Saturday, December 12th, 1890 — The Harper House

There was something tragically ironic in all of this. A better, more contemplative Odina was sure there some humor to be found in this nightmare, but all she felt now was the tension in her limbs. He ruined everything. There was no question that Beau Fucking Miller didn't believe her story of Toby's father or accept her appearance as a positive development. And he married one of the only people she knew in this damn empire, a girl too kind for how the world worked. It should have been a joyful revelation, connections in the Old World, but all Odina felt was threatened.

Over five years apart and Odina would still wager that she knew Bear in a way even his beloved Eva didn't. He lacked the damn sense to leave well enough alone and Odina would not lose her son's future to some man's attempts at sleuthing. She'd avoided him for months, dealing with her son's confusion over no longer visiting the zoo and refusing to speak of the witch and wizard she knew from long ago. For her Toby, she had to have the conversation she'd only had in her nightmares.

Toby was settled with the Harpers for a week, an early Christmas visit with the couple her son considered grandparents. Odina made her excuses for time alone - a chance to brew without a child to protect - and commenced her plan of attack. The owl to Bear was simple - they needed to discuss a pressing matter that concerned Odina's son and Beau's wife. She would activate the portkey, a small bear charm, at the appointed time and he would come alone. It wouldn't do for him to recognize her neighborhood or to be seen arriving at the Harper House.

A host of wards and protections in place, the Floor deactivated, Odina set out two large bottles of firewiskey on her parlor table. She welcomed the burn down her throat as she heard him arrive. Filling both glasses, Odina took a seat near the fireplace, a small table, and floor space, firmly between them. "Drink, Bear. You'll need it."

---

Beau Miller

  

Briefly, Beau considered disregarding Odina's letter. The two lines of instructions did little to inform him of what was to come, and if this meeting was anything like the one she fled from two months ago he knew he would leave angrier than he'd been in weeks. He was, finally, actively working on calming his inner rage. He was focused on minimizing reactions and resisting all thoughts of bodily harm to those who infuriated him. The thought of having such thoughts whilst also entering the world of fatherhood alarmed him, so much so that he feared Eavan and their child would be better off without him around.

Odina had certainly thought so.

However, he knew he and his former beau could play this game of cat and mouse no longer. He always sought out her inky black hair whenever away from the farm, but never once had Odina thought to approach him again. The damage was done, the lies unveiled. Tobias Hill didn't exist, not in the way Odina had claimed he did, and that boy...that charming young man was without a doubt his son. Toby was the only reason why he gripped the small bear charm — a ridiculous reminder of their past — at the appointed hour. Toby was the only reason why he hadn't allowed himself to divulge information of the meeting to his fiery wife. Eavan wouldn't tolerate anymore of Odina's antics, and Beau refused to cause her more stress this late in her pregnancy.

He remained firmly near the parlor's entrance as he hastily sucked down an anti-nausea potion. Portkeys were perhaps his least favorite form of magical transportation, as they always left him feeling off kilter and hurling his lunch into the nearest bin. The potion helped some, but it still took a solid minute or two for the near-giant to get his bearings. Then, once he could see straight once more, he did as instructed, swiping one of the bottles from the table and chugging several shots worth of firewhiskey, ignoring the filled glass altogether. The burn was the needed reminder to remain as far from the treacherous woman as possible. Whatever their past was was no longer, and now the only thing that remained to focus upon was their son.

"Well, you called me here. What is it?" Beau demanded in a low, cool tone from his spot besides the empty arm chair. She had to know how furious he was even without his anger bleeding through his words.

  

The humane part of her that remembered befriending the giant and his magical beasts felt a bit bad about the look of nausea she recognized when he appeared in her parlor. She was half ready to offer him something better, something stronger, but then they locked eyes. On second thought, she hoped his potion failed entirely. When he chugged straight from the second bottle, Odina didn't bother to suppress a snort. "So nice to see your manners have improved." Odina took a rather prim sip from her own class in contrast. She'd told herself she would hold her temper in check, but there was only so much snark she could control in any given moment.

