“Yes and as I was trying to tell you….”

“No, no. Of course not. It’s just that the situation hasn’t been the most ideal...Perhaps at a later….?”

“Yes, Aunt Helene, I would like to have you guys come over its just that….”

“No...I...Fine, yes, next Tuesday, would be perfect. Thank you very much...see you then.”

Edna ended the call, for the first time in a long while she was reminded of the single losing point of the phone-constructs. Having a phone in one’s head, gave one nothing to slam, or throw after a particularly frustrating call.

Edna sighed and then there was a grunt from the other end of the room.

“I’m guessing Helene finally cornered you.” said a fairly not sympathetic Elena. Her arms crossed and a look of point displeasure on her face.

Edna tugged and then straightened her collar , fiddling with a few things on her desk before answering.

“...Possibly.”

Elena rolled her eyes.

“I’m not even going to say it. I’m not even going to say I told you so...even though I ‘did’ tell you so. My only question is how you intend to break it to Billy.”

Edna froze, she hadn’t even gotten around to thinking about that.

“I’ll have my extremely understanding, and beautiful cousin do it for me?” said Edna, wearing a wan smile.

Elena made a buzzer noise with her mouth, one brow rising into her dark pink locks.

“...Try again.”

Edna sighed, deflated.

“Shit...Fine, I’ll figure it out….Probably...Maybe you could just help me soften him up? Please?”

“....Hmph.”

Elena didn’t even bother replying, getting up and leaving the corner of the room, that she’d more or less been haunting for the last fifteen minutes.

This was one of the few times where the two of them  were in disagreement. It was one thing to save the family and another thing to stay in touch and pretend that the Garland Maddocs and the Bone Tree Maddocs still had anything to say to each other.

While Elena  understood, Edna’s reasoning, for maintaining the open channel, she didn’t think that this was the way to handle things. She didn’t think things really needed to be handled at all. They already had the country under control.

From her view so long as no one was actively trying to exterminate the family, the rest would handle itself. There was no need for all the hand holding and troublesome niceties.

Then again Elena also understood that as someone who’d been completely thrown away by the Maddocs she was maybe just a little bit bitter.

Edna had her own reasons to be bitter too, of course, but she had always been the good one amongst the three of them. Far too kind and far too conscientious for her own good.

So of course, if only for the sake of their little cousins and those family members that they ‘didn’t’ hate,  she wouldn’t just want to see the family survive, she’d want to see them get back on their feet, she’d want to help them thrive. Quietly pulling strings and helping them get their affairs in order. Helping them even if it was a little bit at her own expense.

Which up to a certain point was Edna’s own business, if Edna wanted to get elbow deep in the family’s many, many, problems that was her concern.

The issues of contention was that there’d naturally be a point where it became a concern for all of them. A point where they’d all get pulled into the Maddoc family’s baggage as well. A point like today.

*****

Perhaps it was inevitable...Actually, forget the perhaps, it simply ‘was’ inevitable. If three Maddocs built a country it was only natural to expect the others to try and parlay a cut of the action for themselves. Hell, this was Monde, if one had ought, half the world would ask for a cut, even without, a family tie to justify it.

The other half would just try  to ‘take’ their cut , never mind asking, but fortunately, the Bone Tree Company was strong enough that that wasn’t a worry.

Which was good, because as much as she’d once loved, and sometimes still loved, her father, if he could get away with it, or even just thought he could get away with it, their blood ties would be no obstacle to Brutus Maddoc steamrolling right over them.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

*****

Elsewhere Billy lay in his room, this was one of those rare days, where Billy was taking it easy, resting, truly resting, with no other iterations of him out and about, doing the other things that he needed done.

Tamra lay beside him, and beside her, lay her mute shadow, Isodel, former queen of Garland. They all were staring up at the ceiling at a mural, that Tamra had painted, just because they’d had paint and time and Billy had just happened to be redoing the room.

“...I think it looks okay.” said Billy.

Tamra shrugged, not sure, what to think of her own work. She wasn’t certain, but she suspected that her creativity began and ended with her ability to make things from nothingness and aether. On the one hand, there was a chance that she could get better with practice, on the other hand, her work so far, was depressingly abysmal.

“....Gross.” said little Isodel.

“Mhm...Yes, Izzy I do believe that this is far from my best work.” said Tamra.

Billy just shrugged and then he snapped his fingers and covered the mural with a lay of fresh paint. The paint rising from a half empty can and then spreading itself evenly, across the ceiling.

“Nh...Want to try again?” said Billy.

“Nah. Thanks for the assist though.” said Tamra

“Don’t mention it.” said Billy.

The door opened and in  walked Elena. Hands in her pockets, her body language surprisingly small for someone who generally liked to take up as much space as possible.

“Oh...hey guys.” said Elena.

“Nh…” said Billy.

“Hi.”said Tamra.

Little Izzy simply nodded in her direction.

Elena came inside, she sat the desk, instead of flopping onto the bed. It wasn’t that there wasn’t enough space, but she knew her own bad habits, bad habits that tended to show strongly while she was agitated,  and there was a child present.

