2.24 Losing Daylight

Reve loves spending time with his grandmother. She's indulgent, rarely criticizing, always encouraging his creative pursuits and artistic expression.

She brings him to the rotted pier on the river and tells him about her own childhood, in a faraway land with pirate-themed politics.

Reve learns about how she traveled the world.

Reve wants to see the world, too.

Mab would rather be taking these walks in the summertime, if winter in Hidden Springs now means this bone-chilling snow falls most every day, but she is feeling her age. She won't see summer.

When the reaper comes for Mab, she greets him as though he's a friend, here to help her find her way.

"Why didn't you do something?!" Reve bawls.

"She didn't want us to," his uncle tries to explain, knowing it must be an impossible concept for a child to grasp. Even if that child is psychic.

Finley and Junpei place their mother's gravestone in the cemetery.

With Mab dead, Finley needs someone else to look after Reve while she's in Bridgeport. Minzi Cho, mother of Reve's best friend, seems like the logical person to ask. Newton and Reve could have a slumber party or something; that'd be fun, right? Finley had a slumber party or two with her friends when she was little.

Minzi thinks it's a terrible idea. "We're not just coworkers anymore. You're my boss now. I'm not babysitting your kid."

Finley frowns. "Alright. Sorry to bother you."

"Why do you have to go with Mom?" Reve asks Junpei. "Are you like The Wonder Twins? Do your powers only work in close proximity?"

Alternate caption: the Archers now own a Tofunda Wagon. It's green.

 "Reve, I thought you'd be happy to come with us."

"I only get to go because Grandma is dead."

"You shouldn't look at it that way," Junpei says gently.

"But it's true!" Reve stamps his foot down in the snow.

All Junpei can offer to console Reve is a hug.

"I thought I told you to scrape the snow off the car, Junpei!"

After making sure the house is locked up tight, Finley rushes back to the car, finding Reve stretched out in the back seat looking half-asleep and Junpei standing around like a dope.

"Sorry." Junpei frowns. "I know. We're losing daylight."

The roads twist and turn around the mountain ranges.

As the eagle flies, this trip would be shorter.

Once they reach the next sector, the snow falls away.

"Much of Bridgeport has been cleaned up and rebuilt," Finley's contact explained. "But you can still see plenty of evidence of the carnage, if you know where to look."

"It's not the physical scars I'm here to write about," Finley replied.

"Remind me." He narrowed his glowing eyes at her. "What are you here for?"

Finley frowned. "I'm interested in social progress, or lack thereof."

He stood silent, for a moment, in the shadows, carefully away from the direct sunlight pouring into the building through holes in the roof and broken walls. Finley could tell he was searching her for something, but she couldn't guess what. She couldn't read his mind and he couldn't read hers. A human psychic and a vampire, neither of skill enough to overpower the other, they were each forced to trust the other at their word. Finley met with this man prepared to do just that, but...

Something about him was different. Different from how she remembered him.

Granted, she had not known Lou very well. She hadn't known any of them very well.

"I couldn't tell you if the humans are treating us better or not," Lou said. "They force us all to live in the same neighborhood, so they can avoid us."

"You're suspicious of me," Finley accused.

"Of course I am!" In a blink, Lou was behind her. She spun around, but he didn't seem intent on attacking. Only intimidating. "You're a witch, and they spared you for some reason."

Finley held her ground. "You think I work with Supernatural Control?"

"I don't know what to think. But if you do-"

"I don't. And if you're about to threaten me, think twice."

"I've thought a lot," he snarled. "Too much."

Finley took a calculated step back, and tried a more sympathetic tone. "How did you survive?"

"Luck."

She lowered her head. "And, the others? I thought you'd all been killed."

"I saved one." He folded his arms and his sharp gaze lost focus. A look of uncomfortable reflection. "Horribly, if I had it all to do over again, I would have actively tried to save a different person."

"Someone who meant a lot to you," Finley guessed.

"I'm going to find that cryokinetic agent. I'm going to hurt him. I hoped you had information that could lead me to him... but you don't. You're not an agent. How disappointing."

"I don't think hunting supernatural control agents is a good idea. I think you'll be killed, and it's not worth it. You don't even know what you're looking for, if you thought I was one of them. Come to your senses."

