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What One Desires Most
Charlie feels a little giddy, though it’s probably the nerves talking, and she’s trying really hard not to think about how anxious she actually is.
“What is it you needed, dear?” Alastor asks a few feet away from her, giving her a look that’s mostly teeth and partially narrowed eyes. She thinks she’s getting better at reading his actual expressions, and this one looks a little like she’s pulled him away from things he’d rather be doing, and that is most definitely not helping calm her heart down.
She takes a breath and leans back on the desk. Alastor’s eyes narrow a little further – whoops; bad manners to be practically sitting on it – and she takes her weight off of it instead and clasps her hands together in front of her.
“I’ve been thinking,” she starts, and his eyebrows lift and now he finds that funny and that’s pretty rude, acting like she doesn’t normally, but she pushes through because this is Alastor she’s talking to, “and I know you said you had everything under control and would have told us to go home if we’d come to get you from Vox, but I still feel like you went through a lot and I wanted to get you something like a feel-better gift.”
“Charlie, my dear, you really don’t need to think anything of it,” he says with a sharp laugh, leaning forward as he tucks his staff close to his waist like he’s about to pivot back toward the door. He’s very good at using his height to be intimidating, but she’s mostly gotten used to it at this point, so it doesn’t put her entirely off. She tries not to look at his smile as he looks at her with a pinch between his brows, but this is an expression she can’t really read in just his eyes, so she’s not sure how he’s really feeling about what she’s saying, just that it isn’t as excited or happy as she was hoping.
“I know, I know,” she says quickly before he can continue. She remembers the images from the parade and is certain he’s at least uncomfortable with her bringing it up, so she makes a point to say, “Like you said, you got good things out of it and if we’d interfered that might not have happened. But, I still think you deserve something nice anyway, and it would make me feel better about not paying enough attention to realize you were upset enough to quit.”
Oh, this time he’s definitely mad. That pinch just got a lot more pronounced. So did his smile.
“So!” she moves on quickly, trying to get ahead of him leaving because he’s back to standing up straight and she’s pretty sure the room is a little darker than it was a few seconds ago. Also her heart is pounding, like, whew, who knew trying to do something really nice for Alastor was going to be so nerve-wracking! “I’d been talking with Emily about things we wanted to do for the hotel residents now that we’re actually working with Heaven, and something she said gave me an idea for what to do to show you how much I appreciate you being here, but it’s also so great that I think we could set it up for more people if you end up liking it, aaaaand this is definitely not making you as happy as I was hoping it would because now that I’m saying this out loud it’s starting to sound like I’m testing one of my exercises out on you, isn’t it?”
As she rambles, Alastor’s expression becomes more and more menacing, static building in her eardrums like he’s putting pressure on her without touching her, and she’s definitely messed up telling him his gift was also a thing tied to her goal for redeeming sinners.
“Quite the astute observation, darling!” he says with a laugh, and now both of his hands are tucked behind his back and the room has definitely gotten darker, and if she isn’t fast enough he’s going to disappear in those shadows of his before she gets a chance to properly explain this.
“Wait!” she says as she pulls the little off-white envelope from the inner pocket she’s been safely storing it in since this morning when Emily had excitedly handed it over to her, and promptly holds it out to him. His appearance goes from that weird smiling-angry to smiling-confused, and it’s interesting to watch the way his expression manages to take on a look of curiosity without really changing that much.
She tries to look apologetic, because she is, because she doesn’t want this gift to be tainted by anything. It’s too precious.
“I know you’re not interested in redemption,” she says quietly. “I promise, this isn’t me trying to push you into it or give you a reason to try. I just…I know what it’s like to not be able to talk to someone important to you, and when I thought about what I could give you that showed how much it means to me that you came back and how sorry I am for all the things you went through that might be my fault, this was the only thing that felt right.”
