Because I promised. Even if I'm slow.
Title: The Link and the Bridge
Author: K. M. Petravich
Rating: PG, really, with some swearing. It is a PG with a foul mouth.
Fandom: Milliways Bar (Tonks/Bernard, Sunny, with appearances by the angel and the demon!)
Summary: Little girls grow up.
Note: For Josie and for Meg. And a bit for Nny and Sophie, too
Words: 4,050
Sunny is sixteen-or at least they think she is-and today is the scariest day of her life.
Ber’d-“Why does Sunny call Daddy Ber’d?” “It’s her special name for him. Just like she calls me Dora.” “But you’re Mummy.” “Sunny’s special.” Never different. Always special-and she had gotten into a fight again. She can’t, now, remember why. Once the hormones hit, they’d fought about everything, it seemed, Dora (who was Mum and who’s now Dora again because that’s what Sunny likes to call her) in the middle.
No one had ever accused Sunny of being an easy girl to raise. (For that matter, Crowley had once implied that she would have been suitable punishment for some of his coworkers slacking on the job, and asked if she’d considered setting up a business. Ber’d had cut off his tab for a week after that. Mostly because he was afraid Sunny would get ideas.)
She should have gone to the House. Or to the lake. But she’s (maybe) sixteen and furious and had stormed, before anyone could stop her, out the front door.
She had never been out on her own before. Dora always took or, her, if she was gone, had Aziraphael or Crowley take her, to school, or shopping.
And this, Sunny realizes, biting her lip and walking the streets, hands in her pockets, is not the world she normally went to with Dora.
Well.
Bugger.
“I wish you wouldn’t use that phrase. It’s not polite.” “Hey, you taught it to me, angel. You get out what you put in.” “You are enjoying this entirely too much, Mug.” “...Yup. I think that’s the part Crowley put in.”
Keep walking. Ignore the fact that you have no idea where you are, or, in fact, how to get back to the bar. Yup. This is going well.
It’s not late, thank Asar Suti- “Sunny, don’t encourage the former dark gods, they don’t need it”-and she does have some money. Which, hopefully, is valid in this dimension. So things, she decides, could be worse. Much worse.
Beyond the “have no idea where I am or when I am and am not, actually, certain I can get back home” bit.
Eventually she finds a restaurant and sits in a corner booth, sipping some tea as she thinks.
**
The thing no one had expected, though in retrospect several beings felt they should have, was that Sunny losing her baby teeth might be a bit traumatic for her.
The thing that they really wished they had though of was that adult teeth coming in might be more than a bit painful, given the nature of the teeth they were replacing.
“Did the bleeding stop?”
Tonks looked up from where she was putting a nightshirt on Anthony, the latter already mostly asleep. “Finally. Tom’s doing some research to see if he can find out anything like this happening before.”
Hand over his face after he tucked his son into bed. “And she’s only lost how many?”
“Three. I don’t know what it is. Dumbledore didn’t know what it was when I asked him. She’s not a witch, she’s not a vampire, she’s not a fairy or alien or pixie or mutant, she just has bloody strange teeth.”
“...At least she won’t be getting her molars in for a while?”
***
Sips her drink and slowly begins to notice the people in the booth across from her. A woman and a man. Older than she is, but familiar.
Entirely too familiar, really, Sunny thinks, eyeing them as old memories slowly begin to turn over in her head.
“...Oh...fucking Merlin on a pogo stick...”
”Sunny, don’t swear like that!” “Right, Ber’d. Merlin uses a unicycle.” “Nymphadora!”
***
At seven, Sunny is in love with being a big sister. Charlotte’s hair is regularly braided, Anthony is taken for walks, and, much to Bernard’s exasperation and Tonks’ amusement, Jacob is continually presented with new and exciting objects to try biting.
“Sunny! You cannot try and teach your brother to bite through a golf club.”
“But it tastes better than a baseball bat...”
“No baseball bats, either.”
“Fine.”
“...That was entirely too easy,” Bernard mutteres warily, watching his oldest walk off with a pout.
Tonks doesn’t even look up from where she’s trying to comb the knots from Sunny’s latest experiment out of Charlotte’s hair. “That’s because she has a list of things you haven’t told her she couldn’t try to get Jacob to bite through yet. Next is either a lightsabre or one of Faith’s stakes.”
“Son of a-Sunny! Stop trying to bribe Anakin into giving you his sabre. You’re not allowed to give free drinks, anyway!”
***
She tries very hard not to stare as she rapidly drinks.
Violet still wears a ribbon. An almost-forgotten memory of her playing with her sister’s hair crosses her mind, and Sunny’s hand shakes slightly.
“How’re your classes going?”
Klaus shrugs. “Alright, I suppose. I’m thinking of seeing if I can teach a higher level next year. How’s Sunny?”
Her head jerks before she can stop it.
Violet laughs. “She’s fine. Her daddy spoils her horribly, still, but I don’t imagine that will ever change. I’ll bring her next time.”
Sunny signals a waiter and orders something stronger than tea, grateful she’d made herself legal with her latest ID.
*** [following written with Josie who ROCKS]
Dora has that look. That Look, even, which Sunny has come to believe mothers learned in secret lessons. The Look is not to be ignored. "Bernard wants to see you."
