ATWT Fic - Bring Me Back to That Strange Place (Part 1/3)
Title: Bring Me Back to That Strange Place
Author: loveandallthat
Genre/Type: Romance
Rating: PG-13
Characters/Pairings: Luke/Reid
Summary: When Reid starts spouting clichés, it’s a hint that something may not be quite right. When he disappears, it should be a dead giveaway.
I give all the thanks in the world to jacob1206. This would not exist without her encouragement. It would not be even close to decent without her beta work, and any errors that remain are my own fault. Special thanks also go to lucsmum, who gave extremely fitting, interesting names to my original characters.
This was really good practice, but I'm sorry, it's not my best work. I still hope you enjoy it.
---
It was days like these that Luke couldn’t get enough of.
He was a sappy romantic, he couldn’t deny that. He wouldn’t want to, honestly; he liked that part of himself very much, and he liked how it made Reid respond. Reid loved it, though. Luke was sure of this, even if Reid would never admit it.
He was right, of course, Reid absolutely loved this.
He could see it in Reid’s face, every time he tore his eyes away from the current medical case he was studying, which happened a lot more frequently than most people might guess. Luke loved the sides of Reid that he didn’t share with everyone, maybe even because not everyone knew about them. Luke kind of liked being the only one. It was selfish, maybe, but it was the truth.
Luke was sprawled across the couch of his mother’s house, which was miraculously empty of small children or meddlesome parents. He really had to move out, since they hadn’t had a moment of freedom like this in weeks. He had his feet all the way at one end, head at the other, and his knees bent up. Reid was occupying the only free space on the couch: directly under Luke’s knees, not that he minded at all. He was resting his patient’s chart against them and his other hand on Luke’s ankle, hard at work but glad even for Luke’s presence. They were both very busy people, and it seemed natural that if they wanted to spend time together, some of it might not fit romantic stereotypes. Instead, they would just both be working in the same room at the same time. As a slight workaholic, being in a relationship like this suited Reid perfectly, and it was the same way for Luke.
Stereotypes were overrated, though, Luke thought, perusing the latest financial reports from his foundation. In his opinion, there were few things more romantic than the simple desire for each other’s company, as often as they can have it. If they’re both working on other things, doesn’t it just show that they have their own interests and careers, but are still happy to be together? So Luke thought this was perfect and if he mentioned it to Reid he would agree, though with a joke or two thrown in so that things would not become uncomfortably serious too often.
Luke looked up from his paperwork, simultaneously overwhelmed with the urge to say something about how pleased he was with their current state and petrified that the slightest breeze could devastate the moment. He caught Reid’s eye and his smile, but Reid quickly looked back to his work. He couldn’t fool Luke, though, even if he hadn’t subsequently started moving his hand up and down his leg as he pretended to concentrate.
The mood was slightly altered, but not completely shattered, when Reid’s phone buzzed on the table. He reached around Luke’s legs to grab it, as Luke playfully refused to make it easy for him, trying to block him slightly, jokingly.
“Email,” he said, turning the phone slightly towards Luke, as though to prove to him that he was telling the truth. As if Luke would assume that Reid being contacted by someone meant he was hiding something (or someone), Luke thought. He nodded at Reid, though he was unsure of exactly what he was trying to reassure. Did Reid think that he would assume him to be lying?
He looked back down at his work, but his attention was quickly brought back to Reid by an abrupt cessation of movement at the other end of the couch. Reid was staring at his phone, expression suspiciously and uncharacteristically blank.
“What’s wrong?” Luke asked immediately, his meddlesome helpful urges kicking in unconsciously, in automatic response to the warning signs that he had recognized. Suddenly he was extremely worried, and absolutely positive that something was wrong.
“Nothing,” Reid answered, unconvincingly. He continued to read and reread the email, as if he had read it wrong the first time, or he sought to memorize it. He had his hands, one holding the phone and one holding his work, palms up, with one higher than the other, like he was weighing his options on a scale. He didn’t even appear to realize that he was doing it.
Luke had been lately getting into the habit of trusting Reid to tell him things after he’d had enough time to think about it, since Reid was usually a private guy and Luke was trying to be respectful of the fact., so he went back to his work, relaxing back into the couch, but eyeing Reid unintentionally every few minutes. He was trying to be the kind of boyfriend who didn’t demand knowledge of everything in Reid’s life, but he was almost desperate to help, to make things better. And of course he remained convinced that he had that ability.