Alastor takes the envelope in his hand as she speaks, and until now has been studying the wax seal with a narrow smile and a creased brow, but when he flips it over to the front where his name is elegantly written across the paper, there is a very apparent shift in both him physically and the room around them.
She’s never realized that silence is something that doesn’t typically exist around Alastor until all of the static buzzing and crackles of airwaves come to an abrupt halt, leaving the room eerily quiet and still. He’s no longer holding his staff behind his back, as it quickly moves to his side, then down until it touches the floor, and then he’s leaning on it, shifting his weight and his grip to do so properly. The letter is shaking a little in his hand now.
Alastor’s smile is very, very small as he stares wide-eyed at what he holds.
She’s afraid to interrupt him in any way, but she grows concerned as he remains frozen, and she eventually decides that he might find a chair useful right about now even though it’s not that far behind him. Honestly, he just has to take two steps back, and this is probably doing too much for him, but she’s already moved behind the chair and it’s too late to stop because it moved a little when she put her hands on it so she might as well finish pushing it forward.
“Here,” she says quietly as she brings it to the back of his legs. He flinches when it touches him, but then he sits, though the movement isn’t graceful or easy. For the most part, it seems more like his legs just gave out.
He keeps staring at it for a while, and the unnatural silence drags on, but he eventually finds his voice.
“Charlie,” he says, and it’s so quiet, startlingly lacking that radio filter he always has. “I’ll ask that you step out, please.”
She can’t see his face, can’t read his expression, but his voice and the way that he asks instead of demands tells her enough.
“Of course,” she tells him. “Take your time.”
---
“Charlie?”
She’s been out in the hallway for around an hour by now, so it’s no surprise that someone comes across her sitting on the floor outside of the office with her knees pulled to her chest as she waits and waits and waits. It’s Vaggi, which is nice, because she’ll probably be able to talk her out of the little spiral she’s been looping around in her head that she messed things up very badly.
“Hey, Vaggi,” she whispers with a wave, and stands up to meet her across the hallway because she doesn’t want to disturb Alastor through the door.
“Everything okay?” she asks, bringing her voice down to match. She gives her a hug, which Charlie realizes she deeply needs right now, so she just nods for a moment while she leans into her and holds on tight.
When she finally lets go, Vaggi gives her an encouraging smile, and Charlie wipes a few tears from her eyes before she tells her, “Remember how I said I figured out a good gift for Alastor? That it was kind of personal and that I didn’t want to tell you the details until after I got permission to share?”
She nods, and it’s clear to Charlie that Vaggi is questioning whether caving to Charlie’s desire for secrecy on the subject was a good idea or not by the expression on her face.
“I don’t have permission yet, so please don’t share it with anyone else if things go bad, okay?” she requests. Vaggi nods again, and Charlie takes a breath and says, “Emily helped me get him a letter from his mom.”
Realization dawns in her eyes like an explosion, blowing them wide, and she looks back at the office door sharply. Charlie is worried she’ll be angry with her, that she wasn’t listening again and that they’ll be arguing like they were before, but instead she just lets out a quiet breath before asking, “How’d he take it?”
She’s not really sure. “It definitely surprised him,” she settles on saying. “He got very quiet, and asked me to step out. Not angry. Just…very, very quiet.”
And he is still quiet. Charlie isn’t even sure if he is still in the room, but he’d only asked her to step out, not leave him alone, not go away, and she thinks she needs to stay close by. It doesn’t feel right to put too much distance between them right now.
“…I’m scared I messed up,” she admits. “I thought he would be happier. I know if Mom ever answered me, I would be, at least after I got done asking her where she’s been and why she left, but…oh, this was a bad idea, wasn’t it?”
She lays a gentle hand on her shoulder and gives her a knowing smile.
“Charlie, I know your heart is in the right place,” she assures her. “And even though Alastor is Alastor, he probably knows you well enough to know you meant well, even if this might have overstepped a bit. You don’t know that Alastor would feel the same way you would about getting in touch with his mom, after all.”