...Uh-oh. "Erm. But I was going to take..." Eyes dart. "Charlotte! Lovely Charlotte. I was going to take Charlotte to, um. Skip...stones?"
Charlotte smirks slightly. “Nuh-uh. You’re not getting out of this one.”
“Brat.”
Dora silences them both with another Look. "Study, Sunshine. Now."
Shit. Deep breath, bright smile, and she knocks on the study door.
There's far too much grey in his hair, it occurs to her, as she walks in, and she knows she was the cause of half of it.
Dora was the cause of the other half, but that was a time she only remembered in snatches of sounds and broken images Ber'd's face paperwhite, angel choking back a sob, trying to be strong for her dad who couldn't even cry, then staying with Snow and Bigby for ages, missing them, and always no Crowley, no Dora, that whole scary time, and when she tried it slipped away.
Sometimes she thinks Dora put a memory charm on her, but that's when she's being uncharitable. It was just her own body, she knows, protecting her against what she knows now was the most traumatic time of their life together as a family.
She steps in, and Ber'd looks up from his sketchpad. The desk is messy, as it has been for almost fifteen years. He looks tired.
"Sunny."
"Ber'd."
His face is calm, but his eyes are fire. She knows that look. "Have a seat."
Oh, Merlin, this can't be good. Rapidly tries to think of what she could have done...or what he could have found out about, at least. After a moment she realizes that, probably, she should be spending more time with the angel. Oops.
"Um." Sits, giving her best 'I have no idea what's wrong' look. "Okay." Brightly, "Are you working on anything interesting?"
Ber'd pinches the bridge of his nose like he always does when he's counting in his head.
"You missed your curfew again last night. Had you forgotten?"
She debates, then, hopefully, "Yes?"
He opens his eyes again, and stares at her with mixed amusement and outrage. Sunny shrinks back, smiling weakly.
"Where were you last night, Sunny?"
"At the library. Reading. The Bible." Considers his expression. "...The Koran?" Ooh, that's...a bad look. Bites her tongue, mumbles, "Gotham."
Two small red spots appear on Ber'd's cheekbones.
"And I assume you didn't go to Gotham escorted by Alfred?"
"...If I say yes, will you believe me?"
He shakes his head, looking disappointed that she even asked.
Well, it was worth a try. "Um. Heh. No. Alfred wasn't there." Picks up a pencil and begins fiddling with it. "Well, I mean, he was in Gotham, but not...there, there."
"And where, exactly, was there there again? I think I must have missed that part."
"The library." At his look, "No, really! We were in the library." Beat. "And then it closed, so we went to a club. Or two. Or three." With a few minor details left out, that's...mostly true.
He holds out a hand, looking her dead in the eye.
"Hand it over."
"Hand what over?" Wary look.
"You know what, Sunshine Baudelaire. Don't make me ask again." He was getting pale now. That was even worse than the red spots.
Silence, then she sighs, pulling her wallet out and then tossing the card on the desk. It's her picture, if not her name. Or birthday. Or, well, anything else, really. "Happy?"
"Happy?" He picks the ID off his desk and the next thing she knows she's watching in undisguised dismay as it burns merrily in the bin. "Happy is not sitting up half the night, worrying about where my daughter is, wondering which of countless universes she could have run off to without leaving so much as a note, and knowing that she's most likely with a boy who's six years older than her, rides a motorcycle, and has an unhealthy fixation with bats."
I'll just get another one. ...Definitely shouldn't say that. Does that mean she'll say something smart, though? Heh.
"Well, he could have a fixation with chipmunks. That'd be worse. Or he could like blowing things up," she mutters.
...
Why don't I keep my mouth shut?
Bernard sits up very straight.
"My unhealthy fixation with blowing things up saved your mother's life. Your grandparents' lives.
You'll apologize to her at the earliest opportunity. I think we'll spare your grandmother and grandfather the disappointment of hearing you spoke thus about the tactics that helped win the war for them." Sunny watched as Ber'd stood up, pacing restlessly.
"You're grounded."
"So what makes what you did any better than what he does?" she demands, rising too, chin jutting out. "He likes bats. I bite things! You run the bar at the end of the universe. Why is it when you do something it's fine and normal? He saves lives, too." Eyes widen at the grounded bit. Oh sithspit, no, I am not staying in this place any longer than I have to. "No."
"Yes." Ber'd runs a hand through his greying hair and leans over his desk, almost in her face. "He's reckless, beyond vengeful, and bloody fucking unbalanced, and you know that. And my actions aren't on trial here. Dynamite isn't a toy, and you've always known how seriously I took my work. How carefully I protected all of you from it." He sits down again.
"You're confined to the House, save school and excursions with your mother or Aziraphael and Crowley. Not the bar. The House."
"Look around, Dad," and that just drips sarcasm. "How many other guys do you see besides Bruce?" Glares at him, and the look is very clear. You can't stop me.
Ber'd goes very still. He's hurt. Sunny blanches despite herself.
She never calls him Dad.
She opens her mouth to apologize when he speaks, his voice very soft.
"Go to your room."
"...Yes, sir." Carefully sets the pencil down and looks at her feet. "I'm--I'm sorry, Ber'd. I didn't mean..." Well, she did mean, actually, but she doesn't now.
