Perennial

Chapter 22 -- Perennial

Once I've distanced myself from the headmaster's office and find a nice empty hallway, I lean against the wall and try to organize my thoughts.

What exactly just happened?

Did the Headmaster really call me in to lecture me about wandering the halls but ended up spilling what I can only assume is one of his deepest darkest secrets?

And... I'm not even sure what to do with this information.

Valor admitted he knows what happened to Eclipse. But he didn't explain why. (Or exactly how.) He didn't even really explain how Eclipse' disappearance was related to my uncle's. He just admitted that they were, indeed, connected.

And he knows that I was the Overlord's apprentice. (Which is better than him knowing I'm also his daughter.) Is he going to do something with that information? Is DSHA going to come after me? Will any of what just transpired interfere with the escape plan?

No.

We can't let it. Valor didn't say or do anything that indicated he knew about my escape plans. Sueña and I shouldn't give up just because Valor called me to his office for a lecture.

I take a deep breath and push off the wall. I need to get back to the cafeteria. Chances are Aether and Sueña will have a collective aneurysm if I don't show up soon.

I make it back just in time. It looks like Aether and Sueña are just about to leave to go looking for me when I show up.

"Where'd you go?" Aether asks.

I shrug. "Bathroom."

We leave it at that.

The rest of the day is spent trying to be extra good for the teachers. Sueña and I can't afford any undue attention if we want to put our plan into motion as soon as possible.

The day crawls on, the classes take forever, but in the end, it goes by too fast. In just a blink, dinnertime rolls around and we're all hungry again.

Tonight it's soup and sandwiches (probably because of the bad weather). I sit with my regular group (Aether, Sueña, Tempest, and with a special appearance of Maria) and Maria starts a debate with Aether about whether or not it's better to keep secrets from the people you love or not.

An ironically relevant topic, I think.

Aether says that sometimes secrets are necessary, and I wonder if that's something his dad told him. Maria says that truly loving someone means trusting them with everything, even your deepest darkest secrets. Tempest thinks that regardless of what is best, sometimes, there are things you just don't want to know.

Sueña seems contemplative, a frown mars her features. She's content to just listen, it seems.

At some point, Aether changes the subject to his and Tempest's plans for the weekend. On Saturday some of the students in the upper grades are organizing a movie night. The movie they selected is something World War II related, about a North American captain and his commando friends fighting Nazis.

Aether asks if Sueña, Maria, and I are planning on coming.

Maria says she thinks she can, and Sueña says she has some homework to catch up on.

Which leaves Aether staring expectantly at me, waiting for an answer.

For a moment I resent Sueña for not coming up with an excuse that covers me too.

"Sorry... I'm a bit busy then." I shrug helplessly while reaching into the depths of my mind for a reason that's not obviously fake or pathetic.

Aether lets out a short laugh. He's been doing that more recently, laughing at whatever I say. "Doing what?"

"I plan on avoiding people and hissing at them if they try to come near me." My mouth works without my permission.

He laughs some more. (It's funny how whenever I say things like that, people always think I'm joking when I'm actually not. [I mean, I might hiss at people, but I might not. It's hit or miss, really.])

"I'll take that as a no?" He asks.

"Yeah." I confirm. If everything Sueña and I have planned goes works out, I will definitely not be available Saturday night. Hopefully I'll be long gone before then. "Maybe some other time."

He nods, then pauses, looking uncomfortable. "I've, um, I've noticed that you spend a lot of time... by yourself. Why?"

"Because I don't like the majority of people I've met?" I suggest. In truth, I'm indifferent to the majority of people I've met. But it's a quick answer that he can either take or leave.

"It's just - it almost seems like you're scared to get close to anyone," he explains. "Don't you want any friends? I mean, not that we're not friends! But don't you want... more... other... friends?"

An amused smirk crosses my face. Who does he think he is, my mother?

"Trust me, the 'friends' I have now are more than enough." I leave out the air quote finger motion. "I'm just introverted, okay?"

Though it bothers me to say that part of what he said is true. I am scared of getting close to people. Once you start to let someone into your life, it's like a responsibility, a commitment, one that I don't have the time or emotional availability for, given my place in the family business. In the end, I'd only end up hurting the people I would be trying to be friends with. It hardly seems worth the effort if it's all going to go down in flames anyway.

"There's nothing wrong with that!" Aether says quickly, like he's scared he's offended me. "I'm introverted too!"

I think of all the times I've seen him being reserved, or shy, keeping to himself and doodling, or just hanging at the edge of a crowd. Watching, but never in the center of things. Isolated. (Like me. Only, in his own way. I wonder how much of his isolation he's chosen and how much just... happened.) I deadpan, "Really? I hadn't noticed."

"Oh, yes." He nods and straightens, putting a haughty look on his face. He adds, in a poor imitation of a European accent, "Why, by the end of most days, I'm tempted to lock my roommate in the bathroom just to get away from him."

An image of Tempest sobbing on the bathroom floor whilst staring at the door forlornly comes to my mind. It makes me laugh.

And Aether laughs along with me. (Probably because he's one of those people who laughs when other people do, not because he understands the joke, but because he finds other people's happiness contagious.) "I think that's maybe the first time I've heard you laugh at something I've said."

I want to say something snippy and sarcastic in retort (snippy and sarcastic is my first impulse, I can't help myself), but I hold back, instead asking, "Really?"

He shrugs. "You don't laugh a lot."

I smile wryly at him. "Maybe it's because you're not funny."

He puts a hand over his heart dramatically and sends me a wounded look.