“Oh,” she starts, because how hadn’t she realized she was putting so much of herself into this, even the very idea – “Oh, I really messed up,” she admits, feeling like her chest is too tight to breathe. “This is me going to Angel’s workplace all over again, getting tunnel vision about how Vox was portraying us, not listening – ” but Vaggi is putting her hands on her face and bringing her attention right to her eyes, and her expression is narrowed in that look that tells her she’s overthinking and needs to slow down.
“What do we know about Alastor’s mom?” she asks calmly, and it derails her train of thought very successfully for the moment, because now she has to think of all the things she’d said to Emily about why she thought this was a good idea, and that means she has to breathe so she can speak.
“That she was a good cook,” she begins, then continues listing things she remembers Alastor saying in passing like checking off boxes on a list. There had been a list. Emily had it now because she’d thought it would be nice for his mother to know he mentioned her from time to time, and because it would supposedly help locate her.
Alastor has never outright talked about his mother, though. Everything she knows just comes from little comments, and they were always said with what sounded close enough to love to her, even if it is a bit difficult to believe with the way Alastor conducts himself otherwise.
“And you know those things because Alastor has said them,” Vaggi reminds her. “Who does Alastor ever talk about positively?”
Niffty immediately springs to mind, though he has also called her twisted, and while that’s not…wrong, and she seems pretty happy being called anything by Alastor, it’s not the same as what Vaggi is trying to get her to see. He can give compliments, does somewhat frequently, actually, but there’s always an underlying note to them that rings a bit like he’s playing a part. She’s never heard that when he says anything about his mother.
She doesn’t have to answer for Vaggi to know she’s caught on, so she continues, “If nothing else, you at least know he liked her enough to bring her up from time to time. Give him some space. Just…be ready to apologize to the shitlord later, okay?”
The nickname isn’t kind, but with the way Vaggi is speaking, it’s enough to make her huff out a little laugh. “Yeah,” she agrees. She knows she’s been selfish a bit here, but wishes she could have recognized it back when she and Emily first started talking about using letters to allow sinners to reach out to family that had made it to Heaven the same way Cherri and Sir Pentious were now. She doesn’t know how to keep from doing that, projecting her wants and desires on everyone else around her. She thought she’d learned her lesson with Vox.
She should apologize to Dad again.
“You want to get something to eat?” Vaggi suggests.
She does kind of want a snack, but she shakes her head after a moment. “He only asked me to step out,” she says quietly. “I don’t want to be too far away if he needs anything, even if that isn’t for a while. I kind of…feel like I shouldn’t leave him completely alone right now. Give him space, yes, but…He just got so quiet.”
She doesn’t know how else to describe just how off that felt for the man, and hopes she understands that she’s worried more about him than about ruining whatever passes for a friendship between them. For her part, Vaggi looks at the door to the office again, as if she can see past it if she looks long enough, but she just sighs after a minute and shakes her head.
“Okay,” she concedes. “I’ll bring some water by, though.”
She loves how thoughtful she is. Charlie tangles her fingers in Vaggi’s hair and touches her forehead to hers, grateful that she landed in the arms of someone so kind and thoughtful and grounding.
She hopes she can bring even a touch of that happiness to Alastor when all is said and done.
---
Another hour ticks by, and then a third, and Charlie is two bottles of water in and through a plate full of snack sandwiches courtesy of her very amazing girlfriend by the time there is any sign of life from within the room.
The door opens unexpectedly next to her and she scrambles quickly to her feet. Charlie expects to see Alastor despite not hearing any footsteps, but instead it’s the shadow that looks like him there in the doorway when she looks, and it quickly retreats down to the floor and back across the room, leaving the door ajar.
Tentatively, she peaks in. Alastor is still sitting in the chair, though she can’t see much of him from this angle, and she thinks maybe he’s slouched a bit or leaning forward on his knees, because he’s tall enough that his head should be seen over the back of the chair.
