crimson_graces | psl for louder.

[Henrietta hasn't changed at all. It's been five years since he last stepped foot in this town, when he graduated from Aglionby and Cabeswater changed its mind or something and pointed him away from the small Virginia town to find Glendower and of course he followed it. There's never been a question that he would. The question, it turned out, is who would come with him. Besides Ronan, he's always been a given. They don't talk about it but where Gansey goes, so does Ronan even if he sounds like he's throwing a fit about it the entire way. Because they're really, at the end of it, best friends and the only thing that can be counted on forever.

Gansey can only hear the word never so many times before even he believes it. Blue said it to him so many times that he started to think it was his name.

Couldn't we just--

--never, never I won't be the one to kill you, never--

But what about--

-- no no no

So that's that. She stays and he goes when the chase for Glendower leads somewhere else. Adam goes to college but he doesn't begrudge him that at all. Adam got a scholarship and he deserves it and Gansey isn't going to stand in his way. It's just Gansey, Ronan and Chainsaw in the Pig, at least for a couple years or so. And then he meets her.

She's nothing at all like Blue and that's probably why he's drawn to her because she's so different. There's nothing when he looks at her that makes him wish he was back in Henrietta more than he already wished it. One thing leads to another and six months later, she tells him she's pregnant and Gansey does the Right Thing. Of course he does. He's a Gansey, his mother would never tolerate anything less and he marries her. Has a little baby girl seven months later. They call her something Very Proper, Elizabeth plus a thousand nicknames Gansey (and thank God they didn't have a boy so he doesn't have to have the argument about a Richard Campbell Gansey IV because the talk about having a child at all at his age was already too much fun) but he calls her Elle and he's barely old enough to drink but he's a father too. He's got no fucking clue what he's doing. Especially after her mother passes and it's just him and Elle and his best friend and a fucking crow and a car that only works seventy percent of the time.

It's harder than finding a centuries dead Welsh king and somehow more amazing.

They're back in Henrietta now for Ronan-- not Glendower. Not Blue. But fate and magic have a funny way of stalking his footsteps and without even trying, he crosses paths with her. Gansey makes a point to go nowhere near 300 Fox Way or Nino's and yet-- there she is. It's obviously her. She's older and her hair looks different, longer maybe or she's found a new way to clip it but it's her.

And this is him. Same chinos, same polo, same mussed brown hair, same air of money and an eighteen month old on his hip and a wedding ring (maybe he's forgotten about it, maybe he still wears it out of some misplaced dedication to a woman he never really loved, maybe he uses it as a shield) still on his finger.]

Jane-- Blue. Hello. I didn't-- how are you?

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( blue is probably a natural at mothering, though she doesn't think she would be and she's probably about as confident in her ability to deal with children as she is in her ability to negotiate her way out of allowing helen gansey to endorse her merchandise. that is to say, very little more than zero percent confident.

she's surprised to hear that gansey was that irresponsible. she's also... hurt. because that means that gansey kissed another girl and enjoyed it enough to have sex, not that blue expected anything else, or to see him again ever, or... well. today is just turning into a day of things she didn't expect. calla and maura are going to get an earful when she gets home because how could they not tell her about this? how? they had to have known. )

Oh. ( that's all she can say. oh. because of course he did the right thing, of course he did what high society deemed proper. she doesn't ask, but the questions are all bundled into each carefully placed syllable. did you love her? were you happy? do you miss her? ) I'm sorry. ( that's all. it's a repeat of what she's already said, but. what else can you say to that? ) If it's any consolation, growing up with just one parent isn't all that bad. I think I turned out alright.

Maura is an excellent mother.

[That would be his way of saying that he doesn't have the same faith in himself to be on the same level as Maura Sargent. At least not without some serious help. He can't see the future. He has no guarantee that his daughter will be as sensible and wonderful as Blue, who he's sure helped raise herself.]

You should see Ronan with her. I told him no more children, not after Chainsaw and yet-- [He lifts one shoulder in a shrug. It's a joke. Mostly.]

You'd probably be very good with her too.

And you're an excellent father, from what I've seen today.

