July 22nd, 1895 - Bixby Residence

The nerves were so bad she was going to vomit. Having to travel by portkey wasn’t helping. Their trip home had been exponentially quicker than the voyage down. An unexpected hurricane barreling at their campsite was emergency enough to arrange for portkeys for everyone to hurry home.

Except home was the last place Sloane wanted to be.

In fact she would rather be anywhere else.

Home was where everything was moving on without her, in ways she hadn’t expected, nor knew how to emotionally handle. She should have anticipated it; had already experienced it with the missing year of her life, but this hurt more somehow and she had nobody to blame but herself.

And she had nobody to talk to about it.

Fortunately it was late at night when they’d arrived, her mother greeting them at the door with a tentative smile. After all the small talk in which Sloane knew her mother was trying to glean a reaction out of her, but she’d remained impassive throughout the conversation.

Eventually Fiona had excused herself for bed, but Sloane was too wired to sleep. The house was quiet and she was anxious. Instead of her usual method of distracting herself, which she knew she couldn't get away with at home, Sloane crept into her father’s liquor cabinet and poured herself a small measure of whisky, just a little something to take the edge off.

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The news that Sloane and Harry had to be rushed home due to a weather emergency was surprising, but Alvin was glad to have them home for however short of a stint they would be there. In light of recent events, he wanted to check in with Sloane. The pair of them were in an awkward sort of limbo and nobody else really knew about it. Alvin had come to terms with everything. It was a shock, yes, considering how hard Sisse had fought to try and keep him in her life, but he felt that everything had happened for a reason. He wasn’t any good for her where he was at in his life and despite his fleeting feelings for her, she clearly had a stronger bond with Hatchitt.

Which of course left Alvin in the uneasy predicament of being the only one to worry about Sloane’s real reaction.

So when he found her at the kitchen table with a bottle of whiskey, well-past midnight, he wasn’t exactly surprised.

”That good, huh?” He asked as he sat down gingerly across from her. He didn’t reach for the bottle, not to pour himself one or to take it away from her. He’d gotten over the urge to drink, had sent it back to the depths of his past where it belonged, but he couldn’t begrudge his little sister the need for something strong tonight.

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Fuck him and his innate ability to get right to it. Of all her brothers, Alvin was the only one who ever seemed to see her. Like actually see her. It was annoying. Rufus, Wally and Harry were supportive obviously; she would never forget Wally’s encouragement to take the apprenticeship and Harry’s willingness to go along so that she could, but Alvin always saw the good and the bad. It was like she couldn’t hide it from him even if she wanted to.

Of course it didn’t help this time that they were both sort of embattled from the same situation, tied up in similar ways that had them trying to figure themselves out again. She felt like once she found her footing, something else came along to trip her up and cause her to hit the ground again. It was getting more and more difficult to get up and dust herself off.

”The best.” She sighed, knowing she sounded bitter. But she was tired and weary and sick of feeling this way. ”I begged Carolina to take me with her, but Harry wanted to come home.” It was hard to fight with him on that. Harry had done her a huge favor by coming with her and she owed him that much. ”I can’t stay here, right next door, and pretend like everything is fine.” Things had changed permanently and there was no going back to how things used to be, not after this. Sloane just wanted to get back to South Africa and start figuring out what she was going to do from here on. Hogsmeade didn’t feel like home anymore, there wasn’t much left for her here other than family and she hoped that eventually they would understand.

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Alvin leaned both forearms down on the table toward her, trying to read her expression, but all he could tell was that she was hurting and she didn’t know what to do with it. He’d known of course, through some conversations about their respective lives, how she felt about Hatchitt and that this news wasn’t something she was going to take well, so he wasn’t surprised by her thought process.

”I take it you heard then,” it wasn’t a question, not really, just a confirmation that they were on the same page. Alvin had hoped maybe she’d been spared the information, that she could just enjoy her expedition without knowing what was going on at home, but he couldn’t imagine coming home and being blindsided by the news would have been any better. This way at least, she’d had time to sort out some of her feelings, even if it wasn’t all of the way. He also assumed she didn’t think she’d be home quite so soon.

”Maybe you could stay with Calla for a little bit?” At least the Potts home wasn’t as close as everything else, with their sprawling corner lot near the park. He didn’t really know what else to suggest, but it was an option. Laurel Potts wouldn’t even notice another person running around their house, he didn’t think.

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All she could do was grimace and try to keep the tears at bay. ”Sisse sent me a letter. She’s so happy I couldn’t even pretend to send something back.” She hadn’t written to anyone other than Alcyone and Mr. Davis in the interim. Those were light, casual conversations, easy to cover up any turbulence in her life. Her letters home were short, factual, outlining what she and Harry were doing and little else. Lester hadn’t even bothered to write after her initial letter, so she didn’t think she owed him anything either. Not that she would even know what to say. Her whole plan here was to avoid everyone and get back out of town before anyone knew she was here.

”I don’t want to worry her.” Her friendship with Calla was still fragile; one of her relationships that had never quite recovered from when she was gone. Sloane wasn’t about to put any of this out there and Calla would undoubtedly ask what was wrong.

”I think I can stay at the zoo, there’s bunks there for Mr. Podmore’s friends when they visit from abroad. I just don’t think Mum will let me.” She would much rather find a different place to stay than get into the nitty gritty of her feelings. Problem solving was much easier than admitting she’d fallen in love with her best friend and the feelings obviously weren’t mutual.