“Alastor?” she calls out quietly. “Is…everything okay?”
When he doesn’t answer, she quietly closes the door behind her before she steps up to the side of the chair, preparing a string of apologies that she’s been rehearsing in her head ever since Vaggi had stopped by. He is leaning forward a bit, one hand on his face, elbow braced on his knee. She can’t see his expression from here, but his posture makes her frown and her heart rate speed up.
After a moment, his other hand shifts and holds out the letter to her.
Unopened.
“I can’t do it.”
She doesn’t know what to say when his voice sounds so small, so fragile, like it’s hanging by a thread and that thread is being held to a flame or a sharp blade. She carefully takes the envelope from him and looks at it. It’s slightly creased at the sides, and the seal is lifted a little off the paper at one edge, but not fully released, still sticking firmly the rest of the way around. There are three – no, five, two showing themselves from beneath her thumb when she shifts it – round circles overlapping each other near the bottom, tinting the paper slightly darker. Tears, she realizes, recognizing the pattern she often leaves on sentimental things.
Alastor had cried. She made him cry.
Charlie’s gaze snaps back to look at Alastor’s face, but she still can’t make out enough of his expression from where she stands, and she’s afraid to make it obvious that she’s looking for those tears on his face, because she knows that’s not something he would want anyone to witness.
She’d hurt him. She wanted to make him happy, but just like before, she was too blinded by her own wants to see what her friends actually needed. Alastor had told her that it wasn’t necessary every single time she apologized for all that time that he’d spent as Vox’s captive without her doing anything beyond her initial attempts to get answers, told her that he didn’t care for the sentiments and the way she kept asking him about whether his injuries had healed alright, that Vaggi was right and he’d had a plan, and she’d done all she needed to do by settling their deal. She should have dropped it. She should have listened.
But she would have wanted someone to care, to check on her injuries, to show they had empathy for what she might have gone through were she in his shoes. And when Emily suggested the letter exchanges and she thought about who she would have wanted to write her letter to, it was of course her mother, and because Alastor was the only other person in the hotel she’d ever heard speak of their own mother, she latched onto that as if everyone’s relationship with theirs was a reflection of what she wanted from her own.
Tears spill down her cheeks, but it’s not right for her to be crying here, not fair. She can’t stand anymore, so she drops into the opposite chair a little too far back to line up with the one she’d pushed closer to Alastor to allow him to sit, and she places the letter carefully on her lap so that she can wipe her tears with her sleeves, worried about adding more to the envelope.
“I’m sorry,” she says, even though her voice wavers and probably makes it obvious that she’s crying. She presses the heels of her hands to her eyes, wills them to stop spilling selfish tears, and continues, “I should have asked you. It wasn’t fair for me to just drop this in your lap without checking to make sure it was okay first.
“You have every right to be angry with me,” she adds. It makes her throat close around the next thought she attempts to say, so it doesn’t come out clear when she tells him, “I won’t try to stop you if you want to leave.”
“Charlie.”
“And I’ll just tell Emily I lost the letter, and talked to you and found out that it wasn’t a good idea, and –”
“Charlie, I –”
“- that I messed up and should have made sure I wasn’t making this all about me because I miss my mom – ”
Alastor’s voice finally cuts through her panic.
“No, Charlie. This…It’s not…I’m not angry.”
It surprises her, and she looks up to find him staring at her. His expression is softer than she expects, and the way his brow is creased, it looks like he might be concerned. He could also easily be a little frustrated, which would be far less than she deserves directed at her, but it’s clear he’s not angry.
Still, she feels the need to check. “You’re not?”
He shakes his head, closes his eyes when he does. In his lap, his hands grip each other a little tighter.
When he looks at her again, it’s with an expression that she would say is pained, though she can’t tell if it’s for the situation or the words that follow. “I’m just a little…overwhelmed, I suppose. This is certainly not what I expected when you called me here.”