( she will have none of this self-deprecating bullshit from you, dick gansey trois. blue does smile fondly at the idea of ronan with an actual human child. outside of matthew, it's never been something she could possibly fathom picturing. children with ronan are like children running with scissors, basically. it's a pleasant surprise that he's good with elle. then again... it's gansey's child, and blue isn't sure there's anything in the world outside of his little brother that ronan would put before gansey's well being or the well being of someone important to gansey. )

I think a little girl is pretty different from a bird, Gansey.

( saying his name feels strange. so does hearing that he thinks she'd be good with his daughter. the child of another woman. blue's easy expression melts away into a more somber, tense one and she sips her drink. )

I'm not sure about that.

[His smile is polite, and that's where he leaves it. Accepts her compliment with a smile towards his little girl. Maybe he doesn't have any clue what he's doing when it comes to her, but he does the best he can and he'd do anything for her, even die before he let something bad happen to her, spoils her with love and that's probably all he can do.]

You remember how he is around that bird, don't you?

[Just like his actual baby. But then he supposes that Chainsaw is as close to reproducing that Ronan Lynch will ever get.]

Come on, Jane. She likes you. That's not nothing.

Of course I do. Only someone who's never been around him for longer than five minutes would forget. ( chainsaw his precious baby angel birb. she gives elle a glance, then returns to her drink with a soft sigh. the implications that his daughter, and another woman's daughter, likes her makes her feel uneasy. this situation is so complicated. his presence in henrietta is so complicated. she finds herself wishing he hadn't come, just so she could return to the out of sight, out of mind mentality. where she'd think of him once in a while, or sometimes often, but put it out of her mind because she knew she'd never see him again.

here he is, once again spinning her world around and around with no sign of stopping. )

I'm not her mother. I don't know anything about taking care of a child. All I did was pick up her cereal.

[He's quiet for a moment, pushing a cheerio across the little tray towards Elle until she grabs it with a giggle. Somehow that's an endlessly entertaining game for her. Throw in peekaboo and she'll be laughing for hours.

What wouldn't he give for things to be simple again? Simple, straightforward. Spend an afternoon tracing a ley line, go to school, think about Glendower, eat, breathe, visit the Barns.

But then that time he didn't know Blue either and he's not sure he wants to give up those memories.]

I'm not asking for anything except to be friends again. That's it.

( then, all at once, she regrets the terseness in her responses to him about getting along with his daughter. it's like forcing him to walk away all over again. it's like watching him finally concede to it, all over again. her heart sinks and she can feel it aching all the way down to the marrow of her bones. that breaking feeling echoes throughout her entire body. )

I'm sorry. I didn't -- ( she shakes her head and takes a drink, and avoids any and all eye contact. she thought this was done. she thought these things, these feelings, this tension, would be over. he wasn't meant to come back. ) How long are you in town?

I'm not sure.

[Gansey isn't going to touch the moment of awkwardness between them. He's going to let it go because it's been too many years since they were on the same page, if they ever were and some things about him are just never going to change. It's not in his nature to pick at the ugly things in life until they bleed.]

A week, perhaps. If not more. It involves Ronan and Declan getting along for a few days so.

There's that.

You still own Monmouth, don't you? Is that where you're staying? ( maybe after this extremely awkward meeting she can avoid seeing you again by avoiding monmouth and other places you may frequent... much as it hurts her heart to think about not seeing him anymore, seeing him with a child in tow and a life lived well without her hurts just as much. ) Ah -- I wonder if Ronan -- ( would like to see her again? she stops dead in her tracks and chuckles, shaking her head. ) Probably not. I'm glad he's still around, though. Follows you everywhere, right?

[Gansey nods that careless kind of nod that only people who own more than one property can do with ease. But then his family has always had places all around the globe and where they don't, their youngest has a habit of buying something if he stays there for longer than a week.

It's a good investment, what can he say. It's for Elle.]

Travels everywhere with me and Elle, yes. [It's important to him, that slight correction. Ronan isn't a dog. He doesn't follow anyone. He makes his own choices.]

And you're wrong. He would like to see you.

psl for louder.

im sorry for telling the truth???

they are our babies ok :c

but they're also our really dumb babies

yes thats true

gathers them up

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