, he’d lasted just long enough to see the sun before he’d gone limp again. They hadn’t talked or anything. He’d babbled nonsense, a bit, but nothing she could make out.
As for John… well. She didn’t know. She couldn’t think of that, right now.
She knew that she needed to phone her grandfather. It was cruel, maybe, even, not to. Even if the sun had barely risen, surely he was awake and fretting about the lost of his granddaughter. He was getting up in years. Perhaps it would inspire a heart attack. Perhaps he was dying. Perhaps he was dead, all because Faroe hadn’t called him.
Faroe wasn’t sure if she could.
She’d spoken when asked, during her own examination. Each word seemed to come from somewhere else, someone else. Her mind was a thousand miles away. If she lied to the doctors – she couldn’t remember.
It wasn’t as if her own mind was racing, either. Certainly, she thought of the last few hours, the last few days… but she could not bring those thoughts to the forefront of her mind, to speak.
She was exhausted, she thought. She was exhausted.
But she didn’t want to leave, not for Papa and not for her own rest. She wanted to wait, at least until the man next to her woke up. At least until she could explain what happened – to reassure him that they were safe for now. Or, rather, as safe as she could make him.
And… after all that, she didn’t want him to be alone. Especially if he was, well… alone now.
So she continued to sketch as the city came alive outside of Arthur Lester’s window. It was good to see the sun again. It was good to be around people, even if her companions right now were her unconscious father and the sound of footsteps outside the door. Made her feel less like she would float off into the ether.
She continued on like that for some time. Faroe felt no more ready to talk, but she was more aware of the weight of the pencil in her hands. The weight of her own eyelids, for that matter. Would anyone fault her if she simply put everything down, let her head loll, and –
The door opened.
Faroe looked up from her sketchwork, hands stained with colored dust. There, in the doorway, was Papa.
He looked rather unwell. Papa was never a man to let himself be seen in any sort of disarray – always her stolid, occasionally overbearing protector. Only now, his hair was messily done, a few stray strands escaping from his skull, and his clothes looked as if he’d slept in them. More likely, given the hanging-drapes quality of his jaws, he hadn’t laid down at all.
How had he known? Had Faroe given her name? Arthur’s name? Given Papa’s connections, it wasn’t impossible to imagine that he could have found out. Faroe just didn’t think it would be so soon.
She hadn’t wanted him to find out like that.
Hesitantly, Faroe unfolded her legs and got to her feet. She wasn’t sure if she could walk forward, not until she regained feeling in her limbs. Papa just stared at her from the doorframe, eyes widened, and as Faroe met his eyes –
She recalled the rim of the baptismal font scraping into her chest, the tug of her hair as she was thrust underneath the water, again and again.
“Papa –!” Faroe sobbed.
Papa rushed forward.
In a second, she was in his arms. He seemed intent to crush her against his chest, her head slotting neatly underneath his chin. She was awash in the familiar scent of his cologne, intermixed with the must of the church that never quite seemed to leave him.
“Oh, my lamb, my lamb,” he grieved, choked up. It served as a cold shot right to Faroe’s veins, clearing away some of the clouds – she didn’t think she would ever be used to the sound of her Papa crying, not after twenty years of its absence. “I thought – I had the most terrible dreams – are you alright, my dear? Please tell me that you’re alright.”
He looked like a man tormented as he pulled away from her, eyes scanning up and down her dress. Faroe was abruptly grateful for how much it swamped her - he could see very few of the bruises, the cuts, the scars. A thousand little circular pricks from a tentacle monster was the least of her concerns, now.
“I’m alright. I’m alright.”
Perhaps not in the larger scale of things, no. But she could look at her Papa and see that he expected to receive his granddaughter back in fleshy ribbons. Compared to what he must’ve been imagining, she was just fine.
“Your legs are shaking. Sit, Faroe.”
He took her by the hand gallantly, the other pressing into the small of her back as she was guided two steps to the chair. Despite her head being a little clearer, Faroe was frankly glad to sit. Papa did not let go of her hand.
“I have the car waiting outside,” he explained. “If you’re well enough – I must speak with the doctors, of course – then we can go home. This is such a messy, crowded place, Faroe. It’s not a proper environment for you to recover. If -”
Suddenly, her solid wooden plank of a grandfather looked almost meek.
“If you would like to,” he amended shyly. “Come home.”
Yes… Yes, that was probably the last he’d known of her – sneaking out of her room in the middle of the night, not once, but twice. What an impression that must’ve made.
“I will.” Frankly, there was little that she wanted more than to fall asleep in her childhood bed and not rise for a week. Little, unfortunately, dozed away in the hospital bed next to her.
She gestured towards him. “But I have to wait until he wakes up. He’s going to be confused.”
“A boy?” Papa remarked with such contempt that it almost made her laugh. “This has all to do with a boy? I should have guessed.”