After a while, it seemed that Reid was also apparently relaxing, flipping through the patient’s chart and getting back to his work. Luke took this as a good sign, and figured that it was now okay to begin the process of coaxing the subject of the email out of him. He sat up, reaching his hand out to put it on Reid’s shoulder and bring his attention to him.
“I love you,” he said softly, which had not been what he planned to say at all. Reid looked at him the same way he always did when hearing those words, surprised, slightly disbelieving, but ultimately thrilled. Reid opened his mouth, his lips forming the beginnings of saying it back to him, but it almost looked like he was in physical pain. Somehow, ridiculously, Luke felt what was going to happen next right before it did. Maybe his subconscious was picking up on signs that he hadn’t even realized he was noticing.
Reid snapped out of his funk, pressing his palms to Luke’s legs and pushing them away.
“This isn’t working,” he said, avoiding Luke’s eyes and applying an amount of pressure with his hands that would be lucky to topple a house of cards, as though he didn’t really want Luke to move, but Luke knew what happened when you smothered someone you were in a relationship with all too well.
Luke quickly moved his legs out of the way. “I can sit normally,” he said, confused at the sudden change in demeanor, and suddenly his heart was pounding and he didn’t know why. He knew it wasn’t about their sitting positions, but maybe it could be if he pretended.
Reid caught himself about to smile at the antics, and rearranged his features to something much more serious. “Not - not that. Not the way you were sitting. This. Us. Dating.”
“Reid, what are you talking about?”
“I just,” he ran his hands through his hair, grasping for the right words, “can’t do this anymore.” He spoke as if he’d pulled the words out of a hat; there were no feelings behind them. His hand fell from his head, stopping at his heart for a brief moment (as though, Luke thought, he was clutching at his chest in pain) before it came to rest at his side.
Luke opened his mouth to ask if Reid was alright, but what came out was, “Did I do something? If I did, I am tremendously sorry, but I can fix it! Whatever it is, I promise.”
“It’s not you, it’s me,” Reid recited monotonously. Then, as though overcome, he suddenly grabbed Luke’s face tenderly between his hands and leaned in intimately close. “Please, never think that it’s you,” he whispered. Luke was staring directly into Reid’s eyes, which was very dangerous right now, and it might not have been the most logical solution but - anything to stop that gaze - Reid leaned in and kissed Luke breathless. By the time that Luke had managed to make heads or tails of what was going on (it had all happened so suddenly, and besides, who has time to think when Reid Oliver is kissing them?) Reid was walking out the door. Luke belatedly reached out a hand to grab him, to hold him in place, but it couldn’t work now. It occurred to him to get up and try running after him, but he just wasn’t able to make himself move.
He remained dumbstruck, sitting on the couch with his arm dangling off the side where it had fallen, until Faith walked through the door and spotted him.
“Luke! What the hell happened to you?” she hissed, bending down to his level and shaking him slightly to get his attention properly.
Luke was suddenly grounded back into reality by her hand on his shoulder, and he kind of hoped that she wouldn’t move it away just yet. “Reid,” he whispered, and his mouth formed the beginnings of many explanations that his voice never finished. He left me. He broke up with me. I don’t even know what’s going on here.
“Okay,” she said, “Okay, but Mom and Natalie are about to come in through the door so pull yourself together, and fast, if you don’t want to worry them. We’ll talk later,” she added, as much a threat as it was a promise. Sure enough, Lily and Natalie entered the house, each carrying bags of groceries.
“You know, you could have helped us, Faith, you have hands too - Luke!” Lily exclaimed, “I thought you were out! You don’t look so good, is something wrong? What are you doing?”
Faster than Luke’s brain could even begin thinking of any sort of lie, Faith answered for him, eyeing the coffee table slyly for an excuse and then explaining as soon as she found one. “It’s foundation paperwork! He was working on it. Just now, before I interrupted him.”
“Haven’t I always told you not to read in the dark?” Lily responded automatically, as though this was the real issue at hand. She was looking straight at Luke, who was currently realizing that, indeed, it was pretty dark in the room. When had that happened? He had no idea what time it was anymore, but resisted the urge to look at his watch and appear to be so lost that he can’t even keep track of the time.