Oh, she thinks; that’s what the look on his face is. She’s never seen him wear the expression, and it’s so foreign on him, it’s like looking at a whole different person.
“I…” she starts, trails off when the words won’t come. She changes what she was going to say about how she didn’t intend to do that to him and instead says, “You always have nice things to say about her. I thought if there was anyone you’d want to speak to that might be in Heaven, it was her.”
He huffs something that might be a laugh, but it’s too soft to really be considered one. “That’s…not incorrect,” he tells her, gaze sliding away.
When he doesn’t expand on that, she prods carefully, “But having the chance now is…overwhelming for you at the moment.”
He tilts his head to the side a little, an agreement and an admission that seems uncomfortable despite it being an echo of what he’d just said moments ago. She swallows hard, feeling tears still pricking at her eyes. Alastor is so unlike himself, it’s unnerving. She can admit that some part of her always wanted to know if he was capable of expressing uncertainty, of being shaken, but she realizes he’s already made that clear to her, back when they’d struck their deal. Just because you see a smile…
He's good at keeping a mask. She wonders if that mask makes it more difficult to handle what she’s given him, and the feeling that she’s done something unforgivable weighs on her.
Before she gets a chance to apologize again, Alastor drops a detail about his mother that is anything but a happy memory.
“My mother was…well, she was murdered, you see, and so there are a lot of things I never had the chance to say to her.”
Oh. Oh, fuck.
“I had long accepted that I would never speak to her again, either in life or after,” he continues. He’s not looking at her, so she doesn’t think he sees the way her hands have flown over her mouth. Maybe he didn’t hear the gasp, either, but now she’s holding her breath, afraid to interrupt. “I am not a soul destined for Heaven, redemption possible or not. I don’t regret a single one of the people I killed, you know. Found it rather fun.”
She’s trying her best not to reach out to touch him comfortingly, trying harder not to spring from her chair and wrap him up in a hug, because he sounds anything but proud right now. She bites her lip and lowers her hands to her lap, makes sure the letter is still balancing on her leg, tries to force her expression into something that might be less nauseatingly sympathetic knowing how he usually regards the sentiment.
But it’s awful to know he’s experienced such a loss, that his mother had to go through something so frightening, and she finds herself taking the envelope in her hands and holding it gently, as if the woman might be able to feel her empathy through the touch alone.
“To be able to hear her words again now, I…Well, truthfully, I don’t quite know what to feel. I’m caught between elation and terror,” he laughs, though the sound leans far more toward the latter feeling than the former.
“…Are you afraid she’s disappointed in you?” she asks gently when he doesn’t speak after that. It’s the thing she fears the most when it comes to her own mother, and while she’s trying to keep herself from projecting too much on this, she thinks Alastor has made it clear that he’s worried about what the words inside the envelope might say.
He laughs again, but it shakes, an unsteady and fragile thing. He still isn’t looking at her.
“I never once thought it mattered until now,” he admits. “I certainly can’t imagine she’s proud.”
He sounds far too certain of that, and she supposes that’s a fair guess, but the way he sounds pained by it makes her feel the need to make him look at other possibilities. “There’s a lot of you to be proud of,” she promises him.
“Oh, there’s no shortage of pride in me, I assure you,” he says with a breath more than anything, rolling his eyes before he settles his gaze back on his hands.
It’s a deflection, she realizes, because he’s talking about the sin instead of the number of things he’s very good at. She’s never heard him make such a self-deprecating remark. It catches her off guard in a way that nothing else about this has. Charlie thinks maybe it’s because she’s so used to the way he typically uses words, knife-sharp and deep-cutting. It’s like seeing him point the blade at himself.
But she keeps that to herself and suppresses the urge to say he knows that wasn’t what she was talking about, even though that’s very difficult to do. Alastor has already been very vulnerable with her, sharing this much, and she feels guilty for putting him in a tough spot like this. As much as she wants to keep assuring him, she thinks that was either him telling her to back off or something he might not have meant to say aloud.