Euch. “No, it’s not like that. He’s…”
How could she possibly begin to explain everything that had gone on? She would have to start with being an assassin, which would shatter Papa’s heart utterly. Grind him into dust. Arthur seemed to take the news well, but Arthur… was not a well man, all told. Papa was a stodgy old clergyman who had suffered more loss than most, that was all.
She cleared her throat. “This is Arthur Lester,” she began. “My fa –”
“Impossible.” It was startling, how sharply his gaze hardened. He took a step closer to Arthur, leaning over him to stare at his face. “You know fully well that it’s impossible.”
Up until now, Faroe hadn’t even known Papa knew her Arthur Lester was dead. It wasn’t so inconceivable to think. His brother lived in Arkham, might have airily mentioned the news to him. They’d never spoken about it.
“It – It doesn’t have to be impossible, Papa. All the newspapers said was that he was found, shot in an alley. It could’ve been… it could’ve been any number of things, it –”
He looked up to meet her gaze again. Papa’s nostrils flared. While his voice wasn’t angry, it did bely some steel underneath.
“ Faroe,” Papa enunciated carefully. “You know fully well that it’s impossible. ”
Something about his tone of voice. Something about the strength behind it. She knew Papa was a strong man; he took every opportunity to show her that. However, Faroe also knew he was a man drawn by his foibles – the silly little things he thought, his stuffy old man ways.
They were not related by blood, and yet, in that moment, Faroe saw something of Arthur in her Papa’s face. The expression of someone who would do whatever he needed, damn God and damn good, to protect those that he loved.
And everything started to drip down.
“You know,” Faroe surmised.
She didn’t know how he knew. Those few months after Arthur’s death were such a blur. Papa had never asked about what happened. She had never explained. Of course Faroe knew there was an investigation going on, a man like Arthur Lester begged for justice… but nobody ever came to her.
Had some of that been Papa’s doing? Why would he never have mentioned it?
For all his talk about life is loss….
He had not wanted to lose her.
Faroe didn’t know what to say. Oddly, she think she wanted to cry.
Papa didn’t confirm or deny. He only returned his gaze to the man in the bed. His brows furrowed together, one hand reached for the underside of Arthur’s chin. Papa tilted his head back, inspecting.
“But my word,” he murmured. “He does look like him. Before… when he showed up at the door, I didn’t catch it, but…”
Slowly, Faroe raised herself up from the hospital chair. She caught her Papa’s eyes flicking over to her, then, making sure that she was alright – but she walked the few steps between the chair and the bed without difficulty. She sat down on the edge of it to stare down at him.
He seemed so different to her. Perhaps it was the circumstances under which they met, the shiny man in the tuxedo and the half-emaciated thing in the caves. Faroe had no idea the contexts under which Papa saw Arthur, before. Young, probably. Scared. Overwhelmed. Much more resemblance to the man in the hospital bed.
Papa looked back towards Arthur. His gaze was unforgiving.
“He did save my life,” Faroe coaxed him. She didn’t know why, wasn’t sure if she could solve decades of anger with a single conversation, but. It was the truth. “I got… I got into a bit of trouble, and he –”
“Why didn’t you tell me, lamb?”
Clearly Papa knew more about her life than he was letting on, but… there were limits. Faroe bit the inside of her lip.
She hated how young she sounded when she replied, “I… I didn’t want you to be upset with me.”
Upset was a word for it. So was aghast, horrified, disillusioned… she was no writer. Even so, it was enough to soften Papa. He reached over the bed to give a comforting squeeze against her shoulder.
“I do get upset.”
Hardly what she expected him to say. It drew a swift laugh out of her, and something about Papa softened.
“If what you’re saying is all true, Faroe, then… I have something to be grateful to him for.”
Didn’t fix everything. Certainly not. However, it would keep Papa from summarily throttling Arthur where he slept, which was all Faroe had the constitution for right now. Hard to imagine Papa really, truly warming up to him. Putting him up in their home. Laughing with him over breakfast.
That was all a long ways off. Arthur wasn’t even –
Just as she thought it, she saw a muscle tighten in Arthur’s face. It was accompanied by a squinting of the eyes, a wrinkling of the nose. Far from a placid, unlined face… Arthur was waking up. His limbs started to shift under the bed, like he were gearing himself up to run.
“Arthur?” Faroe asked, leaning over him. Papa seemed to loom on the other side. “Arthur, you’re in the hospital. Everything’s fine, just… stop moving, will you?”
And, to her surprise, Arthur did stop. His eyes cracked open. She couldn’t even much see the color, only a glittering reflection behind his eyelashes.
“F… F’roe?”
“Yes. Yes, it’s me, I’m right here. I’m fine.”
“Good. Good…”
Papa frowned, taking a step away from the bed. “Someone ought to tell the staff that he’s awake. Faroe, don’t leave this room.”
Don’t leave this room. Faroe smiled. As Papa hurried into the hallway, Faroe teased to Arthur, “I think I might be grounded.”