Before Luke could come to his senses and complain about his mother continuing to baby him, which he quickly realized was not the appropriate response to what was currently happening, Faith intervened. “And that’s why he has a massive headache, and is going to go lie down. Right, Luke?”
Disconcerted by the sweet smile Faith had suddenly started sporting, Luke could only nod and let Faith’s grip on his wrist pull him to his bedroom, hearing slight protests from Lily all the way, before Faith surprised him by going into his room too, and shutting the door behind them.
“I just saved your ass out there,” she pointed out, though this was obvious, “so spill.”
He sighed, but obliged. Actually, maybe Luke could get enough of days like this.
---
Lily watched her son go through the five stages of grief like a fan watching their favorite soap opera - completely depressed, but as though there were a screen between them preventing her from doing anything. Trying to speak but feeling unheard. With no romance in her own life, she was especially interested in what was going on with her children, and so there was nothing else she wanted to do more than help Luke. She had been told that Reid and Luke had broken up, but she had gotten no explanation further than that. It felt somehow like Faith knew every detail and that there was something big that Lily knew nothing about. She was incurably jealous that Faith knew and she did not, but not ready to confront her children just based on a hunch.
Luke weaved in and out of the stages, a little; nobody really sticks to them in perfect order, even psychologists will admit, but he was certainly the textbook case of whichever stage he was in, every time. (Faith adjusted the books in her backpack nervously when Lily expressed this to her once, hiding Psychology for Beginners behind US History to keep it hidden from Lily’s wandering eyes.)
Denial was a series of phone calls to Reid at various times of day. “I guess you were busy the last time I called.” It was, “he just has to clear his head” and, “he’ll be back” and, “he still loves me.” This was the saddest thing Lily had ever seen. The poor boy really believed what he was saying. And sometimes Faith would be next to him, egging him on, agreeing with everything he said. What in the world is with my children, she wondered.
Surprisingly, anger was very short - and only directed at her. Lily had felt so bad through the denial period that she’d taken it upon herself to give Luke wake up calls so that he would stop dwelling so much. But he would always lash out at her whenever she told him that Reid wasn’t going to come back and he should move on. He would argue, yell, raise his voice, and leave very frequently. Lily could not for the life of her understand these childish antics. Luke should understand by now what happens when people in relationships break up. Though, maybe she and Holden were not the best example of that.
Lily felt incredibly guilty when Luke began bargaining. The fact that Reid couldn’t hear him didn’t seem to deter him, mumbling to himself while walking around the house. Lily didn’t think of herself as a self-centered person in general, but she did worry that it might be her fault that her children did worrisome things like talking to themselves, since she herself was not a stranger to that sort of behavior. She felt truly terrible. She may have been misguided, but she really wanted Luke to be happy. She thought that would only happen when he stopped thinking so much about Reid all the time. It seemed, however, that even her best efforts could not put a stop to any of this.
Depression… Lily quite honestly didn’t see quite too much of depression. She knew when it was happening. It was obvious whenever Luke would lock himself up in his room what was going on. Whenever she would bring him food (she’d enable this phase, a little, just healthy grieving, she told herself) he’d be sitting on his bed, pretending to scribble furiously in a notebook that she was sure he’d picked up when she knocked to appear busy. Sometimes he even pretended to be studying from Faith’s textbooks, though it seemed as though he would try to hide those when she walked in, as though even he knew that it was a terrible cover-up. (Luke was very lucky that she was not the type to notice that he was always in the same area of the book, the section devoted to the five stages of grief.)
It was nice of him to try to lie and pretend to make her feel better, but wholly unnecessary. She was his mother, and as his mother, knew exactly what was going on with him. She did the same thing every time one of her relationships ended, just staying in her room for days at a time, and it would only make sense that her son would do the same. It was just a shame that they did not learn from her past mistakes to become as well adjusted as she was now.
---
The following week consisted of Luke feeling unsatisfied and hollow. He was tired from all of the pretending, and the lack of reassurances, and the days seemed to drag on. He also had a completely explicable and very frequent craving for sandwiches, all the time. It wasn’t weird until it became all he would eat. It wasn’t weird until he had tried every sandwich at Al’s, and Janet had noticed and commented (not unkindly), and he had to start alternating restaurants. It wasn’t weird until he was eating the old boxed sandwiches from Java, and going to Metro for dinner but ordering things like a French dip when he could be having filet mignon or, he supposed, anything and everything else on the menu. It could have been paranoia, but he was pretty sure that the wait staff was giving him strange looks. That could have been because he was eating alone, though.