I can't hold back the grin I get from watching him. (He's come so far out of his shell in the time I've known him. I like it. I like him. I really, really wish I didn't. I worry about how he'll take it, what he'll think when I leave.)

I glance back down at my food and pick at it absently.

"You're a telepath, right?" he asks, suddenly.

I look up at him with the special gaze I reserve only for idiots and people who ask stupid questions.

He catches onto this and backpedals. "No, I know you're a telepath. Of course I know. How could I not? It's just... I have a question. I was wondering if you - have you ever -"

"Just spit it out, Aether," The words come out as a long-suffered sigh.

"Have you ever hacked my mind?"

I blink, surprised. Doesn't he already know that I can't? Why ask? To put up some kind of appearance? (But why? For who?)

"No. I'm well aware of telepathic etiquette. I know better."

"You're sure?" He leans over the table, eyes peering at me with such intensity I'm afraid that if he had laser vision he would have burned holes in my head.

"Uh... pretty sure?"

"Good." He sounds relieved. He leans back. Another awkward, pregnant pause. What's he going to do now?

"Are you going to finish your sandwich?" He asks.

Well.

That was anticlimactic.

I push it towards him. Honestly, he probably needs it more than me. He's very tall and skinny and only sixteen. Don't boys keep growing until they're about eighteen or something?

"Be my guest." I'm not too hungry anyway.

"Thanks." He starts working on my sandwich.

"Aether, you know telepaths aren't supposed to hack anyone except by permission of DSHA. Why would you be worried about me hacking you?"

"No reason," he says a bit too quickly.

"Are you afraid I may know all your secrets?" I tease, adding, "If it's of any consolation, I only scored seven points on the Philips' Scale, so it's not all that easy to hack into people in the first place."

"That's good." He both looks and sounds relieved, but only for a brief millisecond. Then his voice shifts to panic. "I mean -"

I cut him off before he gives himself a heart attack. "Aether, it's okay to speak your mind. I know what you mean; no one wants their privacy invaded."

He falls to silence, his eyes darting away from mine. It's then that I learn that our perception filters do not, in fact, hide blushes. His cheeks darken, but what from, I'll never guess.

He's still eating my sandwich. I watch him without watching him, slightly zoned out. Soon I'll be at home, probably watching Digit eat my sandwiches, instead of Aether.

It's a bittersweet notion.

I'm going to miss Aether, just a little bit.

He's a good friend. I'll hate disappointing him. That's why I didn't want to be friends with him in the first place.

After dinner he offers to walk me back to my building. Seeing no harm in it, I agree.

Psaqua notices us getting up to leave together and sends us off with a wink and a suspicious grin. (Is she still on that thing about thinking Aether and I should get together? Seriously?)

By the time Aether and I manage to slip outside, he has a determined look about him, one that tells me that he's not walking back with me purely for the sake of my wonderful company. He has something to say. Something he doesn't want the others to hear.

Probably something to do with Eclipse.

I wait patiently for him to speak first, enjoying the coming twilight and the quiet outdoors, even if it is getting a bit cold.

"Thank you," he says, suddenly.

"You're welcome?" I'm not sure what he's thanking me for. My sandwich?

"Thanks for telling me about my mom," he clarifies.

Oh. Yeah, I guess I did that too.

"You didn't have to tell me anything. You didn't even have to bring me along, but you did anyway. That's more than Dad and my sister ever did." He sighs. "They know. I can tell they know. They get all twitchy when I ask about Mom. But they still haven't told me."

"They don't trust you?" I ask, not wanting to imply or suggest anything, but being too curious to keep my mouth shut.

"Apparently not," He makes a sharp, angry gesture with his hands. "They think I'm too young or too immature or something."

"I'm sure they're just doing what they think is the right thing." Because isn't that what all humans try to do? What they think is the right thing?

"Maybe." His voice lowers to a murmur. He isn't looking at me.

As we approach Building 4, he stops me by putting a light hand on my shoulder, just enough to get my attention, not enough to grab me and hold me back.

Our eyes meet. Brown on hazel, and underneath that, who knows?

"Thank you for being kind. You're... very kind. Surprisingly kind, given that you come from jail," he says, and then cringes at how that came out.

"I wasn't born there, you know."

"You could've fooled me." He smiles, and then his face turns serious once more. "From what you've told me about your life before coming here, it's... a little bit of a wonder that you're not cruel or heartless. It's a miracle that you're just weird and not any more messed up, uh, no offence."

Amused, I smile. "None taken."

He gives me a little grin in return. "Anyway, I think I know why they named you Perennial, now."

"Oh?"

He nods. "My nana grows perennials in her garden. They come back every year. Kinda like you. The things you go through, they've only seemed to make you stronger. I mean, you've met the Overlords. You burned down a school to protect someone. You actually came out of Midas without a serious problem. You came here. You keep coming back from whatever winters that life throws at you. You're recurrent, returning, perpetual. You have all the stubbornness and determination to keep coming back, again and again and again. I think that's why they named you Perennial."

Oh.

My smile widens. When he puts it like that... I guess I don't mind the name so much.

A perennial that keeps coming back. Yes, I like that. (It figures that I only find a reason to like the name they gave me just before I'm about to leave it and Icarus behind.)

"That may be the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me." I reply, a little more dryly than he deserves, honestly.

"Hey, I tried," he laughs. "It sounded better on paper."

Aww, he wrote it down to practice. That's so cute.

"Hey, thank you." I hesitate, then reach out and lay a hand on his arm.

His lips form into a small smile. "You're welcome."

When we part ways, Aether walks on, content, and I am left in the hall of Building 4, hating myself for planning on leaving him behind.