Chapter Text
All she was, reduced to a stone.
Havelock sank to his knees, tracing his fingers over her name. The freshly dug soil beneath him turned to mud and the rain soaked his clothes.
Guinevere Vetinari - Asleep, counting sheep.
He wanted to scream but he couldn't. Everything was quiet, even him. The cold rain was only accompanied by strong wind - no thunder, no lightning. Childishly, he imagined that Ankh-Morpork was mourning, grieving with him. A silent storm, a silent city.
Footsteps stood out starkly in the quiet.
“Havelock.” A hand settled on his shoulder. “This isn't safe, you'll get sick.”
Pulling away, Havelock pushed himself up to his feet. “Why weren't you here? She's dead, and you weren't here to help me bury her, and you're telling me I’ll get sick?”
“Oh, this is just like you.” Lionel laughed bitterly. “Blaming me for things outside of my control.”
“I had to bury our daughter alone, Lionel.” Havelocks voice broke. One hand clutched at the bandages under his sodden clothes, the wound at his side that had only just begun to heal. “You weren't there to protect her and you weren't there for me.”
Shaking his head in disbelief, Lionel took Havelock's arm and began dragging him away from the grave. The wind bit at Havelock's wet skin and fresh tears rolled down his cheeks.
“Gods, Havelock, I can't be in two places at once. I'm sorry, I wanted to be here, but-”
Havelock snapped. “You wanted to be here? Just like you wanted to be there when she was born? I don't know why I expected you to for once put us before the Guild. I was alone when she was born, I was alone when she died, of course I would be alone when she was buried-”
He expected it, when Lionel let go of him as if burned. Havelock took a step back, a moment too late to dodge, and the slap knocked him to the grass, cold and wet from the icy rain.
“Don't you dare talk to me like that!” Lionel loomed over him, hand still raised. “I know you understand what I've risked, what I am risking for you. You were the one who wanted to keep it all secret in the first place, all I’m doing is fulfilling that.”
Distantly, Havelock could tell that the wound at his side had started bleeding again from the rough landing. Snapcases pet thugs, not Assassins but with much of the same training, had chased him across the rooftops as he tried desperately to reach home in time, and their blades had serrated edges.
“I could lose my teaching position if this comes out. I could lose everything!” Lionel ran his raised hand through his hair, glaring down at Havelock. “You can leave, I know you still write to that vampire in Uberwald and gods know your aunt isn't exactly local, but me?”
As he usually did when Lionel was… provoked, Havelock retreated into himself, he pulled away from his body until the stinging of his cheek and the pain in his side became nothing. He could hear Lionel talking and would be able to repeat everything almost word for word later, but for now he was able to let it slip past him. Instead, he thought of Snapcase.
“-The damage it could do to my reputation if it ever came out that I let a student seduce me-”
The Patricians face was in the forefront of his mind, impossible to escape. The first thing he had seen after staggering out of the alleyway near home was Snapcase leaving, stepping over the broken remains of the front door. Blood on his robes, wiping his hands with Guinevere's blanket-
“-I put up with your infatuation with that Watchman, even now-”
They had made eye contact, and Snapcase had smiled genially at him before stepping into the carriage, letting Guinevere's blanket fall down onto the dirty street. Any pain or exhaustion was gone and he had thrown himself through the entrance, ignoring the blood dripping down his side, stumbling up the stairs and running to Guinevere's room.
It hadn't mattered. She did everything he taught her, her little hands holding a scarf tight to her neck to stem the bleeding, but he took too long, he couldn't get away from the thugs in time, his injuries slowed him down, it didn't matter.
It didn't matter.
“-Gods, even the grades I gave you would come under scrutiny, it's not just me this would hurt, you know-”
Snapcase killed her. Snapcase killed her and gave Havelock a month to get over it, to come back to work on his staff, or the consequences-
(Sybil Ramkin, you grew up together, didn't you? She's almost an expert on dragons, despite her age. It's a pity you grew apart, her company must be pleasant. Still, I'm more interested in what you have to offer.)
-The consequences would be more than Havelock could bear.
Lionel grabbed his chin abruptly. “You're not even listening.”
Havelock didn't correct him, because Lionel didn't enjoy being corrected. He thought of Guinevere's wide eyes, looking up at him in relief as he pushed her weak grip aside and tried to save her, blood coating his hands.
Too late. Too late. But-
“You were supposed to be home. You promised me you would be home when Mrs Costa finished for the day.” Havelocks fingers dug into the wet grass. “The only reason I wasn't already home was because you promised me that you would be.”
“That's all you have to say?! You're going to leave the city to stay on that farm and make me deal with the fallout alone, and you're blaming me?!”
Havelock… stopped. He looked up at Lionel and saw nothing but arrogant entitlement, the poisonous surety that no matter how he treated Havelock, it was his right to be forgiven, to be pitied for his hardships, to do it again.
An eerie calm trickled through his veins, followed by something scorching. It burned through everything else, and Havelock knew once it was gone he would be left with nothing but the knowledge that Guinevere was gone, and Lionel had never loved him.
Better to use it while he had it, before he was empty, nothing. Havelock smacked Lionel's hand away and scrambled to his feet, shoving the older man away, and the sky flashed, a boom of thunder close behind.
“If you don't-” Havelock steeled himself, fear battling with the fire. The rain fell harder, heavier. “If you don't leave the city I will tell Snapcase who you are. He killed her for being mine, what do you think he’ll do to you?”
The fire burned hotter in his mind and lightning struck a nearby roof, illuminating them for only a moment. Just Havelock, just Lionel, just Guinevere's grave.
Whatever Lionel saw, he paled. Havelock didn't have to raise his voice to make his words heard over the thunder, rather it seemed to strengthen them. “I will be gone for three weeks. If I come back, and you are still here, there will be consequences.”
Lionel took a step back. “You can't speak to me like this-”
“Pack your things, Lionel, or I will give them away. The house is mine. You have no right to it.” Havelock snarled, taking a step forward. Everything felt different. The storm seemed like it was centered on them, on him. “I don't care what you do, I don't care where you go, but you will leave.”
Angry, Lionel raised a hand to slap him again, clearly expecting Havelock to dodge and disengage as he always did.
“You have a lot to take care of, Lionel. A job to quit, packing to do, people to say goodbye to.” Havelock caught his wrist and brought a blade up to Lionel's throat. A bitter, pained expression crossed his face as he finished in a softer voice, “So don't let me detain you.”
Lightning flashed once more, thunder rolling. Lionel blinked first. Pulling his wrist free, he turned and fled.
The fire extinguished. Havelock gagged, fear turning his stomach, the rain soaked clothes clinging uncomfortably to his skin, and dropped to his knees. He leaned heavily against the gravestone beside him, unable to breathe through the choking tightness in his chest. Touching the wet stone, picking at the grass, Havelock's eyes flicked to the writing on the grave in an effort to distract himself.
Felicity Guinevere Vetinari - wife, sister, mother.
She was always there to catch him.
On the long journey home.
“I'll be home soon, 'ma.” Havelock slurred, pressing his forehead to the stone. She wasn't here. Even Cornelius Vetinari wouldn't bury her anywhere but the Chalk.
Eventually, Aunt Bobbi found him, and soon after that he was dry, pressed against her side in the carriage as they set off for the Chalk, fingers tangled in the fabric of her dress. And he was empty. Any pretence of personhood he had clung to slipped away, and he was only faintly aware of Aunt Bobbi prompting him to eat, drink, sleep, the sound of her reading aloud as if he were a child again.
He remembered how to breathe, at some point. Perhaps he'll remember how to feel, too.