There’s silence for a little bit. Alastor leans forward to rest his chin on his hands, elbows braced on his knees, and he exhales a somewhat unsteady breath. His smile is there but a thin line, something she’s learned is the closest to a frown he gets.
How do you comfort a guy like Alastor, she wonders. She can’t hold him the way she’d want to be held if she were in his place. Words aren’t enough, especially when words are at the heart of the issue. She doesn’t know enough about his mother to reassure him that, despite being in Hell and rather proud of the normally terrifying being he can be, she still loves him.
She doesn’t even know if her own mother still loves her.
Her head starts shaking that thought away before she can tell herself not to focus on that. Her issues are not allowed to be here right now.
Alastor needs something to get him through this, something to get him to stop hesitating and move forward. She doesn’t think she has anything that can do that, but…
She gently touches the wax seal where it lifts away from the paper.
“If…If you want,” she starts carefully, leaning forward and looking up at him with an expression that she hopes is enough to convey how seriously she’s taking this, “I can open the envelope for you. Take the first step, if it’s hard to do yourself.”
One of his hands shifts to cover his mouth, and it makes it very, very clear he’s doing anything but smiling now, even if she can still see the corners of the expression digging into his cheeks. How he manages to keep the curve of his mouth turned up even through something that’s clearly emotionally challenging is an ability she both envies and finds disturbing. It’s like he doesn’t allow himself to feel.
After a few breaths, he shakes his head, moves his hands from his face to his lap where he returns to clasping them together. “No,” he says quietly. “The gesture is appreciated, but that is something I need to do myself.”
She nods and simply says, “Okay,” then asks, “Is there anything I can do for you right now?”
He takes a deep and slow breath, and though it rattles a little on the exhale, he looks a little more composed than he did before. She hopes he isn’t forcing himself, but knows that’s probably asking a bit.
“May I…” Alastor begins after a moment, but trails off, glances away in what should be a rare instance of hesitation except that she’s witnessed too many of them since handing him the letter, before shaking his head and turning back to her. “I would like to hug you, if that’s okay.”
“Oh!” she starts, surprised. He wants a hug? “Yes. Yes, a hug is definitely okay. Can I hug you back?”
He nods with a smile that is very kind for him, and she’s careful not to throw her arms around him with too much enthusiasm once they’ve both stood up and the letter is safely placed on the desk. He wraps his arms over her shoulders and leans down, squeezes her tightly but not uncomfortably so, and doesn’t let go for longer than she expects. She holds on as long as he does, bears the weight he puts into it, says nothing when it feels like he might be shaking or when he exhales and it sounds just a little like he might be holding back tears. When he finally relaxes, she lets go, and he steps back. Around his smile, he looks a little embarrassed.
“Thank you,” he says after clearing his throat. He reaches over to the envelope and gently picks it up again, looking at the way his mother has written his name across it with an expression that is far away. His claws gently pull at the lifted edge of the seal on the back of it, but he doesn’t break it fully yet, just teases it a little more off the paper.
“Of course,” she says, then adds apologetically, “And I’m sorry again for springing this on you. I got caught up in how I felt about it more than I thought about how you would feel, and that wasn’t fair.”
“Ever the bleeding heart,” he says, but it’s not with malice, not with the way his eyes remain soft with amusement. He turns his gaze to her then and continues, “Don’t doubt your thoughtfulness just because of your own emotional investments, Charlie. Regardless of the contents of this letter or if I can or cannot bring myself to read it, having it is a gift. I can assure you of that much.”
Now she’s a little embarrassed, and beyond touched by his words. “Aww, well…”
“I do have one request, however,” he continues, tone a little more on the serious side, and it draws her attention back to him and effectively cools her blushing cheeks. “I would like what happened in here to remain between us, if you could.”