For a  while they were all just simply there, hanging out in the room, talking about nothing in particular. At some point they watched a movie, using one of the walls as a tv. It was an old world, animated, but not necessarily for kids.

Then a few more uneventful hours passed and Elena woke up to find herself lying next to Billy. With his arm slung over her. They were both dressed and the fact that Tam and her little charge were still in the room, meant that they must have kept things, pg. Though honestly that was probably more Billy’s influence then anything else.

She turned and looked up at the boy’s sleeping face, his long eyelashes, like black butterfly wings.

She gave him a peck on the lips, then gave him a kiss that was a little more than a peck, but stopped after that, because again, there was a child present.

“Hey Will.” said Elena.

“Nh…?” grunted Billy.

“I know you’re not really House Maddoc’s biggest fan...but we’ve never really talked about it exactly and…” said Elena.

There wasn’t anything else, said, they just lay in silence, while Billy lay with his eyes closed.

“Billy?” said Elena.

“What?”

“You fell asleep again.” said Elena.

“Nh? No I didn’t. You just didn’t finish your sentence.”

Elena blinked.

“.... Really?” she said her tone skeptical.

“Really….Anyway, what were you about to say? ‘-And what?-’ ”

Elena shrugged, the movement making the cotton sheets crinkle a bit, making the springs of the mattress creak.

“I...uh, I don’t know. I sort of just said it.” said Elena.

Billy sighed and then he propped himself up on his elbow, looking down at the pink haired, green skinned woman.

“Okay, but what were you actually going to say?” said Billy. The words, non-argumentative, sounding genuinely curious.

“I...I guess I was asking you if you still hated our family.”

“You mean because Miss Helene and the other Aunties finally cornered her into inviting them over?” said Billy.

Elena blinked and then she sighed.

“You mean you already knew?” said Elena.

Billy shrugged.

“I guessed. And really it was bound to happen, Ed’s a smart cookie, but the Maddoc has a whole army of scheming old hens...” said Billy.

Elena chuckled.

“Hm, I know right? I said the same thing, but you’ve gotta give it to her, she kept them stymied for two whole years.” said Elena.

Billy nodded.

“Okay, so how do you feel about that?” said Elena.

“How do I feel about what?” said Billy.

“The family? And the fact that they’re probably gone try and get in close again, pretty soon.”

Billy looked up as he spied Tamra silently exiting the room with a napping Isodel in her hands.

He returned his gaze to Elena and then gave her a kiss, a long soft, slowly burning kiss, that she returned in kind.

“Ell, when I first got back, from, you know, abroad,...when I first got back, and picked up Ed? You know why we only took the few things we took?”

“You mean, when you picked up Ed and not me?” said Elena, bringing up the old sore spot, with her brow raised.  

Her poker faced Billy matching her look with nonchalance, and another peck on the lips.

“Yes, Ell, when I picked Ed up off of the chopping block, because you were already supposed to be out of harm’s way.”

Elena frowned and then in a single move she reversed their position with her lying on top of him looking down at his delicate features.

“So I don’t deserve a rescue from Prince Charming?” said Elena.

“Deserve? Of course you do. Need? Nah. When the time came, if worst to worst, I was hoping that you might rescue ‘us’.” said Billy.

“Hmph!”

Elena lightly nibbled on the man’s bottom lip and then she smiled.

“Flatterer…”

“Nh.”

“Anyway, so does this mean you don’t mind that our family is going to be back in our lives?”

“Ell...Here’s something I think you two don’t realize, I don’t care as much as you guys think I care. Scheming men will act like scheming men. Trash will act as trash. And for me, everything that happened directly after I was sold off feels like it happened a forever ago…”

“Billy?” said Elena. Looking at boy, and the somewhat wistful, far-away look in his eyes.

“My only concern for the Maddocs, my only context for them, was you two.  Even when I was part of the family I never really knew or even met most of them and my away time has only exacerbated this feeling of distance. Thus the times where I wanted to destroy them, were because of what they’d done to you two. And the times where I could have taken everything but didn’t were similarly because of you two. I mean, whatever you feel for him, you don’t actually want to see your dad, die right?” said Billy.

Elena frowned, and then she blinked and flopped onto the bed with a sigh. Still frowning. Her gaze on a wall, as her hand absentmindedly found it’s way under the man’s clothes. Resting on his pulse, feeling his steady heart rate with her fingertips.

“Mhm…Maybe.”

“The Maddocs are strangers to me, Ell. If you and Ed don’t mind them, I don’t mind them either.”

“And if I, we... ‘do’ mind them?” said Elena.

Billy’s eyes grew cold, and sharp in a way that made Elena shiver, unsure whether it was a good shiver or a bad shiver.

“Then we’ll act accordingly.”

Elena smiled.

“And you promise you don’t mind? Like for real,This doesn’t bother you? That the people who sold you into slavery, more or less got Ed’s family killed, and abandoned me, are trying to come and pretend we’re suddenly all one house again. That doesn’t bother you at all?” said Elena.

“...Promise.” said Billy.