"Parsley, Sage, Rosemary, and Time." (Vorkosigan Saga) G
Title: Parsley, Sage, Rosemary, and Time. (On Archive Of Our Own)
Author:
lannamichaels
Fandom: Vorkosigan Saga
Rating: G
A/N: I have read too much Scum Villain fic. In other news, this fic has nothing to do with Scum Villain. Fill for my Free Space square for Trope Bingo, filling as Time Travel.
Summary: Gregor is going to save his mother.
1.
At first, Gregor thinks it's a dream. He's back in Ezar's bedroom, his grandfather dead, men on their knees in front of him handing him an Empire between their palms. His mother is nearby. He is terrified.
But he's dreamed it before.
The dreams don't usually take him beyond there, to when his mother picked him up and he clung to her as she brought him back to their rooms, as he was put to bed. As he woke up the next day, still four years old, for his first day as the Emperor of Barrayar.
It does this time.
When Gregor is being put into the uniform for the first time ten years in his past, he realizes: this isn't a dream.
2.
Gregor knows two things: he can't tell anyone what happened and he has no idea how to be four years old anymore.
He had been a very quiet child, he remembers. He becomes even more so. He conducts himself so carefully, his mother grows worried. She brushes her fingers through his hair and hugs him. He clings to her. He's four years old. There's nothing to stop him from clinging to her and crying mama, mama.
But outside of these rooms, he is the Emperor. Outside of these rooms, Count Vordarian is still plotting. Outside of these rooms, disaster is about to strike. Outside of these rooms, Gregor is about to lose the last family he has.
What can he do? Gregor knows the day Vordarian made his move. He knows everyone Vordarian had on his side. If there is one thing Gregor has studied, it's why his mother died. He should be able to avert it somehow. He has to. He has to.
Gregor Vorbarra turns five for the second time -- turns fifteen for the first time -- and decides he's going to save his mother.
3.
There isn't much he can do at this age, but he'll use whatever he can. He tries to wheedle his mother into a visit to the Ashlake house next month. The weather will be turning and he hazily remembers his mother breathing deeply in the falling leaves when they'd gone when he was four. And since they'd gone there last year, it should be fine to go there this year, right?
But his mother refuses and she won't be moved on the subject, no matter what he tries.
The adult Gregor understands why they can't. The Emperor can't leave the capital now. The Regent is still too new. It's safer here. The lake is remote; it would be too easy for something to happen. His mother is right to refuse him.
But if they stay here, Negri will come and tear Gregor away from his mother and he will never see her again.
Gregor ponders the weapons around him. It wouldn't be hard to give himself enough of an injury to leave him unable to be taken by Negri. And then what? He would be here with his mother through it all. When Aunt Cordelia comes for Miles, Gregor would be here with his mother. He could find a way to help her.
No, he couldn't. Vordarian would have arranged an accident for him long before Aunt Cordelia would come. Gregor has to change more than that. He has to start earlier. He can't rely on hope.
There's nothing else to do. Gregor Vorbarra is going to have to run away from home.
4.
Gregor packs a bag carefully. He's five years old. No matter what he does, this is going to look like a kidnapping. If he leave Steggie behind, it will look like he's being taken by someone who doesn't know him. If he takes Steggie with him, they're going to assume it's someone who wants to shut up a screaming child and knows exactly how to do it.
A screaming Emperor should have people rushing in to see what happened. But no one will come. It will be suspicious.
Gregor takes Steggie. He needs maximum chaos. He needs fingers pointed everywhere. And... he's missed Steggie. Just a little. It had been the least of what he'd lost in the fire, but he still doesn't want to lose it again.
Gregor packs two changes of clothing, the stash of ration bars in the closet, and a contingency plan.
There is one exit out of the Imperial Residence that his mother had shown him when he was three. It's too small for an adult. She had made him practice over and over again. Some of Gregor's earliest memories are of picking open the grate and crawling down, his mother's voice behind him, darkness in front of him. Drou had been waiting for him at the other end. It lets out behind a small copse of trees, fully hidden from the Residence proper.
Gregor is filthy when he emerges. He can't remember if there's a sensor on the exit. If so and if it triggered when he opened it, there's nothing he can do about it now. He finds a rock to prop it open just in case it triggers when it's closed. He rubs the dirt on him a little more. A dirty child won't be noticed. Drou won't check in on Gregor until midnight. He has two hours before he'll be missed.
He eats a ration bar and heads to the one place no one would think to look for the Emperor: the Imperial Service Orphanage.
5.
Gregor had visited here only a few months ago for him so he's prepared for what it is. It's still less than a year after the Escobaran War. The orphanage has too many children and too few resources. The Lord Regent hasn't had time yet to pour his guilt over the retreat into improving it. It's dark. It's poorly-run. It's exactly what Gregor needs.
"Back from the caravanserai?" one of the adults out front asks Gregor when he trudges to the entrance. Gregor shrugs and hikes his bag higher onto his shoulder. It's noticeably light and half-empty. He looks enough like a kid who ran off to try to make some money and then realized that he had a better thing behind him.