He laughs shortly.
"Don't bullshit me. I'm better at it than you." If she thought he was pale before--
"Now, go."
Silently leaves, not looking up at Dora when she passes, though she whispers, "I'm sorry," before heading back to her room. Bites on a chopstick for a few moments.
And even though she feels guilty, she can't quite help thinking up the details for a new ID.
After Sunny leaves, Bernard sits at his desk with his head in his hands.
At Nymphadora's gentle touch on his neck, he barely stirs.
"She--" He swallows and looks up finally, into his wife's worried grey eyes. He almost laughs because it's silly. "She fucking called me Dad just to hurt me."
Nymphadora looks stricken and cups his cheek in her hand. "You are her dad, Bernard. No amount of adolescent rebellion is going to change that."
He nods and leans his forehead against her stomach, eyes closed. After a moment, he laughs, voice muffled. "Yeah, I'm her dad. She's a goddamn chip off the old block."
Nymphadora laughs with him and kisses the crown of his head and then tilts his face up to kiss him. "You bet your arse she is."
***
She wants her mug. Her own mug, with the tiny chips on the rim from her teeth and the apple on the side. But she’s still grateful for the scotch as it hits her throat and burns going down, eyes closing for a moment before she looks back at Violet and Klaus. Listens, heart pounding, as they talk about their lives.
Those are my siblings. It’s almost a look of wonder as she tries to stare without being seen. And she loves Jacob and Charlotte and even Anthony, for all the times they’ve been pains in the neck, but these are the people who took care of her when mummy and daddy were gone. Violet rocked her and Klaus played fetch with her and and-
I could talk to them.
But even as she forms the thought she knows that if she did that, if they knew who she was...
***[following also written with Josie. Who still rocks.]
It's summer, and Sunny's seven, jump-roping by the lake. Not too close, though. Ber'd and Dora are always warning her about that.
She turns to jump back towards the bar when she's caught around the waist and swung over a freckled shoulder.
"Gotcha!"
She giggles, hanging upside-down, legs kicking. "Ber'd! Put me down!"
In response, he loosens his grip on her and shifts her just enough to make her hang lower on his back, almost precariously.
"Say the magic word, munchkin."
Grins. "Accio ground?"
She hears him mutter something aking to "Smartass" before he swings her back around, setting her on her feet. He ruffles her hair and she ducks, scowling. "Where are your brother and sister?"
"I fed them to the squid." Giggles at his look. "Okay. I didn't feed them to the squid. They went to play with the kids at the House."
He raises an eyebrow at her and sits down on a nearby log. "How come you're not at the House too?"
She shrugs and starts jumping again, slowly. "Didn't feel like it."
He turns his face into the sun, eyed closed, and she can feel him listening to her. "How come?"
Sunny considers. "Sometimes I like to not be with all the other kids, I guess."
He nods and smiles, enjoying the quiet outside of the bar crowd. "I can see that, sweetheart."
"I like 'em and all," she says hastily. "But it's sorta...loud, after a while."
Ber'd nods again, and she scuffs her way over to him. She sits down, her rope at her feet, next to him on the log, and idly messes with a scab on her knee. Just quiet for once.
"Why'd you come out here?" she asks after a few minutes, leaning against him.
She felt rather than saw him grin.
"Wanted some quiet." He nudges her knee with his. "Also wondered where you'd got to."
"Oh." Seems content with that. "Hey, Ber'd? How come you and Dora took me?"
He sits there thinking for a lot longer than is comfortable for her, and Sunny's scratching her itchy nose and fidgeting anxiously long before he speaks.
Finally, he replies, and it's quiet. "Because we had no choice." He looks down at her with a little smile. "Not like that. We loved you. We love you. Both of us. The weekend of the Lake Party, Nymphadora and I talked about it, because you were pretty much unofficially ours by then anyway. And we decided that it wasn't a choice at all." His smile grows. "We would never have chosen to give you up. It wasn't an option."
He puts an arm around her. "So. There was no choice involved."
"...Oh. That's good." Cuddles up against him and swings her legs. "Ber'd? I'm glad you did."
"Me too, sweetheart."
"I don't remember my mummy or daddy any more," she says after a moment, looking up at the sky.
His arm around her feels tense and she wonders if she's said something wrong. She glances over at him and he's looking down at her, a weird expression on his face. "Not at all?"
She feels guilty for some reason and looks down. "No. Well, a little. I can remember that Daddy wore glasses and Mummy sang to us. And I can remember some thing ‘bout Klaus and Violet. But that's it."
He nods and looks out over the lake, quiet. He sighs and pulls her a little closer. "Well... you were just a baby when they died. It's not your fault."
She's quiet again before speaking. "It's okay, sorta. I don't really miss them anymore. Sometimes I do, but..." Bites her lip. This might make her bad. "...I'd rather have you and Dora."
Ber'd's voice is kind of weird. "You would?"
She fiddles with her scab again before he moves her hand away from it. "Um. Yes."
And then there was the longest silence yet.
Ber'd ruffled her hair suddenly and kissed her temple, grinning. "Well, that works out then. 'Cause you're stuck with us."