To his credit, his tone was more measured than anticipated, but the result, for Odina, was the opposite. Bear looming across the room with a bottle of firewhiskey in hand hardly gave her a feeling of Christmas cheer. For all of his icy calm, Odina felt her own fire rising. "Take a seat, Bear. I'm not going to injure my neck glaring at you in the rafters." Throwing back the remainder of her glass, Odina's tone heated to match the burn in her throat. "And don't be dense. You know why we have to talk. Though had you just left well enough alone, this wouldn't be a problem." Odina summoned the remaining bottle to her hand, but the way the drink sloshed in the bottle spoke to Odina's very thin level of control.

Pouring more than was smart into her own glass, she took her sweet damn time returning the bottle to the table. If he was going to be an ass, he could wait. Taking her seat, and looking a bit more petulant teenager than queen of the castle, Odina measured her breathes before meeting his eyes. "We need to talk about Toby." A sentence she never wanted to say to someone she no longer trusted catching in her throat.

---

  

Their class difference had never felt more obvious than it did as he watched the prim sip she took from her glass. He was the savage low life lurking in the corner, an untamed beast ready to attack, and she was the perfect little society woman. Beau wouldn't have allowed him within five feet of his child either, lest he leave behind some sort of wild behavior. Perhaps Odina was right to have avoided him all these years, to deprive him the joy of becoming a parent. Perhaps Toby, Odina, and, hell, even Eavan were better off without his involvement.

"I'm the same as I've always been," he answered instead of betraying any of his insecurities. Something about him had scared her off, after all. Something had alarmed her into believing he wouldn't do the right thing for her. Beau took another gulp of the firewhiskey. Better to drink than explode, he felt.

Any hope he had of restraining from making furious and resentful remarks evaporated as she next spoke. And, for a second, he considered just leaving. Had he left well enough alone?! As if he were some sort of heartless bastard that wouldn't recognize his own kin. As if he were some sort of riffraff to be fucked and forgotten, damn the consequences. Beau's grip tightened around the whiskey bottle, nearly shattering the glass, as he fought the instinct to forcefully throw it at the nearest wall. "Not my fault you chose a bullshit widow story than the truth," he spat. "You're entirely in a bed of your own making, Odina."

He remained standing for another thirty seconds. His every instinct screamed at him to leave, to go curl up in bed with his wife and forget all about the dimpled little boy that so greatly remindef him of himself. It was the easier option, the one Odina obviously had hoped he would chose. However, Beau soon sat uncomfortably in the too-fancy chair. Its sides pressed tightly against his hulk-like form, as though he were an elephant and didn't belong. He didn't know much about being a parent, but he knew it involved more than fleeing at the first hardship. He knew it meant standing by his child despite whatever pain it caused him.

And, damn the world, he would do whatever it took to stand by Toby.

"My son, you mean." Beau stated matter-of-factly. If Odina wouldn't reveal it to be the truth now, then he was leaving. He deserved better than to be outright lied to.

  

Odina managed to restrain her initial comments to a silent eyeroll. He was still more stubborn than a Pukwudgie and using his size as a shield. But any survivor knew that shields could have weaknesses. When she saw his hands clench and caught his spit words, her fangs came out. "What a strange choice of words, considering you were taking up most of the bed that night, you ass." She was on her feet in the instant, fire at the forefront. "And how dare you criticize my decisions. My "story" protects my son from the idiotic rules your people impose. Your disgusting customs that would cage me and my son to a man and his whims." The venom flowed free, the barely-there leash Odina usually had on her loathing of all things English invaders snapped. "That wasn't going to be my life and it won't be my boy's."

She half expected the standoff to end in him taking the portkey and storming out. Hell, she would have preferred that option, but then he dropped into the offered chair, looking about as comfortable as she'd felt since stumbling into him in August. She remained standing for a moment if only to hold the high ground for a moment before taking her own seat. She needed it when she heard the sentence she most feared from her friend-turned-threat.

Odina's hands clenched in her skirts, every instinct wanting her to accept her defeat and live to fight another day. She wanted her son and his soft hair just like hers, she wanted to hold him tight even though he barely fit her arms any longer. She wanted him safe, and she had to brave hell to get there. "He is my son, but he is also your child." In a move far more Bear than her practiced facade, she let her glass drop to the floor before reaching for the remaining bottle and sucking down an unhealthy amount. "And before you ask: yes, I'm certain. But that is the end of it. You have a wife and a baby coming. You have a life. That life will not include ruining my baby's future."

