Once We are Descendants

Chapter 80: Suppression

Jane lays down on Carlos's lap and closes her eyes. She lets the sunshine onto her face and breathes deeply.

"You know... despite being so far from home, this place sure is peaceful."

Carlos swallows and looks down at his girlfriend, a content smile plastered there. Her angelic face has every detail etched to perfection; from her small dimples to each one of her eyelashes. While he was never one to look at someone for just their physical beauty, watching Evie and Doug, along with the years of his mother's insistence that she was the most beautiful woman on the island, he had been taught a long time ago that the outer appearance did not matter. Personality and compatibility were worth everything. He had always wanted someone who was sensitive and caring, who could give him all that he desired and here she was... He could not have asked for a more perfect girl to date. She was beautiful on the inside and out; shy like him, sweet and enthusiastic. He knew that he loved her, he just wouldn't admit it to himself...

One of the reasons that he'd never proclaimed his love for her, especially right now, is because of what he was hiding. Would Jane understand his actions for wanting to free his mother from the Underworld? If he said something, would she try to convince him not to? If he thought about it, he did steal their only way home, which now weighed in his pocket like an anchor. A burden he must bear... What if this mother was just using him? His real one acted the same way. Why is he even bothering with all this?

He gazes at Jane for a long few moments.

"You okay?" she asks, what seems like the millionth time in the past few days. Her blue eyes open to gaze into his dark brown ones. She knew something was bothering him... she could sense it and she'd been dating him long enough to know this.

"Yeah, I'm fine... why do you ask?"

"Because if you stare at me any harder, you're going to drill a hole in my head."

"I'm... just on edge," he says, repeating his lie from before. "Everything that's happened, it's taking a toll."

"You don't have to tell me twice," she says. "Tallia is driving all the fairies at the convent crazy. While I don't like all their rules either, we're technically house guests and we need to follow them."

"You sure she's not from the island," he jokes.

"She might be adopted from Captain Hook for all we know," Jane smirks. She's happy to see a smile on her boyfriend's face, even if it's fleeting. "I kind of wish that I was staying at Regina's house."

"It is a nice mansion and all of her son's game systems are still thereafter he left for..." he pauses. "I can't remember his name or where he went."

"Henry," a voice says, startling the couple.

Doug comes out of the library with a stack of books under his chin, which didn't surprise either of them. He brings them over and sets them down on the ground. He then sits in the shade by the door and removes the top book.

"What?"

"Henry, Regina's kid's name was Henry, and he went through a portal to another world to find his own adventure."

"How do you know this?" Carlos asks.

"And why would anyone want to willingly go through a portal," the fairy teenager asks.

"Well, technically he's Evie's adopted brother, so..."

"So you want to know about your future brother-in-law," Jane teases, sitting up from her boyfriend's lap.

Doug turns bright red and opens the book to start reading again.

"You can't avoid the idea forever Dougie," the daughter of the Fairy Godmother continues, not letting the subject be dropped just yet.