No one slept well that night. Father and I didn’t go home immediately, instead patrolling the edges of the town in case Logga got some wise ideas after bonewolf trotted back through the fog. We never saw even the slightest hint of his presence though, and eventually made our way back shortly before dawn. I’m sure mom and Leigh were putting their time together to good use. I can’t imagine how it must feel. I never knew my parents the first time around, and the idea of losing either stings, but to lose your mother and watch your father crumble like that. I’m not sure if I’ll ever fully understand what Leigh felt. Thankfully I don’t have to understand to try and help.

In the following days after driving Mr. Kisgrick out of town, things were quiet and tense as my freshly expanded family came to grips with our new normal. The morning after the original confrontation, we returned to Leigh’s house to gather her things. No one had said it expressly, but we all knew Leigh would be coming to stay with us as long as she wanted to. Leaving her alone in her father's house felt cruel.

What I had apparently failed to predict, was the change of routine that came about as a result of Leigh living with us. Since our house effectively only had three rooms and a storage cellar, there wasn’t much room for Leigh to move into. Mom and dad had a bedroom, I had a small room to myself, and there was a single room that served multifunction as a kitchen, dining room, and living room. In a sense when we didn’t use the well water to wash outside, the small washbasin in the corner also made it the bathroom. Thankfully for my more modern sensibilities, we did at least have an outhouse dug far enough away for some privacy, even if the lack of more magical convenience was grating.

The solution we came to? Leigh would be moving into my old room, and for the time being, I would sleep with the food in the cellar. It was the only other insulated space and marginally better than sleeping outdoors. A small price to pay for her comfort and safety I suppose. On the bright side, I did get to see Leigh far more frequently, and our occasionally shared meals became a daily occurrence.

“Good morning” I mumbled, stepping through the exterior door having just crawled up the stairs from the cellar. As cool as it could get down there at night, there was a calming effect to it. Perhaps my natural affinity to dark and dreary spaces carried over from my previous life?

“Good morning Vincent!” Leigh would inevitably greet me, shortly before mother did the same.

“Good morning sleepyhead, you actually managed to beat your father to the table this morning” Mom smiled, gesturing to the empty chair at the head of the arrangement.

This kind of morning routine was quickly becoming normal, comforting even. Far less comfortable were the revelations that came with it.

First, and perhaps primarily, was the system. Without her parents around, there was no one around to do the parental override for Leigh. She’d be stuck with the skills she currently had until her system unlock day. Depending on when hers was, this could be potentially concerning, but mom insisted I shouldn’t be the one to ask her about it. Something about ‘lady’s secrets’ that I still don’t understand. Neia gets fussy about anything involving age.

“Leigh, sweetie” Mom began one morning. She’d always used affectionate nicknames with Leigh before, but more so now it made her feel like a part of the family. I liked it.

“Daniel and I have a plan together for Vincent’s system unlock day, though we still have a few years on that front. I’d hate for you to miss out on one of the most special days of your childhood just because of some unpleasant business. Do you want us to throw a party for you as well?” Neia offered softly. Her hands idly chopping and peeling vegetables a few feet away, she made it feel as if there was no pressure to the question, associating it with the mundane house chore.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

“Oh, uhm, I don’t want to intrude anymo-” Leigh began to make excuses before Dad groggily sauntered his way out of the master bedroom, aligning his shirt into a more presentable state.

“Nonsense! As long as you’re living here with us that makes you family, and no daughter of mine is going to have to shirk and shy away from anything.” He explained, sitting down at the table and forcing a chair to groan under the weight of his system-enhanced physicality.

“Tell us what you want to do and we can do it, but you have to say it proud. Back straight and say it like you mean it!” He laughed, encouraging her with a lighthearted smile.

Leigh only blushed, her freckled cheeks slowly burnishing a red to rival her frazzled morning hair. Gods above, I can’t seem to take my eyes off her lately. Then she looks at me and suddenly I can’t match her gaze. What’s wrong with me?! She’s my friend, why do I have to keep making it so weird?

“I’d like to have a party?” Leigh eventually chimed in, her voice still light and her tone more of a question. Dad claimed it was an issue with confidence, something about residual fear. He’d seen it before and claimed the only thing we could do about it was give her time and be there for her. I had my own theories of course, but all the treatments I knew of for post-traumatic stress involved very high-level spell work I was neither comfortable revealing to nor casting on, Leigh.

“Great then! When’s your system unlock?” Mom asked, carrying the conversation forward as I stayed lost in thought.

“Six …?” Leigh mumbled.

“Oh, that’s not too bad, I knew some Elves who didn’t get system access well into their early thirties. For a girl with dwarf in her blood twenty-four isn’t bad” Mom smiled, cocking an eyebrow as Leigh blushed only deeper.

“No Ma’am. I said six months”

That was the first problem. Leigh was getting her system before me. TWO full years before me. So of course, mom and dad were all abuzz with congratulating her, and decided then and there to start planning a party right away.

The second problem came after.

I had started spending much more time with Leigh over the past few days, and it would only increase in the coming weeks. I couldn’t keep getting so completely flustered around her. The smallest gestures and movements she made would be completely distracting. A smile, a laugh, the way she furrowed her eyebrows whenever she focused on something.

I wouldn’t have noticed something like that before, and even now it felt strange to me. To consider her as fondly as I do, with the memories of my past self still haunting me. There was a philosophical question there I could not grapple with. Andras Grigori had died. Will die? Will have had died?

It occurs in the future but is sequentially previous to my current point of view.

Could I really claim that I was him? I’d like to. I remember being, will have had being(?), Andras. I thought of myself as similar at least. However, Andras didn’t have my ‘new’ memories, inhabited a completely different body, and a completely different time period. In much the same way as a clone spell would generate a new duplicate, my own had been reforged.

Was it more apt to consider myself a successor than a continuation? Did it matter either way? Could any answer I come to really change anything? I doubt it.

If I’m honest with myself it shouldn’t matter. I know what happened in my memories, in that last life, and I want to avoid it happening again. If I avoid letting myself have friends because of it, then the outcome is the same but for a different reason.

I need to focus on Leigh’s party instead.