He started to question himself when he was glancing at the appetizer list at Yo’s, which was still a safe location, as they wouldn’t yet recognize him as “that guy who keeps coming in and only eating sandwiches”. He was having an internal argument about whether or not he could count quesadillas and mini burgers as sandwiches. The questions were especially pressing since this caused him to find himself surrounded by alcohol, with a good amount of cash, several credit cards, and a legal ID in his wallet. He was getting a little bit desperate for sandwiches if he was going this far.
Come to think of it, Luke thought as he left Yo’s without ordering anything, deeming it much too risky to be there surrounded by drinks, it had been weird since he had woken up at the beginning of the week, at seven in the morning, putting every ingredient in the refrigerator inside of a large section of fresh European bread and eating the entire massive sandwich in ten minutes flat.
---
Years ago, Luke had, like many children, hated the dark. Darkness is the unknown; the unknown is terrifying. Someone could have been hiding in his closet, and he would have just not been able to see him.
Not anymore, though. Now the light, otherwise known as the truth, was his enemy. He’d give anything to switch off all the lamps and shroud himself in darkness, away from all the true terrors in his life. In Luke’s life, reality had been far more horrifying than the fear of the unknown. It was endlessly better to be sitting in the dark as though anything that had happened to him, anything that could happen to him, was all just an unknown.
So Luke became a night owl. The daytime was too bright; it showed all of the details of the world and all of the nuances of Luke’s life and he just could not bear it. Hiding was better. It even made the waiting tolerable; you can’t fully tell how much time has passed when you are surrounded by constant darkness. It became something comfortable and natural to him, though it probably seemed pretty creepy and depressing
People aren’t made to sleep during the day. It’s unnatural, and it’s hard to adjust. Luke was not at his best mentally during this time, to say the absolute least. He couldn’t fall asleep with the sun up, nobody truly could, and he was woken up by dreams of cowboy boots and barbeques and bull rides whenever he finally managed. But it couldn’t be helped; the dark lit a fire in him and energized him so much he wondered how he could have ever slept at night in his entire life and that left the daytime as his only option.
On his happier nights, he considered going up on the roof alone and watching the stars, calming himself down with the surreal beauty that is the universe in all its glory. Then he remembered that he was avoiding light. And romance.
There was a sad night, but only one, when things just felt so bad that he thought he would no longer be able to bear it. It was raining gently, soothingly, enticing him to just lie down and fall asleep now, instead of when the sun came up. He couldn’t, though. The dreams in the dark were even less kind to him.
Everything changed one day; the monotony was finally broken, with the sound of Luke’s ringing cell phone at 2:38 in the morning. He looked at the name on the screen, though he knew who it would be. It wasn’t whom the average person would expect to call in the middle of the night, but Luke was far from average. He answered the phone and put it up to his face, his heart beating wildly, knowing what this call could mean.
“What have you found, Grandmother?” he spoke quietly, trying to not wake the rest of his family.
“You were right, of course. We leave in six hours.” Luke thanked her and hung up, quickly going around his room as though to get ready but ultimately realizing that he had been ready this whole time, packed and everything, since he had first known that he was going somewhere.
---
Luke had been to visit Katie only once after Reid had fled Oakdale without notice. He would have tried to go again, because Katie understood like nobody else possibly could, but it turned out that she was much smarter than he had ever given her credit for.
He had waited outside the door, emotionally preparing himself though he actually felt as though he was suffocating. Being around his family was easier; they didn’t know Reid. As far as they knew, he was a jackass neurosurgeon in whom Luke saw a little something special, a tiny flicker of romance. In their heads he was an older man who had wanted a young, hot boyfriend to show off for a while until he got bored. How could they possibly imagine that he was a beacon, drawing in only those who paid enough attention to recognize pure altruism and a very cleverly disguised appreciation for fun, and for life itself? Katie knew. That was what was the most terrifying.
So with just a thin slab of wood separating him from the knowing eyes and piercing look of someone who understood…
Luke drew in a deep breath and knocked on the door. It was rude to ring doorbells with babies in a house, right? Better safe than sorry, Luke thought, knocking three times, softly, louder, loudest. A small part of him hoped that Katie wouldn’t answer, but he definitely wanted to talk to her, even if it would be hard.