The bag itself is perfect and new, but it's too dark, and Gregor had covered it with mud earlier. It should pass for now.
"Yeah, I'm back," Gregor mutters, as low as he can and still be heard. He'd never had a great knack with accents. He sounds like what he is. He's going to have to keep silent here even more than he's been at home. But he's had practice. He'll manage.
The man sighs heavily. "You can fit in with Anton again."
Gregor nods and shoulders his way into the orphanage. He doesn't know who that is, but he knows he'll be grabbed and directed once inside. Just another orphan in a world with too many of them. Just another kid who lost a father over Escobar. Gregor has more in common with them than they think.
6.
Gregor manages to say only five words in the eleven days he stays in the orphanage while ImpSec goes berserk outside. He catches snippets of it here and there, the worried adults, the older kids trying to duck patrols to get where they need to be. Life goes on even as crises rain down around them.
No one even looks at Gregor.
He spends most of his time with the babies, playing on the floor with them with Steggie. They don't mind that he won't open his mouth and they obligingly keep him busy whenever someone looks like they might want to put him to work doing anything else. Gregor won't risk going outside. There's riots in the streets every night and armed soldiers everywhere.
It's been a bad year for Barrayar and now the Emperor is missing.
Count Vordarian tries to seize power on the twelfth day. He accuses the Lord Regent of having killed the Emperor. And Gregor waits.
He waits to see how the Lord Regent will react. He waits to see if Vordarian can take the Residence. He waits in case he's needed.
Because, at the bottom of the bag, there's a token Vordarian had given to his mother. It has his family crest on it. If the Lord Regent can't kill Vordarian the honorable way, then Gregor will do it with lies. When he resurfaces, everyone will believe his account that Vordarian kidnapped him. He'll even have evidence. And he hopes it'll be enough to keep Vordarian far, far away from his mother.
7.
Gregor has been missing for twenty days when he trudges into Vorhartung Castle, his face washed clean. The Lord Regent had kept the capital this time around. Gregor hadn't needed any of his plans. That's good. He hadn't been confident enough that they'd work. Gregor, after all, is only five years old. No one listened to him at all the first time he was five. No one's going to listen to him now. He's a figurehead, that's all. But he's a figurehead who's saved his mother.
The Lord Regent demands to know what happened. The Counts demand to know what happened. His mother demands to know what happened.
Gregor is five years old. He bursts into tears. He talks about tall men with covered faces. He talks about hard floors, itchy straw, screaming for help, about being blindfolded for days. He looks like he's barely eaten in weeks. His hands are badly chapped. Halfway through, he starts trembling and can't stop.
Gregor is five years old. Gregor is the Emperor. Why would he lie?
The only things left in his bag are Steggie and Vordarian's pin. It doesn't matter; Vordarian's already dead. Gregor's mother gives him a horrible look when she pulls the pin out of the bag, disentangling it from Steggie's sodden fur. Gregor tries to retreat into himself. He knows he scared his mother. He knows it was bad. But she has to know where he got it. She has to know-- what can she know?
What can she know?
Gregor had thought he had worn his body out from crying. He discovers he still has some reserves left of tears.
8.
Gregor has been home for a week when his mother asks him, "Gregor, why did you run away?"
And Gregor, five years old, says, "I wanted to go to the lake."
His mother asks him, "where were you?"
Gregor shrugs. "On the streets."
His mother asks him, "who fed you?"
Gregor shakes his head and won't answer.
And his mother asks him, "what year is it for you?"
And Gregor looks up at her.
9.
Gregor had traveled ten years into his past. His mother only believes him because her mother had once traveled back eighteen months to provide intelligence to beat a Cetagandan attack. It ran in the family, but was rare, and never after puberty. His mother hadn't thought Gregor would experience it. It takes regret to fuel it. It takes so much regret.
Gregor's voice cracks when he says, "I missed you, mama. I missed you so much."
And he tells her everything. He tells her that she died. He tells her about being alone. He tells her about being fourteen and still no one listened to him. An empty figurehead. The Lord Regent ran Barrayar and ran it well. They didn't need Gregor. No one needed Gregor. But Gregor needed his mother. Gregor needed his mother so much.
And if he slipped into the past to find her, what of it? He doesn't regret that at all. He saved her. It'll be a new future now. Gregor won't know everything that happens. But he has his mother and he has nothing left to regret.
10.
Gregor turns six, again.
He has debts to repay and his mother helps him. The orphanage gets a new building, money, teachers. The Lord Regent is surprised, but Gregor says he knows what it's like to lose a father and he wants to help.
Fewer people died in the revolt than died in the Pretendership, but Gregor knows his duty. He's responsible for their deaths. He's Vor and he made his choices; he knows what honor demands of him now in exchange.
Gregor turns seven, eight, nine. Gregor turns twenty.
Gregor turns thirty and his six-year-old daughter looks at him and says, "Papa, I need your help."
This entry was originally posted at https://lannamichaels.dreamwidth.org/1100423.html.