She laughs, ducking away from his hand and then standing. "Well, I'm sorta hard to get rid of, too. Or at least, Crowley keeps saying that." Grins, then, "You're my favourite dad, Ber'd."
Lots of kids say that to their parent. The standard response is, "I'm you're only dad." Except with Sunny, that doesn't quite apply.
She leans in and kisses his cheek before beginning to jump-rope again, singing, "Cinderella, dressed in yellow, which doesn't make sense because she told me yellow makes her look fat..."
She trails off, staring.
Ber'd, normally restless and energetic, is very, very still. He's looking at her with a weird half-smile on his face and his eyes look a little funny.
She feels nervous and she doesn't really know why, until he stands and picks her up and swings her around, zerberting her cheek and making her giggle uncontrollably.
"Well, you are my favorite eldest daughter, Sunny. And don't you forget it."
"Beeeer'd! Ick! Stop!" It's not a real complaint, and, when she stops laughing she rests her head on his shoulder. "Won't."
He squeezes her tight for a moment. "I know."
Then he puts her down, eyeing the sun's low position on the horizon. "Time to head in, I think. Nymphadora'll be home soon and wondering where her three little demons have got off too. And then there's me." He holds out a hand.
She takes his hand, grinning as they begin to walk in. "And you're a big demon, of course."
He gives her a Look as they near the door.
"Yeah, I'm the worst kind. And the three of you are just chips off the old block..." And then they're inside, and the summer sun slowly turns the lake to gold.
***
Time passes more quickly, she thinks, outside of Milliways. 16 turns to 17 to 18 to 23. High school is finished, Klaus and Violet giving her a motorcycle for graduation, after months of begging and pleading. She very deliberately doesn’t think about how Dora or Ber’d would react to the knowledge.
Questions were hard to answer, but Sunny grew up around demons and con-men, as well as angels and heroes, and lying isn’t hard. The story she comes up with involves a friend of Count Olaf taking her away and hiding her for several years. It’s ridiculous, when she thinks about it, and not that believable, but no one questions her too much.
After the first night, when she had gone back to the building she’d come out of when leaving Milliways and couldn’t find a door home, she went back once a week. The once a month. Then not at all. No point to it, she tells herself. Besides, she’s getting back into life-her life, with her siblings, where she’s not the only Baudelaire child, but one of the heirs, and wouldn’t Bruce laugh if he knew?-and that takes thought and time and.
She misses them.
But she doesn’t think about it or dwell on it, and the pain lessens, slowly. Sunny knows she made a choice, the day she left the bar.
“With free-will, the ability to make choices, the gift to do so, comes the responsibility to accept the consequences of your actions. That is the hardest thing to do, and that is what makes you an adult. Not age. Got it, Beaver?” “Got it, Demon.” And she did. And maybe Crowley looked a little bit proud at that.
She meets some boys. Goes to college. Majors in philosophy, of all things-the discussions around the bar from her childhood prepared her surprisingly well for it-and doesn’t bite things any more.
Sunny’s 25, now, as she walks out of her apartment and towards Violet’s home. The sun catches on her ring and she can’t quite help humming to herself as she looks at it.
It’s not the kind of ring you get for a hundred thousand dollars.
Sunny thinks it’s beauitful.
Klaus had scowled when she told him that Joseph had asked her, but even he’s gotten caught up in Violet and Sunny’s excitement.
“Hey, Violet, I’m-” and she stops as she opens the door to see a place she hasn’t been in years. Almost ten years, at this point.
A few people glance up at her, but there’s no recognition in their eyes. Which isn’t surprising, she supposes. The perpetual pixie-cut’s long gone, hair to her shoulder-blades and normally braided. Her clothes, her make-up-even her face, she suspects, to some degree-have all changed since she was here last.
Sunny considers running out again, back to Violet and Klaus, to her nieces and nephews and fiancé, but someone once told her not to run from things. She thinks it was her mother. She’s not sure which one.
(She’s not sure there’s a difference between the two. Mom is Mum is Dora is a woman with blonde hair who she thinks might’ve looked kinda like Sunny does now. Mom is that safety that she suddenly feels, again, knowing without a doubt she won’t be hurt here.
Dora is different than Mum. Dora is the one who talked to her and raised her and taught her about boys and girls and angels and demons.
Dora beats Mum any day. Cause she respects Mum because she should. She respects Dora cause she wants to.)
So instead she squares her shoulders and approaches the bar.
His hair is greyer than she remembers, his body leaner-maybe a bit too lean-and his eyes sunk a bit more, but his hands, she notes, are a strong as ever as they move across the counter.
Deep breath as she removes her glasses and sits on a stool. “You know,” and his head jerks up at her voice, staring, “I’ve been craving a butterbeer for almost a decade now. It’d make my day if you’ve got one.” Though she’ll be shocked if he doesn’t.
Watches him swallow. “Sunshine?”
Sunny closes here eyes and smiles. She’s two and coming into Milliways, chewing down his door, three and a big sister, seven and playing checkers, 14 and begging to get her ears pierced, 16 and rebellious, 19 and lonely, 25 and a woman in love, all at once. “Hey, Daddy. Miss me?”
One of them sobs.
There’s the sound of glass breaking, and, as the patrons of Milliways look towards the noise in surprise, they see the Barman leaning over his bar, hugging his daughter tightly as he welcomes her home.
