KOTLC Sokeefe One-Shots, Alternate Endings, etc

Fitzphie (Keefe POV)

Fitz met Keefe at the gates to Everglen and cheerfully let him in.

"You seem...happier than I expected," Keefe told him. "And here I was worrying I'd taken too long to come check on you. I just figured your family might want some time before the rest of us started coming over again."

"I appreciate that," Fitz said. "And it's awful having Alvar here. My parents are being so stupid about it."

It wasn't like Fitz to speak of his parents that way. He had a good relationship with them.

But this situation was unthinkable.

Keefe should know. Finding out his mom was in the Neverseen had been a huge shock, and they weren't even close. She hadn't really been a good mom. For the Vackers to find out Alvar was a traitor—and then suddenly his memories are gone and he's back at Everglen—Keefe couldn't blame Fitz for struggling hardcore with this.

But he also felt compelled to say, "it has to be hard. He's their son, they want to believe the best." Not that his dad ever did that for him. "You have good parents, don't freeze them out forever."

Fitz sighed. "I know."

"So it's been awful having him here?"

"I just can't buy into his act. It's not like he's even acting like himself. He used to be funny, joke around about stuff. Now he's just..a shell. He's polite and formal and obviously not Alvar—evil or not. There's something we're missing. And I'm afraid we're really going to pay for it when it comes to light."

"So still no memories?"

"No. Sophie even came over and tried. We tried together, and nothing. It doesn't make sense."

They'd made it up to Fitz's room by this point, Fitz shutting the door firmly behind him as though somehow that would make Alvar feel even further away.

"So Foster was here? And even your combined Cognate magic couldn't find any memories?"

"Nope. And then I got mad and it started to affect my echo so we had to leave. And..." Fitz got this weird goofy grin as his voice trailed off.

Keefe didn't like where this was headed. Please, no, he thought to himself.

"And?" He prompted, afraid of what he was about to hear.

"Well...I didn't really want to go back to the house and end up running into my parents, I just wasn't in the mood, so Sophie and I were walking around the grounds. There's a lot here that she's never seen. And we wound up in the reception hall. She thought it was crazy that we had a reception hall, so I pointed out that that's what her bedroom at Havenfield used to be."

Keefe, who was by now a master at hiding his true emotions, smirked. "What, humans don't have reception halls in their houses?"

Fitz laughed. "I guess not. Anyway, she was looking around and acting really overwhelmed, and got really sad when I explained that the reception hall is for holding Winnowing Galas. And I don't know...I just couldn't stand it. It was obvious she was trying not to cry. And...well, we haven't talked about it, but I know you can tell we've both had feelings for each other for a while—like you always tell me—"

"You can't lie to an Empath," Keefe finished for him, feeling sick but pretending to merely be politely interested.

"Exactly. And I wasn't going to say anything because she's still undecided about registering for the match and I don't want to put pressure on her, but I couldn't stand seeing her fighting tears over me, so finally I just kind of blurted it out."

"Blurted what out, exactly?"

Fitz blushed ever so slightly. "That the only name I even want to see on my list is hers."