"Forgive me." Lou looked at the ceiling and smiled quite suddenly. A fake smile. "You and your brother saved the young lady Meela, as far as we could tell. I hear she's in town now, cleaning up what's left of her parents' affairs. Perhaps she'll have something to say to you."

"Airplane," Reve points out, bringing Finley back to the present.

"I'm trying to take a picture, do you mind?"

Junpei doesn't move. "What did Lou say to you?"

Finley smiles mischievously. "He said your girlfriend is here."

Junpei's lips part slightly, as if he's going to say something.

Then, he doesn't.

Can we get out of here? He thinks at her. People died here. 

Meela is found at her family home. 

People died here, too.

"The official story is looters are to blame, but I'm fairly certain the government confiscated most of my family's things," Meela says distantly. "Anything of occult significance is gone. No matter. I wish to sell this house and be done with it and with all residues of my childhood. With the way the political situation played out... this has been my first chance to return to Bridgeport."

"Same," Finley says. Not that she had any reason to be here, other than her career. Her career, she could take in any direction. Finley does not have to be here. Yet here she is.

"I'm so happy you're both alive," Meela adds. Her face betrays no emotion, the sincerity is only in her voice, subtle but there. "Of course, I knew you'd survived. I've followed your professional work, Ms Finley."

"What happened to you when we disappeared?" Finley hears her brother ask.

"One moment I was reaching for you. The next I was in China, in the home of my banished ancestors. I found a vampire community there willing to shelter me." She tilts her head. "Why did you disappear?"

Finley looks away. "The fairy took a shine to us."

"Strange."

"We want nothing to do with him."

"I believe you. The fair folk are difficult to understand."

"You have experience with them?"

"Vampires live a long time, and we talk. I have heard things."

Reve butts into the conversation. He has many questions for Meela, the first person he's ever met outside of his own family to possess any form of extra sensory perception.

"Please don't mind him," Finley laughs nervously, as Junpei helpfully ushers the child outside to look at the garden.

"I don't mind children at all. Don't worry." She pauses. "I should be expected to have my own, soon."

"Are you pregnant?"

"No." Meela pauses again, considering what to say. "I'm the last of my bloodline."

"That... sounds like some pressure."

"That's a very human way of looking at things." A change of subject may be in order. "Would you be more comfortable if I lit more candles? I forget it's so dark in here."

Reve doesn't remember a time without snow, at least not very well, and is eager to explore this warm, colorful landscape.

"I want to paint everything!" he exclaims.

"Cute," Junpei remarks.

"Be careful!" Junpei calls after Reve, as the child runs off to see how steep the edge of the cliffs are.

Even from so far away, Reve can feel the buzz of too many minds crammed into a small area. Busy, never stopping, bombarded with sensations but ignoring most... the clamor of a mad machine.

"Lou's different," Finley says solemnly, thinking at the same time of how Meela is also different, more reserved, changed by time like everyone else.

"This troubles you?"

"I think he wants revenge on the SC."

"I do miss his more-flamboyant personality..."

"You know him well?"

"Yes." Meela frowns slightly. "I don't know if Lou will ever recover from losing Chris, but if he seeks trouble from supernatural control, he will find it, and they will destroy him."

Reve scampers back into the house and begs his mother to take him to some festival downtown. "They have a hot dog eating contest, and games and stuff! I saw it in their minds!"

"I don't think they let kids participate in eating contests, kiddo." Not that she doesn't enjoy seeing her son excited and bouncing off the walls.

"Pleeeease can we go?"

Junpei sets a vase with fresh flowers on the table. "It was just sitting out there, overturned and empty," he explains feebly. "I, um, thought this place could use some color," he tries again. "Hope that's okay."

Meela frowns wistfully. "Of course. They're lovely."

"I'm taking Reve to the park," Finley announces. "It was nice to see you again, Meela." She quirks an eyebrow at Junpei. "I know you don't like crowds, so, you have fun doing whatever ♫. We'll see you later."

"Goodbye," Meela murmurs, still staring at the vase.

Junpei is uncomfortable with Finley's tone.