Arthur didn’t say anything in return. Though awake and mumbling her name, Faroe wasn’t sure how much he was… here. His eyes seemed to slide around the room in smooth strokes, not settling on any one thing. Faroe couldn’t begin to think what his injuries had been. What that machine had done to him. What, even, the machine had done to…
Her lips pursed. No, she couldn’t worry over John right now. Not when there was nothing to be done about it. She just rested her hand on Arthur’s shoulder, bent over the bed as best she could.
“You’re going to be fine,” she promised him. “I swear. After all this – it’s going to be fine.”
What was going to happen, exactly, remained yet to be seen. Not like she had plenty of chance to talk to Arthur. Why was he even in New York? How had he even got here, ten years off where he should’ve been? Did he even want to –
The door to the hospital room opened again. Papa trailed a nurse.
“Awake already?” She quipped, chipper. “He is a restless one, isn’t he?”
Papa grumbled something indiscriminate. Though, Faroe supposed, he did take up his post on the other side of Arthur’s bed yet again. That counted for something. When Arthur was up and mobile… God only knew what Arthur would have to say. Could they really explain it all? Timelines, eldritch gods, the like? Or would Papa just think she’d lost her mind?
She supposed they would have to see. They could make the decision together. A team.
The thought made her feel a little less alone.
Next to her, the nurse leaned over Arthur’s prone body. Were it not for his slightly cracked eyes, Faroe would’ve thought he’d fallen back asleep. As it was, he didn’t move as the nurse peeled one of his eyelids back to peer into the irises again. She had a small penlight in one hand.
She brought the light to one eye, and –
Arthur’s eyes shimmered yellow.
Faroe gasped, the sharp inhale nearly piercing her throat, when she felt warm fingers close around her wrist. Looking down, she saw that Arthur’s left hand had shot out to grab her. It held her tight, almost to the point of pain, the fingernails pointedly against her skin.
John.
“Faroe?” Papa asked, concerned. “Is everything alright –”
“Oh! Sorry about that, dear. Sometimes their unconscious movements really can be a shock. Now, Mr. Lester, let’s let go of your…?” The nurse reached for Arthur’s hand, delicately prying the fingers off. John seemed to fight the action for a half-second, before his hand fell limp to the bed like a crushed bug.
John. John was okay, John was – the exhale that escaped her was tinged with relief, almost to the point of tears. He was still in there, back in Arthur’s head. Probably yelling at her in frustration of his state. But okay.
“F-Friend,” Faroe said back, and then, realizing herself – “F-Father. Father, too, ehm. Sorry, I was just… I was so worried about him. I, I thought I lost him.”
Both of them.
They were there. Both alright. Both alive.
She avoided Papa’s concerned look, instead watching the nurse continue checking over her patient. Arthur seemed relatively dead to the world until the end, until the nurse wrapped a blood pressure cuff around his arm. Only then did Arthur’s face tighten in discomfort, his eyes blinking open once more.
“It’s okay,” Faroe soothed him. “It’s okay, Dad, she’s just looking you over.”
Papa tensed.
Arthur focused on her, just then, his head tilting to the sound of her voice. “Faroe?” He murmured. His teeth fumbled against his lower lip as he struggled to get the word out fully.
“I’m here,” she repeated to him. His hand was on the opposite side of the bed (and Papa didn’t seem particularly keen on holding it), but she clasped her fingers around Arthur’s shoulder anyway. “I’m here.”
“You…” He took a great, wheezing gasp. “Okay?”
To hell with it.
He the one in the hospital bed, asking for her wellbeing.
She threw her arms around his neck and gave him a tight squeeze. Behind her, both the nurse and Papa made soft noises of disapproval, but Faroe soon felt Arthur’s hand touch between her shoulderblades. Then – to her delight – he chuckled, a raspy thing that seemed to cough up dust.
“I’m okay,” she confirmed, sniffing hard. “I’m okay.”
“How funny,” Arthur replied. “I’m okay, too. What a coincidence.”
And then Faroe laughed. More than anything, that felt like it drew the life back into her. The colors all around her seemed more vivid – seemed more real, without the dull luster that Faroe’s mind had forced onto them. Papa’s hand found her own shoulder, not quite drawing her away, but a firm and present reminder that he was there. He didn’t say a word.
She suddenly had a beautiful picture of all four of them in her mind: the impossible father, resting weakly in the hospital bed, and his shimmering eldritch companion sitting in his head. Her stalwart grandfather, who had always been there for her and who would always continue to be, standing as firm as a post behind her back – someone that could guide her into her own torment if she let him, but someone that could pull her back up just as easily.
And, of course, there she was, looking half-crazed and more than a little bruised. With a father – and without a few who pretended to be – and with a purpose – and without the looming pit that she desperately tried to fill with her own philosophies. With all the shades of color presented to her, with all the pain and joy they brought along, with all the dangers and hope they presented.
And Faroe stood, an easel in front of her, a brush in hand.
What a beautiful painting she would make.