It was as though Katie had been waiting for this moment, because she was opening the door while Luke’s knuckles were still within a millimeter of it from his last knock. “Luke,” she said, like she couldn’t decide if she was excited, or mad, or relieved to see him. He found he could relate. She shook herself out of her trance.
“Well come in, come in!” Luke smiled halfheartedly and obeyed, trying in vain to act natural and sitting down next to Katie on the couch.
“Jacob is asleep in the other room,” she said quietly, but not whispering. She gave a half-smile.
Luke took it as the hint that it was meant to be. Speak quietly, and don’t turn this into any sort of emotional confrontation. Well, maybe Luke was making that last part up; Katie didn’t necessarily know for sure that something like that was likely. But she was, of course, trying to tell him to keep his voice down. She asked if he wanted anything to drink but he politely declined. He was so nervous he would probably spill it all over her couch anyway.
“What’s on your mind, Luke?” Katie inquired, always friendly, but not playing around, not today. She adjusted her emerald green dress so that she could sit on it more comfortably, as though she somehow sensed that this would be a lengthy conversation.
Luke opened his mouth, clearing his throat at the realization that he hadn’t spoken once yet to Katie, and maybe he hadn’t even spoken to anyone the whole day. His voice would probably be gravelly and make it obvious. He could not quite remember, now that he actually thought about it.
“Well,” he started hesitantly, “I imagine that you have a few guesses.”
“So it’s definitely Reid, then,” she guessed, obviously correct.
Luke looked directly into her face, and she was looking back, completely openly. Nothing you could say to me could threaten me further, Luke Snyder, her eyes seemed to say. It was easy to imagine that Reid had hurt her just as badly. (It was a thousand times less awful than imagining that Luke was the sole target of this pain.)
“Yeah,” he said, and the tiredness that laced his voice had snuck up on him, “it’s all about Reid.”
“He left here quite suddenly last month,” she began, slowly and cautiously (as if she’d been on a TV show, Luke thought, almost amusing himself despite his current state of nearly crushing depression), “I heard him say your name, but for the life of me I cannot remember in what sort of context.”
Oh yeah, she was definitely experienced at talking to people like this. How anybody avoided spilling everything to Katie Peretti, Luke would never know. She should have gone into hard hitting journalism, or interrogation.
“Do you think that, maybe, if I were to tell you what happened when he left my house, it might miraculously jog your memory?” he deadpanned.
“What a good idea! Let’s try that.” Katie had been smiling ever since she realized that Luke was aware of what she was doing. Luke couldn’t help the small smirk that wormed its way onto his face. Apparently, this was going to be a very underhanded conversation.
“Okay, okay.” He couldn’t help but get serious with what he was about to recount. He was glad to tell the story to Katie, someone who made the appropriate facial expressions at every moment, and felt for him. Someone who seemed to come to the same conclusions as Luke had while it was happening to him. She looked at him seriously and somberly when he finished telling the story.
“Wow. Yeah,” she said, gathering herself. “I guess I figured that it would be something like that. He came home and was babbling from the second he walked in the door until he left. He was talking to me, he said my name too, but I could only catch some of it while he was running around packing his things and I was freaking out and trying to stop him from going. I guess you can imagine that I was no match. Once the great Dr. Oliver decides on something it’s going to be pretty hard to deter him.”
“What… what did he say?” Luke asked, though he wasn’t sure that he would want to know. It would be important to know everything he possibly could going into this, even if it hurt.
“He said that he had to leave. He told me to tell everyone that he just couldn’t be around here, around us, any longer, but he didn’t say why. The way he said it, it was almost like he didn’t have a choice. I tried to stop him, but it seemed like he only had packed enough for an overnight trip. So I thought he’d be back soon! And… when he was at the door, he stopped for a second, and looked back. He said he was sorry, and then he was gone before I could even catch up with him to ask what for.”
Luke sighed deeply, eyes watery. He was staring at his shoes determinedly, but a sniffle made him glance up at Katie’s face. As he sat up and leaned back to put his arm around her, he wished that Reid was there to make a comment about his silly blonde people leaking tears all over the public spaces in the apartment. He squeezed Katie a bit tighter, knowing that she was as unhappy as he was in this moment and wishing she wasn’t. She stopped crying quickly, Luke thought, and the gears in her head appeared to be turning quite rapidly. Katie was much too smart, and she was guessing everything based on the smallest reactions. Luke could not come back again for fear of his plans being discovered.