Author: K. M. Petravich
Rating: PG, really, with some swearing. It is a PG with a foul mouth.
Fandom: Milliways Bar (Tonks/Bernard, Sunny, with appearances by the angel and the demon!)
Summary: Little girls grow up.
Note: For Josie and for Meg. And a bit for Nny and Sophie, too
Words: 4,050
Sunny is sixteen-or at least they think she is-and today is the scariest day of her life.
Ber’d-“Why does Sunny call Daddy Ber’d?” “It’s her special name for him. Just like she calls me Dora.” “But you’re Mummy.” “Sunny’s special.” Never different. Always special-and she had gotten into a fight again. She can’t, now, remember why. Once the hormones hit, they’d fought about everything, it seemed, Dora (who was Mum and who’s now Dora again because that’s what Sunny likes to call her) in the middle.
No one had ever accused Sunny of being an easy girl to raise. (For that matter, Crowley had once implied that she would have been suitable punishment for some of his coworkers slacking on the job, and asked if she’d considered setting up a business. Ber’d had cut off his tab for a week after that. Mostly because he was afraid Sunny would get ideas.)
She should have gone to the House. Or to the lake. But she’s (maybe) sixteen and furious and had stormed, before anyone could stop her, out the front door.
She had never been out on her own before. Dora always took or, her, if she was gone, had Aziraphael or Crowley take her, to school, or shopping.
And this, Sunny realizes, biting her lip and walking the streets, hands in her pockets, is not the world she normally went to with Dora.
Well.
Bugger.
“I wish you wouldn’t use that phrase. It’s not polite.” “Hey, you taught it to me, angel. You get out what you put in.” “You are enjoying this entirely too much, Mug.” “...Yup. I think that’s the part Crowley put in.”
Keep walking. Ignore the fact that you have no idea where you are, or, in fact, how to get back to the bar. Yup. This is going well.
It’s not late, thank Asar Suti- “Sunny, don’t encourage the former dark gods, they don’t need it”-and she does have some money. Which, hopefully, is valid in this dimension. So things, she decides, could be worse. Much worse.
Beyond the “have no idea where I am or when I am and am not, actually, certain I can get back home” bit.
Eventually she finds a restaurant and sits in a corner booth, sipping some tea as she thinks.
**
The thing no one had expected, though in retrospect several beings felt they should have, was that Sunny losing her baby teeth might be a bit traumatic for her.
The thing that they really wished they had though of was that adult teeth coming in might be more than a bit painful, given the nature of the teeth they were replacing.
“Did the bleeding stop?”
Tonks looked up from where she was putting a nightshirt on Anthony, the latter already mostly asleep. “Finally. Tom’s doing some research to see if he can find out anything like this happening before.”
Hand over his face after he tucked his son into bed. “And she’s only lost how many?”
“Three. I don’t know what it is. Dumbledore didn’t know what it was when I asked him. She’s not a witch, she’s not a vampire, she’s not a fairy or alien or pixie or mutant, she just has bloody strange teeth.”
“...At least she won’t be getting her molars in for a while?”
***
Sips her drink and slowly begins to notice the people in the booth across from her. A woman and a man. Older than she is, but familiar.
Entirely too familiar, really, Sunny thinks, eyeing them as old memories slowly begin to turn over in her head.
“...Oh...fucking Merlin on a pogo stick...”
”Sunny, don’t swear like that!” “Right, Ber’d. Merlin uses a unicycle.” “Nymphadora!”
***
At seven, Sunny is in love with being a big sister. Charlotte’s hair is regularly braided, Anthony is taken for walks, and, much to Bernard’s exasperation and Tonks’ amusement, Jacob is continually presented with new and exciting objects to try biting.
“Sunny! You cannot try and teach your brother to bite through a golf club.”
“But it tastes better than a baseball bat...”
“No baseball bats, either.”
“Fine.”
“...That was entirely too easy,” Bernard mutteres warily, watching his oldest walk off with a pout.
Tonks doesn’t even look up from where she’s trying to comb the knots from Sunny’s latest experiment out of Charlotte’s hair. “That’s because she has a list of things you haven’t told her she couldn’t try to get Jacob to bite through yet. Next is either a lightsabre or one of Faith’s stakes.”
“Son of a-Sunny! Stop trying to bribe Anakin into giving you his sabre. You’re not allowed to give free drinks, anyway!”
***
She tries very hard not to stare as she rapidly drinks.
Violet still wears a ribbon. An almost-forgotten memory of her playing with her sister’s hair crosses her mind, and Sunny’s hand shakes slightly.
“How’re your classes going?”
Klaus shrugs. “Alright, I suppose. I’m thinking of seeing if I can teach a higher level next year. How’s Sunny?”
Her head jerks before she can stop it.
Violet laughs. “She’s fine. Her daddy spoils her horribly, still, but I don’t imagine that will ever change. I’ll bring her next time.”
Sunny signals a waiter and orders something stronger than tea, grateful she’d made herself legal with her latest ID.
*** [following written with Josie who ROCKS]
Dora has that look. That Look, even, which Sunny has come to believe mothers learned in secret lessons. The Look is not to be ignored. "Bernard wants to see you."