“Oh,” she replies, then worries. Emily obviously knows about the letter, but he knows that. He probably doesn’t know she told Vaggi a little about his reaction. “I told Vaggi about you asking me to step out, and about you getting really quiet,” she admits apologetically. “She asked what I was doing in the hallway and helped me stop panicking about crossing lines.”
He doesn’t look upset, but he does hum, so she adds, “But what we’ve talked about, that I can definitely keep to myself. And no one else will know about your letter. I’ll tell Vaggi not to mention it, too.”
“I suppose that will have to suffice,” he agrees after a moment, “though I think I would like to be present for that promise. Make sure the message gets across clearly.”
His tone shifts from careful and uncomfortable to something with a lot more ease and an undertone of danger. He’s moved to threats of violence. Despite herself, Charlie smiles, because even if she doesn’t approve of his tendency toward it, hearing it at least means he’s coming back around to himself.
“That’s fine,” she says, tamping down the image of Vaggi inevitably pointing a spear at the demon. No need to worry about that right now. It’s not as if she’s ever actually tried to stab him. “I’m sure Vaggi will understand. And I’ll do whatever I can to make sure of that, too.” And keep her girlfriend alive and uninjured.
“I’m sure you will,” he replies, and the words feel like they carry a double meaning she can’t parse out, which is fairly typical of him, honestly. She’s pretty sure it’s on purpose. Alastor does have a tendency to be a little difficult and definitely enjoys it.
Still, she appreciates him all the same. Without him, they wouldn’t be where they were now, and it was hard not to notice his absence during the time he was stuck with Vox.
She won’t push. Well…okay; she might gently prod, knowing her, but if he ever needed to talk about what happened while he was there just to vent about it (or, more likely, brag, given he was pretty insistent that he came out of that on top despite not being the one to end Vox’s attack on the city), she hoped this let him trust her enough to seek her out for that.
“I’ll go ahead and bring her here, if you want. Or we can look for her together? Up to you,” she offers.
“I’ll walk with you,” he decides, then gives the envelope another glance before he tucks it away into an inner pocket of his coat. She says nothing about how it ends up on the left side, because it’s just coincidence, but it makes her feel warm when he gently places his hand over where it rests for just a moment.
Letters, she decides, are going to become something permanent.
With permission, of course. And a fair amount of warning prior to bringing any that come through.
Maybe instead of leaving a voicemail, she’ll write her message to Mom for once. Even if she doesn’t have the faintest idea of where to send it, she thinks right now the physical weight of it could be enough of a difference that she’ll feel like she’s made some progress on that front.
“Charlie.”
Alastor’s voice interrupts her thoughts, keeps her from going too far down the spiral that usually consumes her when she thinks about how long it’s been since she’s seen or heard from her mother, and she looks up to find him turned away and toward the door. Just when she thinks he’s merely calling her so they can get a move on, he continues in a tone a little gentler than she expects, “Should you want to…talk, I suppose, about your own mother to someone, I wouldn’t mind lending an ear.”
Charlie thought she’d schooled her tears at this point, but she should know herself better by now, as they’re spilling down her cheeks without a second thought and garbling up her voice when she thanks him. Alastor turns back and laughs in a way that’s far too patient to be putting up with her dragging her own emotions into what was supposed to be an appreciation gift for him, and his hand on her shoulder is kind. She tries her best to pull herself together quickly.
---
Days later, Alastor is with her in the kitchen early in the morning as they organize chafing dishes for a planned breakfast buffet when he says apropos of nothing, “She is happy to hear I kept my name.”
It takes her a moment to catch up to what he’s referring to, and when she does she nearly drops the scrambled eggs.
She tries not to make a big deal about him making it past the seal on the envelope, but she doesn’t do a very good job of it, because even though he smiles at her in a way that looks far fonder than he usually would, he admonishes her for sounding like one of her father’s rubber ducks.
If he hears her squeak several times throughout the day each time she catches how easy his smile is, he doesn’t say anything about it.