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He heard what she said, but Alvin was really paying attention to her expression, the way her shoulders slouched, the concentration on keeping the storm of emotions hidden beneath the surface. He knew the look well, had often worn it himself over the years. He wanted to stay rooted in that for her, even though deep down, he was a little relieved. Alvin hated that the dissolution of his situation with Sisse had led to this for Sloane, but at the heart of it, at least he'd done the right thing by Sisse.

Now he had to help get Sloane back up.

"I think if you talk to Ma, she'll understand." Fiona Bixby had gone through it over the years and she stood taller than anyone he'd ever met. She'd lost a son in infancy; had two children suffer career-ending accidents; her only daughter had come back from the dead. Alvin wasn't sure there was anything she couldn't handle these days. "She might read Mr. Podmore the riot act of supervision, but," he trailed off on a hollow sort of chuckle. It had to be easier than watching Sloane hide away here and be miserable. At least she would be busy at the zoo, have ways to occupy her hands and her thoughts and then she'd be off again in two weeks.

The question was; would she ever come back?

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Her shoulders had drooped, the expression as stoic as she could keep it, but this was all a little too fresh to muddle through. "Yeah, maybe." Sloane threw back the last of the whiskey and pushed the glass aside. She didn't need to add a headache to the heartache. She sighed heavily and laid her forehead on her arms atop the table.

"I feel like I don't belong here anymore," she mumbled, though it was quiet enough in the house that he must have heard her. It was a nagging feeling she just couldn't escape anymore. It ebbed a little every now and then, when she was engrossed in something at the zoo, but every single relationship she had here was different, some of them irreparably so. What was the point of being here then? "I'm not the same person I was before," missing an entire year of her actual life had a lasting effect. People had live a whole year without her, they'd started to move on assuming she'd never come back. Maybe she shouldn't have. "I can't fit back into the space that I was once in." Maybe that was the root of it. No matter how hard she'd tried, there was no going back.

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Alvin knew that feeling well. He'd left too, of his own decision of course, but coming back after failing had been hard. It was still hard. He hated his job, hated the place he'd stuck himself and couldn't figure out how to fix it in a way that he could still make a living and enjoy it. Not that he was going to tell her that, not right now, but some day, maybe.

"So don't" Alvin shrugged, patting her hand with his own gently. "Maybe now is the time to get out and do something for you and not worry about what everyone else thinks." She'd already lost a year, she didn't need to spent time regretting where she was, feeling stuck and hopeless. Alvin didn't have a lot of life experience but he had almost a whole decade more than she did, he'd already had one identity crisis. "I think if we learned anything while you were gone, it's that you have to live the life you want and you're only eighteen, you've got a lot of life ahead of you." Spoken like he was some ancient geezer who had everything figured out, when he wasn't any more sure in life than she was. But she did have a lot more time than he did and as the youngest, she was sort of required to listen to them wax poetic about things like this.

"Go back to South Africa, find another expedition, come back to the zoo and live in Irvingly to finish your apprenticeship. Once you're done with that you can go anywhere. There's a lot of world to travel, you may find yourself out there." Being a magizoologist did leave a lot of room to go and do and be a part of something bigger.

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Alvin wasn't wrong. She had another year and a half or so of being someone else's responsibility and then she was on her own. By twenty-one she'd be trained enough to be ready for actual research trips and travel. Setting it up in a small increment like that made it feel achievable. "You sound like some wizened old man, shut up." She waved a hand at him without looking up, because the tears had collected in the corners of her eyes and she really wasn't in the mood to cry right now. It all still felt a little miserable, a little too much, but maybe if she could set short-term goals, take it one step at a time, she might get through it without drowning.

"And that's easy for you to say," she popped her head up a little, resting her chin on her arms instead. She wanted to argue with him, but it was hard when he was making a little too much sense. "I hate that you're not wrong." She sighed again and scowled at him. Rufus was supposed to be the one who gave sage advise and helped pick her up. Alvin, who had his own shit going on, was not supposed to sound like he had it all together. "I'll talk to Mum." She said finally after a minute of scrutinizing him. It was the first step and right now all she could handle was one step at a time.

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Well, that was a good start. Alvin may have his own shit going on in his life, but he would much rather focus on Sloane's problems than his own. He couldn't solve them for her, he wouldn't even really begin to know how and she wouldn't want him to, but he was relieved to see that at least he'd made some sense. That hopeless feeling was deep, it sucked you in and it was hard to claw your way back out. If all he did was keep her from slipping downward, he'd done his job.

"Good, I'll back you up." Hell, he supposed he could go live in the bunks with her for two weeks if it would soothe his mother's arguments against it. She'd be off again in a couple weeks and then she could refocus on the apprenticeship and her work and hopefully that would keep her going long enough for everything else to fall by the wayside. He had no idea what it was going to look like for her and she would do her best to hide away while she was here, but he wasn't going to try and dissuade her to do anything else. If she wanted to take some agency in her life, this was a good place to start.

"You'll figure it out, Sloane." He assured her with a smile. "But that cat is staying with Calla." He added after a moment and was rewarded with a laugh. He could see some of the weight lift off her shoulders, which was good. She was too young to be weighed down by things like this. She would figure it out and come out of it on the other side just fine, he'd make sure of it.

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