---

  

Odina had always run hot when it came to defending her heritage (as she rightfully ought to have, given the history that followed Natives and the European invaders). Still, Beau knew her well enough to know not to press that subject at present. Even if he, himself, had never had difficulties seeing right from wrong when it came to the different nationalities. Even if he had a whole slew of responses to argue with her on. Tonight wasn't about that, it was about Toby.

Hearing her finally confirm what Beau already knew in his heart to be true lifted a heavy weight from his chest. He had a son, a boy who bore his name and knew nothing of his real father. Beau sighed heavily, his gaze shifting from Odina to the fireplace as he struggled to come to terms with the fact that she hid his child from him. Because she didn't wish to be tied down, because he wouldn't have worked with her to find some solution that pleased them both. Instead, he was destined to never be anything more than 'that man with the same name as me' to his own flesh and blood.

Several minutes passed in a long silence as he stared at the fire. An explosion of thoughts, feelings and, naturally, fury happening inside his head. But, mainly, he was just so overwhelmingly heartbroken to have to live with the knowledge that another young child was set to wonder what it was to have a loving father for the rest of his life.

"You seem to think of me as the enemy," Beau began, his voice quiet but accusing all the same. Months of built up emotions and thoughts pouring out of him like a cracked dam. "Like I'm somehow in the wrong here. Like I've publicly claimed him as my own, disproving your story and shaming you. Because, that's the type of man who fathered your son. An evil, selfish person with no thoughts other than him and his own." His voice increased in volume as he spoke, his bright blue eyes finally shifting back to her as he hit his last statement. "Meanwhile, everything that has happened since that night six years ago has been on your terms. You left. You hid him from the truth. You crafted your story and deprived him — and me — of knowing the truth.

"For months we've existed within the same community, and still it's been on your terms. I've wrecked myself with guilt, have had to reconcile with the thought of never truly knowing. And still, I've never thought to out your lies. It was never even a bloody fucking option." To condemn his child to the life of a bastard was something Beau couldn't live with. It was why he acted so fast in marrying Eavan. It was why he pleaded with her to stop working as soon as the pregnancy could no longer be hid. Bastards were common enough among the working class, but he still wanted better for his children.

Beau sucked in another breath. "All I wanted was to know the fucking truth. And maybe — maybe if it fit within your plans and your terms the opportunity to know him. Not as my son, no, you've denied me that. Just as a friend of his mother's. And maybe, maybe if you've stopped running for once in your goddamn life, you could've known that six fucking years ago."

  

Odina was ready for several things. Even though she and Bear had seen the ugly sides of the other's anger, she had never truly feared for her safety. Unlike several men she had the misfortune of meeting in her wanderings, Bear had never physically or magically harmed her. He'd punched someone on her behalf after she'd crossed the wrong person, but he wasn't a monster. Her rational brain knew this, her memories knew this, but there was nothing rational about this moment. The one person with the power to ruin everything she'd worked to build in the last six years was sitting across from her as silent as the grave. If she knew anything, it was Beau silent was Beau dangerous.

"That's not fair!" The protest was out, but he carried on, his voice all rolling thunder and warning. "We were all leaving! The circus was over. What did you expect me to do? Was I supposed to beg and plead for you to stay with me because of the night we had? You're delusional if you think any night earns that response or that I'm so weak. I. Don't. Fucking. Beg." She couldn't keep from nearly yelling at him across the room. At the moment, the only thing she was depriving Toby of was a look at the ugliest side of his parents. Parents. Jesus, what a horrifying thought. How was her son more than rage and grinding teeth?

"My 'terms' are that my son isn't labeled as something less than perfect because a night together doesn't mean a wedding. And don't you dare try and make me a villain. I gave you freedom - freedom - Bear. If your ears still work, hear this: there wasn't another option." Odina was prepared to scream, to yell, to fight, but tearing up was never part of the plan. Fuck! How was she anger-tearing up?!

"What did you want me to do? Was I meant to hunt you down and tell you that a night neither of us planned ended with a child? What would be the plan then? I didn't want a husband or a child or a frontier fantasy. Either you want some sort of family I couldn't give you or you would want me to disappear. I made the choice that gave us both peace; you didn't have to choose and I wouldn't have to hide."

