WHO: Estella & Caden Flint
WHAT: :(
WHERE: Their House
STATUS: Finishing in comments!



Estella stared at her fingernails, chipping away at the polish she’d just applied in her anxiety. She sat by the window of the master bedroom, the moon light bouncing off the lake in front of their home and filling the room. The house had been quiet for a few hours as the rest of her family was out for the holiday, but she heard stirring downstairs and knew that they’d returned. A dull pang of guilt filled her; she’d never missed a Halloween for Jacob or Lizzy, and had accompanied Marcus since she’d been involved with Caden, but Estella would have ruined the night for the children.

She found herself by the window a lot this past week, waiting for an owl with news about her sister, about the baby, about anything. Nothing ever came, and now that it had been more than a week since Florence and Elisabeth had disappeared all hope for a successful rescue was rapidly dwindling. In all honesty, her usual optimism, something that she had not always been blessed with, had been nowhere to be found in this case. The moment she’d seen the article about her missing sister, she knew she was gone, never to return.

That bastard, was all Estella could keep thinking, sending the most horrific thoughts towards her brother-in-law that she could summon. She wanted nothing more than to watch Scabior suffer, and while she knew that Tobias may make that come true, she would never feel any sort of justice for her sister as long as that man lived.

She saw Caden’s shadow cascade across the floor of the bedroom before she heard him enter. Estella looked up for a brief second at her husband before looking back down at her nails, “Were they good?” .

If Caden had his way, that night would have been spent standing at the ends of driveways with Estella while the kids, completely decked out in their Halloween costumes, ran up to people’s doorsteps to hold out their little plastic pumpkins and ask for candy. He would have made commentary all the while, perhaps while the both of them made up dialogue between the kids and the people opening the door, just to make the night more interesting – more entertaining for the adults who were keeping an eye on their little ones, to make sure they didn’t get sucked inside someone’s house. It was how it had been last year, with Estella giggling and swatting Caden, telling him to ‘stop that’.

He never thought he’d miss that so much. He never disliked Halloween, but he and Jolene had never done any of this. They had never gone ‘Trick or Treating’. They went to haunted houses, and they sat up in their rooms eating candy that their parents had given them, while he told her ghost stories, and she slept in his room because she was too scared to sleep alone.

These memories made it even more heartbreaking, watching Estella mourn a sister she wasn’t even sure was gone yet. Caden had the sinking feeling that her assumptions were right, but he couldn’t let her bury herself in misery when there was the chance that she and the baby could be safe. He found that he had started keeping in touch with Jolene a lot more often, since all of this had happened…but it was the questions the children had that really made his stomach drop. Questions like ‘what’s wrong with Mommy?’ and ‘Why is Mommy not coming out of her room?’. All he could tell them was that she was sad, and that they should show her how happy they could be, because that would make her happy.

He was lying through his teeth. He was lying to his kids, knowing that no matter how much they smiled at her at the dinner table, she still wasn’t….there. Not really, anyway. It was something that he recognized all too well…

He put the kids to bed, all of them crashing from their sugar high. Joy had allowed them all some extra candy while he was talking to Finn – he thanked her later for the distraction. They needed a sense of normalcy, something that wasn’t provided at their house lately.

Climbing up the stairs to their bedroom, Caden carefully opened the door to slip inside. He felt like he was intruding in his own bedroom. She had been closed off to even him. How could he blame her though? Wouldn’t that be completely hypocritical of someone who completely shut down whenever he couldn’t handle something? It was hard. It was so hard.

“Aye...” He hesitated for a moment, staring down at her before letting out a sigh through his nose. “They missed you.”

This was said as he turned towards their closet, working on pulling off his hooded sweatshirt, not even realizing that the t-shirt underneath was covered in glitter because he had been holding Lizzy when she got too tired to keep up with the boys.

The guilt she felt before revved up again in her chest, but Estella pushed it away. Her kids would get over her absence like little ones were wont to do, especially with the distraction of candy from their treat bags. Normally any sort of hurt feelings in her house were soothed and kissed away, but she couldn’t feel enough sympathy to do so at this time. No, she was too angry at the world to fake smiles and laughter. Estella didn’t think she should even be allowed to try and pretend that things were okay, even for the sake of her children. Any bit of joy felt like a betrayal to Florence.

Her sister would never again get the chance to to be happy with her daughter, to play with her nieces and nephews, it...Estella had suffered through extreme loss before, and the hopeless reminders that she had to endure every day were indescribably painful. No, she knew her sister wasn’t coming back, she knew that the authorities would not find her alive, so...it was endless, how terrible she was going to feel for the rest of her life. She had made it out of that dark depression before, but this time she wasn’t going to be able to search for a new love. She’d never be able to fill the void of a lost sister.

Estella turned to look out the window. She had not cried as much as everyone probably thought she would have, and it worried even her. It felt like she’d turned off all of her emotion, eyes only tearing in anger. Right now she just felt guilt and sadness, and just that exhausted her.

“I’m sorry I didn’t come,” she said softly. That was true, at least. She was sorry for this entire situation.

After hanging up the sweatshirt in the closet, he closed the door, hesitating for a moment with his hand pressed against the wood of the closet. “I know you are.” He finally dropped his hand and turned back to her, taking slow steps upon approach, stopping some ways from her, his arms folding over his chest – his posture wasn’t aggressive, but it wasn’t relaxed either. His shoulders were tense, and his body was rigid. He was worried about her, and he thought he had every reason to be.

“Has there been any news about Jen or the baby?”

He felt he already knew the answer to his question, but he wanted to know if she had gained even the smallest shred of hope that her sister might still be alive. He honestly wasn’t sure which was worse – her doing this to herself before any definite answers were found, or her living in complete denial.