“You’re going to bring him back, right?” Katie asked softly, breaking the mood. Luke had never felt more transparent in his life. He’d barely spoken to Katie, and she could tell that Luke was hiding something that even his family had not suspected. It was unnerving that someone could read him that well, but simultaneously comforting to know that someone was on the same page. He debated whether he should say that he had no intention to try, or promise that he would be back, or to just play completely dumb. But he opened his mouth before he was thinking and the truest answer was the one that came out.
“I hope so.”
---
The conversation with Katie haunted Luke’s thoughts every single step of his journey. They were with him when he woke Faith up in the middle of the night, telling her what he was really doing, and what she should tell people that he’s doing. He gave her the lie that he had just thought of, since it had not occurred to him before that moment that he would need one. They were still there as he locked the door to the house from the outside, looking at it and feeling uncharacteristically morbid, wondering if he would see it again. The thoughts were with him as he got in the back of the limo with Lucinda, and again as they boarded the private plane. If he had any doubts about his plans before going to see Katie, they had all been completely wiped out by their brief conversation. Luke was so grateful that there was someone else in Oakdale who appreciated everything that Reid did and everything that he was, because without that bit of simple support, this journey would have been nearly impossible.
Immediately as the plane took off, however, the thoughts all drained out of him along with the color in his features, which was a feeling that he had not been expecting or been prepared for. Reality slapped him across the face so hard that he brought his hands up to numb the pain. But he couldn’t dwell on that. There were important things they needed to plan now. Luke was now in a phase of steely resolve, only focusing on what needed to be done and exactly how to do it. He went over the plans in his head, making sure to have it down perfectly to the minutest of details of the most unlikely of situations.
Not even an hour away from their destination, the central man to their endeavor was peering out the window of a hotel room, biding his time.
---
“Faith, could you tell Luke that breakfast is ready?” Lily had her back to her children at the table, as she was scrambling eggs in one pan and making pancakes in another. Faith quietly took in a deep breath, going over all of the lies floating around in her head as she prepared to speak the proper ones. Luke was going to owe her big time. She wondered if she’d ask for money or favors. He certainly had plenty of access to both, and she definitely intended to milk this for all that it was worth.
“I suppose I could, if you’d let me have my cell phone back, but I don’t think he’d be back in time,” she answered, wanting to enjoy the fact that she knew something her mother did not for as long as she possibly could. Things had gotten a little bit better with her mother lately, but that didn’t mean that Faith could not have a little fun at her expense, did it?
“What do you mean?” Lily asked, still not paying enough attention for Faith’s love of the dramatic; she was supposed to have started freaking out by now.
“Well how long could it really take him and grandmother to fly back? I mean, they have the private jet, so I guess not too long.” Yes, Faith was really enjoying this far too much.
“Faith Snyder,” Lily said, immediately switching to dictatorial mode, “you give me the full story this instant.” Faith sighed at this. Here she was, back to being a chastised child again. Well, knowing something her mother wanted to know was fun while it lasted, anyway.
“Grandmother needed to do some very important New York shopping so she brought Luke with in order to protect her from scary street people. Or maybe for his gay guy fashion sense, or something.” Luke was totally going to kill her for improvising, but if she was going to be caught in the middle of this, she was going to have some kind of fun with it.
“Excuse me?” Lily cried indignantly. Faith tried not to be amused, but it was harder than she had anticipated. This was much too good.
“Luke and Grandmother left early this morning before you even woke up because Grandmother wanted to go shopping in New York.” Luke had figured that they may as well make their lie geographically close to the truth. Faith had no idea how this would help anything, but who was she to argue. Besides, if she played her part right, maybe she could reap some rewards.
“Ugh. They could have just gone to Chicago. They have plenty of good stores,” was Lily’s only opinion on the topic. Faith rolled her eyes at the fact that of all things, that was what Lily decided to notice, but she didn’t say anything. Her role in this ordeal was over, thankfully, and now it was up to Luke and Lucinda to get everything else settled. Not adding anything else to the conversation, which she had decided was over, she walked over to the stove and filled up a plate with the delicious-smelling food that was sitting there. Say what you like about her mother, but her breakfasts were phenomenal, and there was really no reason that she should pass this one up.
---
(Part 2)
(Part 3)