...Uh-oh. "Erm. But I was going to take..." Eyes dart. "Charlotte! Lovely Charlotte. I was going to take Charlotte to, um. Skip...stones?"
Charlotte smirks slightly. “Nuh-uh. You’re not getting out of this one.”
“Brat.”
Dora silences them both with another Look. "Study, Sunshine. Now."
Shit. Deep breath, bright smile, and she knocks on the study door.
There's far too much grey in his hair, it occurs to her, as she walks in, and she knows she was the cause of half of it.
Dora was the cause of the other half, but that was a time she only remembered in snatches of sounds and broken images Ber'd's face paperwhite, angel choking back a sob, trying to be strong for her dad who couldn't even cry, then staying with Snow and Bigby for ages, missing them, and always no Crowley, no Dora, that whole scary time, and when she tried it slipped away.
Sometimes she thinks Dora put a memory charm on her, but that's when she's being uncharitable. It was just her own body, she knows, protecting her against what she knows now was the most traumatic time of their life together as a family.
She steps in, and Ber'd looks up from his sketchpad. The desk is messy, as it has been for almost fifteen years. He looks tired.
"Sunny."
"Ber'd."
His face is calm, but his eyes are fire. She knows that look. "Have a seat."
Oh, Merlin, this can't be good. Rapidly tries to think of what she could have done...or what he could have found out about, at least. After a moment she realizes that, probably, she should be spending more time with the angel. Oops.
"Um." Sits, giving her best 'I have no idea what's wrong' look. "Okay." Brightly, "Are you working on anything interesting?"
Ber'd pinches the bridge of his nose like he always does when he's counting in his head.
"You missed your curfew again last night. Had you forgotten?"
She debates, then, hopefully, "Yes?"
He opens his eyes again, and stares at her with mixed amusement and outrage. Sunny shrinks back, smiling weakly.
"Where were you last night, Sunny?"
"At the library. Reading. The Bible." Considers his expression. "...The Koran?" Ooh, that's...a bad look. Bites her tongue, mumbles, "Gotham."
Two small red spots appear on Ber'd's cheekbones.
"And I assume you didn't go to Gotham escorted by Alfred?"
"...If I say yes, will you believe me?"
He shakes his head, looking disappointed that she even asked.
Well, it was worth a try. "Um. Heh. No. Alfred wasn't there." Picks up a pencil and begins fiddling with it. "Well, I mean, he was in Gotham, but not...there, there."
"And where, exactly, was there there again? I think I must have missed that part."
"The library." At his look, "No, really! We were in the library." Beat. "And then it closed, so we went to a club. Or two. Or three." With a few minor details left out, that's...mostly true.
He holds out a hand, looking her dead in the eye.
"Hand it over."
"Hand what over?" Wary look.
"You know what, Sunshine Baudelaire. Don't make me ask again." He was getting pale now. That was even worse than the red spots.
Silence, then she sighs, pulling her wallet out and then tossing the card on the desk. It's her picture, if not her name. Or birthday. Or, well, anything else, really. "Happy?"
"Happy?" He picks the ID off his desk and the next thing she knows she's watching in undisguised dismay as it burns merrily in the bin. "Happy is not sitting up half the night, worrying about where my daughter is, wondering which of countless universes she could have run off to without leaving so much as a note, and knowing that she's most likely with a boy who's six years older than her, rides a motorcycle, and has an unhealthy fixation with bats."
I'll just get another one. ...Definitely shouldn't say that. Does that mean she'll say something smart, though? Heh.
"Well, he could have a fixation with chipmunks. That'd be worse. Or he could like blowing things up," she mutters.
...
Why don't I keep my mouth shut?
Bernard sits up very straight.
"My unhealthy fixation with blowing things up saved your mother's life. Your grandparents' lives.
You'll apologize to her at the earliest opportunity. I think we'll spare your grandmother and grandfather the disappointment of hearing you spoke thus about the tactics that helped win the war for them." Sunny watched as Ber'd stood up, pacing restlessly.
"You're grounded."
"So what makes what you did any better than what he does?" she demands, rising too, chin jutting out. "He likes bats. I bite things! You run the bar at the end of the universe. Why is it when you do something it's fine and normal? He saves lives, too." Eyes widen at the grounded bit. Oh sithspit, no, I am not staying in this place any longer than I have to. "No."
"Yes." Ber'd runs a hand through his greying hair and leans over his desk, almost in her face. "He's reckless, beyond vengeful, and bloody fucking unbalanced, and you know that. And my actions aren't on trial here. Dynamite isn't a toy, and you've always known how seriously I took my work. How carefully I protected all of you from it." He sits down again.
"You're confined to the House, save school and excursions with your mother or Aziraphael and Crowley. Not the bar. The House."
"Look around, Dad," and that just drips sarcasm. "How many other guys do you see besides Bruce?" Glares at him, and the look is very clear. You can't stop me.
Ber'd goes very still. He's hurt. Sunny blanches despite herself.
She never calls him Dad.
She opens her mouth to apologize when he speaks, his voice very soft.
"Go to your room."
"...Yes, sir." Carefully sets the pencil down and looks at her feet. "I'm--I'm sorry, Ber'd. I didn't mean..." Well, she did mean, actually, but she doesn't now.