"So thank you," her voice caught in her throat, which only led to intense anger. "Thank you for not damning your wife, a person I actually respect, with a scandal. Very big of you, Bear. Thank you for not letting your pride hurt my child and yours."

Taking another hard swallow from the bottle of whiskey before slamming it down hard on the table between them, Dina was back on her feet. "Oh, fuck you, Bear. Congratulations, you know the truth. I have a son and now you get to be a martyr. You will get a son; you'll get your whole perfect family with Eva. You'll get all the warm, delightful feelings without the risk or the fear or the loneliness. Did it even occur to you that my Toby could complicate things for you and Eva? Did you think what it could do to Toby to have you around and then find himself replaced by a baby he doesn't know to worry about?"

"He doesn't need a father. All he needs is to know he is loved and he is so, very loved. I will not risk that for anything." Dina had run through a million scenarios, whatever Beau thought of her choices. She couldn't risk her son's heart or future; not for anything.

---

  

"I never asked you to beg! All you had to do was send a fucking letter!" Beau shouted as he abandoned the firewhiskey bottle back on the table between them. This conversation was already heated enough without the added fuel. "You think I was free? To what?! Drift about the country? Work at the zoo? No family, very few friends. Is that what you consider freedom? Is that what you dream of? I don't." While he wouldn't change the path to lead him to Eavan, he certainly wouldn't have chosen to spend years on his own with only Murph for company. He would have chosen to be involved with his son however she allowed.

Beau could stand this farce of a conversation no longer. What was the point in summoning him here like a dog if nothing was to change? He stood from the arm chair, pacing to stand behind it instead. "Do not speak about my wife as though you know her. People change in a decade, Odina. You think I'm angry about this situation? Try to talk to her about it." Eavan was a saint for dealing with his nonsense these last few months. At least now he had had it out with Odina. He made his thoughts and feelings known, even if nothing was to come of it.

"Fine. He has you, he needs and wants for nothing. I don't exist to him. Whatever you want, Odina, because that's what it always is. Just please, tell me, what the fuck am I doing here?" Beau clutched the back of the arm chair, the fighter in him wanting to throw it at the nearest wall.

  

"You were free to make a choice. You're a man, for Merlin's sake! You could go anywhere and do whatever you please without needing a farce to protect a consequence. So yes, actually, I call that freedom." With reluctance, Odina locked her arms tight across her chest to keep from hexing, throwing, or some other form of damaging the now-pacing Beau.

"She should be thanking me! You being dense, I can see, but if she doesn't appreciate my keeping you out of this, then you can both fuck off, thank you kindly." Her intent to let Beau return home with all limbs attached was rapidly diminishing. "I know women, you fool, and if she's somehow changed beyond understanding how wrong this all could go if another woman appeared with your child, then you aren't half as clever as I thought." The idea of Eva being upset that she wasn't waltzing in with another child when she was due with a child of her own was maddening. If Beau's wife couldn't make sense of it, a mother should see sense. There wasn't half a brain between the pair. They were meant for each other.

"You could start by keeping the pity to yourself. I didn't bring you here so you could whine like a child. You're here so that I can make something very clear to you: my son doesn't need the confusion or you getting any bright ideas about telling him who you are. It's bad enough that he knows you and ask questions. He has no other ties to America, save the people he considers grandparents and, frankly, if I could keep them away, I would." No matter how long she played at this charade, she was never going to have the love for the Harpers her son, or her parents, ever had. Were it not for their money sustaining her; she would have been gone years ago.

"At some point, I'll run out of reasons to keep him from the zoo, and he will eventually be old enough to make his own choices. I won't be able to protect him from everything, but I'm not going to introduce him to a father so that he can lose what little future he has. If you learn anything between this moment and the birth of your legitimate baby, learn that what you want, what you planned, rarely happens. Of all people, I thought you'd understand that." The scrapper in her brought her to her feet at some point, staying seated with Beau looking ready to kill, not setting well with any of her survival senses.

"For the friendship we had, I'm sorry this hurts you, Bear. I really am, but I love my son. I would burn any and all friendships, all happiness to see him safe. If you don't understand that, then don't you dare judge my decisions." It was a dangerous thing, to square off with a bear, but there was no other way.