He laughs shortly.
"Don't bullshit me. I'm better at it than you." If she thought he was pale before--
"Now, go."
Silently leaves, not looking up at Dora when she passes, though she whispers, "I'm sorry," before heading back to her room. Bites on a chopstick for a few moments.
And even though she feels guilty, she can't quite help thinking up the details for a new ID.
After Sunny leaves, Bernard sits at his desk with his head in his hands.
At Nymphadora's gentle touch on his neck, he barely stirs.
"She--" He swallows and looks up finally, into his wife's worried grey eyes. He almost laughs because it's silly. "She fucking called me Dad just to hurt me."
Nymphadora looks stricken and cups his cheek in her hand. "You are her dad, Bernard. No amount of adolescent rebellion is going to change that."
He nods and leans his forehead against her stomach, eyes closed. After a moment, he laughs, voice muffled. "Yeah, I'm her dad. She's a goddamn chip off the old block."
Nymphadora laughs with him and kisses the crown of his head and then tilts his face up to kiss him. "You bet your arse she is."
***
She wants her mug. Her own mug, with the tiny chips on the rim from her teeth and the apple on the side. But she’s still grateful for the scotch as it hits her throat and burns going down, eyes closing for a moment before she looks back at Violet and Klaus. Listens, heart pounding, as they talk about their lives.
Those are my siblings. It’s almost a look of wonder as she tries to stare without being seen. And she loves Jacob and Charlotte and even Anthony, for all the times they’ve been pains in the neck, but these are the people who took care of her when mummy and daddy were gone. Violet rocked her and Klaus played fetch with her and and-
I could talk to them.
But even as she forms the thought she knows that if she did that, if they knew who she was...
***[following also written with Josie. Who still rocks.]
It's summer, and Sunny's seven, jump-roping by the lake. Not too close, though. Ber'd and Dora are always warning her about that.
She turns to jump back towards the bar when she's caught around the waist and swung over a freckled shoulder.
"Gotcha!"
She giggles, hanging upside-down, legs kicking. "Ber'd! Put me down!"
In response, he loosens his grip on her and shifts her just enough to make her hang lower on his back, almost precariously.
"Say the magic word, munchkin."
Grins. "Accio ground?"
She hears him mutter something aking to "Smartass" before he swings her back around, setting her on her feet. He ruffles her hair and she ducks, scowling. "Where are your brother and sister?"
"I fed them to the squid." Giggles at his look. "Okay. I didn't feed them to the squid. They went to play with the kids at the House."
He raises an eyebrow at her and sits down on a nearby log. "How come you're not at the House too?"
She shrugs and starts jumping again, slowly. "Didn't feel like it."
He turns his face into the sun, eyed closed, and she can feel him listening to her. "How come?"
Sunny considers. "Sometimes I like to not be with all the other kids, I guess."
He nods and smiles, enjoying the quiet outside of the bar crowd. "I can see that, sweetheart."
"I like 'em and all," she says hastily. "But it's sorta...loud, after a while."
Ber'd nods again, and she scuffs her way over to him. She sits down, her rope at her feet, next to him on the log, and idly messes with a scab on her knee. Just quiet for once.
"Why'd you come out here?" she asks after a few minutes, leaning against him.
She felt rather than saw him grin.
"Wanted some quiet." He nudges her knee with his. "Also wondered where you'd got to."
"Oh." Seems content with that. "Hey, Ber'd? How come you and Dora took me?"
He sits there thinking for a lot longer than is comfortable for her, and Sunny's scratching her itchy nose and fidgeting anxiously long before he speaks.
Finally, he replies, and it's quiet. "Because we had no choice." He looks down at her with a little smile. "Not like that. We loved you. We love you. Both of us. The weekend of the Lake Party, Nymphadora and I talked about it, because you were pretty much unofficially ours by then anyway. And we decided that it wasn't a choice at all." His smile grows. "We would never have chosen to give you up. It wasn't an option."
He puts an arm around her. "So. There was no choice involved."
"...Oh. That's good." Cuddles up against him and swings her legs. "Ber'd? I'm glad you did."
"Me too, sweetheart."
"I don't remember my mummy or daddy any more," she says after a moment, looking up at the sky.
His arm around her feels tense and she wonders if she's said something wrong. She glances over at him and he's looking down at her, a weird expression on his face. "Not at all?"
She feels guilty for some reason and looks down. "No. Well, a little. I can remember that Daddy wore glasses and Mummy sang to us. And I can remember some thing ‘bout Klaus and Violet. But that's it."
He nods and looks out over the lake, quiet. He sighs and pulls her a little closer. "Well... you were just a baby when they died. It's not your fault."
She's quiet again before speaking. "It's okay, sorta. I don't really miss them anymore. Sometimes I do, but..." Bites her lip. This might make her bad. "...I'd rather have you and Dora."
Ber'd's voice is kind of weird. "You would?"
She fiddles with her scab again before he moves her hand away from it. "Um. Yes."
And then there was the longest silence yet.
Ber'd ruffled her hair suddenly and kissed her temple, grinning. "Well, that works out then. 'Cause you're stuck with us."
She laughs, ducking away from his hand and then standing. "Well, I'm sorta hard to get rid of, too. Or at least, Crowley keeps saying that." Grins, then, "You're my favourite dad, Ber'd."
Lots of kids say that to their parent. The standard response is, "I'm you're only dad." Except with Sunny, that doesn't quite apply.
She leans in and kisses his cheek before beginning to jump-rope again, singing, "Cinderella, dressed in yellow, which doesn't make sense because she told me yellow makes her look fat..."
She trails off, staring.
Ber'd, normally restless and energetic, is very, very still. He's looking at her with a weird half-smile on his face and his eyes look a little funny.
She feels nervous and she doesn't really know why, until he stands and picks her up and swings her around, zerberting her cheek and making her giggle uncontrollably.
"Well, you are my favorite eldest daughter, Sunny. And don't you forget it."
"Beeeer'd! Ick! Stop!" It's not a real complaint, and, when she stops laughing she rests her head on his shoulder. "Won't."
He squeezes her tight for a moment. "I know."
Then he puts her down, eyeing the sun's low position on the horizon. "Time to head in, I think. Nymphadora'll be home soon and wondering where her three little demons have got off too. And then there's me." He holds out a hand.
She takes his hand, grinning as they begin to walk in. "And you're a big demon, of course."
He gives her a Look as they near the door.
"Yeah, I'm the worst kind. And the three of you are just chips off the old block..." And then they're inside, and the summer sun slowly turns the lake to gold.
***
Time passes more quickly, she thinks, outside of Milliways. 16 turns to 17 to 18 to 23. High school is finished, Klaus and Violet giving her a motorcycle for graduation, after months of begging and pleading. She very deliberately doesn’t think about how Dora or Ber’d would react to the knowledge.
Questions were hard to answer, but Sunny grew up around demons and con-men, as well as angels and heroes, and lying isn’t hard. The story she comes up with involves a friend of Count Olaf taking her away and hiding her for several years. It’s ridiculous, when she thinks about it, and not that believable, but no one questions her too much.
After the first night, when she had gone back to the building she’d come out of when leaving Milliways and couldn’t find a door home, she went back once a week. The once a month. Then not at all. No point to it, she tells herself. Besides, she’s getting back into life-her life, with her siblings, where she’s not the only Baudelaire child, but one of the heirs, and wouldn’t Bruce laugh if he knew?-and that takes thought and time and.
She misses them.
But she doesn’t think about it or dwell on it, and the pain lessens, slowly. Sunny knows she made a choice, the day she left the bar.
“With free-will, the ability to make choices, the gift to do so, comes the responsibility to accept the consequences of your actions. That is the hardest thing to do, and that is what makes you an adult. Not age. Got it, Beaver?” “Got it, Demon.” And she did. And maybe Crowley looked a little bit proud at that.
She meets some boys. Goes to college. Majors in philosophy, of all things-the discussions around the bar from her childhood prepared her surprisingly well for it-and doesn’t bite things any more.
Sunny’s 25, now, as she walks out of her apartment and towards Violet’s home. The sun catches on her ring and she can’t quite help humming to herself as she looks at it.
It’s not the kind of ring you get for a hundred thousand dollars.
Sunny thinks it’s beauitful.
Klaus had scowled when she told him that Joseph had asked her, but even he’s gotten caught up in Violet and Sunny’s excitement.
“Hey, Violet, I’m-” and she stops as she opens the door to see a place she hasn’t been in years. Almost ten years, at this point.
A few people glance up at her, but there’s no recognition in their eyes. Which isn’t surprising, she supposes. The perpetual pixie-cut’s long gone, hair to her shoulder-blades and normally braided. Her clothes, her make-up-even her face, she suspects, to some degree-have all changed since she was here last.
Sunny considers running out again, back to Violet and Klaus, to her nieces and nephews and fiancé, but someone once told her not to run from things. She thinks it was her mother. She’s not sure which one.
(She’s not sure there’s a difference between the two. Mom is Mum is Dora is a woman with blonde hair who she thinks might’ve looked kinda like Sunny does now. Mom is that safety that she suddenly feels, again, knowing without a doubt she won’t be hurt here.
Dora is different than Mum. Dora is the one who talked to her and raised her and taught her about boys and girls and angels and demons.
Dora beats Mum any day. Cause she respects Mum because she should. She respects Dora cause she wants to.)
So instead she squares her shoulders and approaches the bar.
His hair is greyer than she remembers, his body leaner-maybe a bit too lean-and his eyes sunk a bit more, but his hands, she notes, are a strong as ever as they move across the counter.
Deep breath as she removes her glasses and sits on a stool. “You know,” and his head jerks up at her voice, staring, “I’ve been craving a butterbeer for almost a decade now. It’d make my day if you’ve got one.” Though she’ll be shocked if he doesn’t.
Watches him swallow. “Sunshine?”
Sunny closes here eyes and smiles. She’s two and coming into Milliways, chewing down his door, three and a big sister, seven and playing checkers, 14 and begging to get her ears pierced, 16 and rebellious, 19 and lonely, 25 and a woman in love, all at once. “Hey, Daddy. Miss me?”
One of them sobs.
There’s the sound of glass breaking, and, as the patrons of Milliways look towards the noise in surprise, they see the Barman leaning over his bar, hugging his daughter tightly as he welcomes her home.