---

  

It occurred to him that despite the open friendship he thought they once shared, she never knew him at all. She cared not for his values, less still for his opinions. She thought him the type of man to be able to happily exist in the world knowing he never had to own up to a consequence. And it was simply a belief so far from the truth that he would laugh if it didn't devastate him so. Tobias — his bloody fucking namesake — might not know what it was now to yearn for a father, but he one day might. One day, he might come to recognize that absence and blame Beau for not being there. As if this was the life, the choice, the freedom Beau chose.

"Do not speak of my wife as though you know her." Beau growled, his temper unleashed for the first time in a decade. It was for Eavan's and Tobias' sakes that he wasn't exploding at the seams, throwing every item his hands touched and then his fists when there was nothing left to throw. "Do not. You're sitting on your high horse as though you're on the moral high ground, you're not. I don't give a single fuck what you believe is right, you knowingly deprived your son of a loving and willing father. And that is something he will never fully be able to leave behind.

"You did that to him out of cowardice and fear. You did that to him because the thought of having to open yourself up to potential pain frightened you." He was raving, his every dripping with venom and fury. "Do not stand there and preach at me like you did me a goddamn favor. Until you randomly discover a child with your blood running through his veins exists in the world, you don't get to dictate what my thoughts are. It was cruel, your decision. To me and to him. Call it pity, call it selfishness, call it whatever the fuck you want. I don't care. It was an evil act."

His chest heaved with his frustration, and Beau knew he had to leave before he began trashing the room. "You're concerned about running into me at my place of work, then don't go there. Find another zoo, or, better yet, own up to your mistakes and figure out a better fucking solution than summoning me here like a fucking dog. I don't owe you a single goddamn thing, and I definitely do not intend on rearranging my life so that you can take our son to the fucking zoo."

  

"I deprived him of nothing! There was no "loving and willing father" to lose, Beau. His father is dead and keep shouting at me and it won't be a lie!" Her voice rose, but the temperature dropped; Odina could feel the tell-tale prickling in her fingers, the need to strike out.

"Don't you dare speak to me like you know a thing about being a mother. Congratulations, you got another woman pregnant. What a hardship that must have been. And you call me a coward again and it will be the last word you speak." The year she spent in his shadow, feeling safe and untouchable, she could see it burning in the space between them. It did her heart - or what there was open to feeling - good to know that she wasn't lying to her son anymore. The Beau she knew was dead, but so was the girl that believed in him.   

"I don't make a habit of knocking up everyone that shows me kindness, so I can't say I'm worried." She hissed the low blow, the icy feeling crawling just beneath her skin. "I am the woman that stands between you and my child. Since you seem to have all the answers, remember that. And my dogs are better behaved!" The last was snapped with years of malice and resentment aimed at Beau.


Beau's outlining what she could and could not do was the last straw, her hand shooting out a blizzard of ice shards across the room. The shattering of glass immensely satisfying, the bottles of firewhisky obliterated, the place to Beau's left now frozen. The smirk at her showing was real, but Odina hardly felt comfort after her explosion. She was pissed and ready to rip things apart, but there was still part of her that labeled Beau as 'worth saving,' Merlin only knows why.

"Since you seem to have all the answers and you're so convinced you've been wronged Beau, why don't you tell me how in fucking Merlin's name you'd like to handle this." Part of her was curious, but all of her was ready to turn him into an ice sculpture.

---

  

The shards of ice and glass exploded around them, causing Beau to involuntarily flinch. He wasn't afraid of her, not really. Odina was powerful with wandless magic, he knew, but he could easily overtake her should the situation arise. "Are you fucking insane?!" He shouted, his eyes never moving from her should she attempt a second explosion. "I give you a truth that you're unhappy with, and what, you're going to fucking kill me for it?!"

Fuck, she was fucking insane.

That he'd already told her the solution to this problem was just further proof that she hadn't listened to a word he said. Instead, she focused on his rage and fueled her own. "I already fucking told you the answer, but since you don't seem to want to listen, here it goes again: introduce me as a friend," he spat. "And, if you can't do that, then stay the fuck away from my wife, my job, and me. I will not be summoned like I don't deserve better from you again."

And, before giving her any chance to respond or interfere once more, Beau gripped his home and fled in a loud crack of apparition.