Fic: Desperate Measures, 2/4
Title: Desperate Measures (2/4)
Fandom: Dresden Files
Spoilers: Up to White Night. Also set in my Dresdlet-verse and follows Persistent Illusion.
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Desperate times call for desperate measures. Margaret Dresden has been dead for two years, and now she's coming home. Beta'd with loving mild insanity by Pris.
Harry had moved back into his old apartment, after Murphy died. The house was hers, after all. It had taken years of marriage before he felt like more than a guest, and after she died he couldn’t stand it, walking around corners and expecting to see her there, lying alone on the bed they had shared for so long.
So he’d gone home, back to the apartment with the lab and the bedroom. A new beat-up old couch, to replace the one the girls had vomited on as babies; the same narrow bed he and Murphy had made love on before they married. He was much more comfortable here, anyway, with his feet up on the coffee table, his paperbacks scattered willy-nilly and Mouse flopped in front of the fire. Kind of strange, that his dog had outlived his wife and his older daughter, but then Mouse was clearly immortal.
A spasm of pain clutched his heart, but it was shorter than before. He was recovering.
Sometimes he didn’t want to recover.
Anyway. Book. He was reading a book, his old, beat-up copy of Howl’s Moving Castle. He figured he could read it to his grandkid, whenever Julia gave birth.
She had told him, the last time he saw her, that if the baby was a girl they were going to name her Margaret. And what could he say to that? His Maggie had been named for another Maggie, and now that she was dead it seemed only fitting that another little girl should have that name.
But. There was always a but.
It felt almost cursed, that name. If you had it, you died young. His Maggie had lived a year longer than her namesake, but it was not long enough, not nearly long enough. Two years and it had not stopped hurting.
What was it Morgan had said to him, at the funeral? “No father should have to outlive his child.” At least Murphy hadn’t had to live through this. It would have killed her if she had.
Book. Now. He was going to read his book, dammit.
Of course, someone chose that moment to knock.
Harry considered not answering. It was Saturday, he wasn’t working, Julia would have called ahead before visiting, and there was no one else who might visit. Well, Thomas, but Thomas had run off to Mexico, the traitor, obviously too chicken to face his pregnant niece. Harry decided on the spur of the moment to call his brother during his next visit to Julia. Everyone should suffer with him. And in that mindset, he decided he would not answer the door. Let that other person suffer too.
The person knocked again, and Mouse lifted first an ear, then his entire head to stare at the door. Harry watched the dog, curious, his attention snagged by the movement. Something had clearly caught Mouse’s interest, and not much did that these days, besides vampires.
That thought triggered an automatic paranoia. Harry groaned. Was someone trying to kill him again? It really wasn’t fair.
He watched as his dog got to his feet and padded over to the door, sniffing along the crack at the bottom. If it was a vampire, he could just leave the door closed, but that would put the rest of the building in danger. Goddamnit, it would be nice if the forces of darkness would take a day off just once…
Mouse barked, and flung himself at the door, scratching frantically at it, trying to dig his way out and all the while barking and barking like the world was ending.
Harry jumped to his feet, sending the book flying, and dove for the door. That barking scared him. The last thing that had gotten the dog that worked up had been a Black Court vampire and ye gods he didn’t want to deal with one of those.
He shoved Mouse over with an effort, laid a hand against the door and concentrated, feeling outwards carefully for the cold sink of energy that would mean something like a vampire.
Outside his concentration, Mouse began to headbutt the wall desperately.
No cold sink touched his mind. Instead, he encountered a softly glowing haze of magic that meant another wizard, and one of benign intent. For a moment he thought it was Morgan—it had the same sense of ironclad control, the same feeling of hidden strength—but no. There was another sense about it, another feeling, something that should not be there, because the girl whose magic felt that way was dead.
Harry reached for the doorknob in a slow-motion dream, twisted, and pulled the door open.
She was so thin, too thin, and her dark hair had blonde streaks in it. She would not look at his face, but directed her eyes somewhere around his collarbone, and hugged her shirt tight against her body, her arms angled as if to ward off a blow. She looked sick, and lonely, and frightened, and all Harry could think was that his little girl was alive.
“Maggie,” he breathed, clutching the doorknob as the only solid thing in a world that had suddenly gone insane. “Stars and stones.”
“Hi,” she said, her voice wavering. “Can—can I come in?”
He nodded, dumbly, and stepped aside.
Mouse barreled out the door so fast he actually knocked Maggie down, back against the steps. He’d done that before, especially when she was younger; for a good ten years Mouse had weighed more than Maggie did. She was used to it.
She should not have reacted with a sudden terrified cry and her hands up over her face.
“Sit!” Harry barked, and the dog sat, looking puzzled, and a little worried. He probably looked much the same, he thought, dragging Mouse back—Maggie was used to Mouse, this was nothing, it happened all the time. Fear crept in as the shock wore down…what had happened to her?
He crouched down to her level, watching her face closely. “It’s just Mouse, Maggie,” he said, carefully.
“I know,” she said, and lowered her hand, slowly. “I’m sorry.”
She was shaking. Why was she shaking? Well, he was shaking too. But she was alive. For two years he had believed she was dead, and she was alive.
Harry gave her a hand up and let her precede him into the apartment. Mouse trotted after her, his head at a worried tilt, and resumed his place by the fire. Meanwhile, Harry closed the door slowly, his back to his daughter, and tried to think of something to say. What could he say? Besides “you’re alive.” They both knew that.
For two years he had believed she was dead, and she was alive. The shock had gone; a slow, deep, totally unjust anger was starting to build up in his chest. For two years he had believed she was dead; for two years she had let them think she was dead, if she hadn’t faked her death to begin with, and he was beginning to be uncertain about even that.
He turned around, said, “Maggie…” and let it die. What could he say?
She had half-collapsed on the couch, her arms still crossed protectively over her chest and her head hanging forward, that blonde-streaked hair covering her expression. She looked so small, so young, and he was so furious with her he could not begin to speak.
“I’m sorry,” Maggie said, at last, her voice small and vulnerable. “I didn’t mean… I’m so sorry. I wasn’t allowed to tell anyone.”
“Obviously,” Harry not-quite-snapped, and immediately felt guilty when she hunched even further into herself. He took a deep breath through his nose. He would not scream at her, no matter how angry he was. She was clearly traumatized. He would not scream at her.
“Maggie,” he said, trying again, and managing a much gentler tone this time. “Why don’t you tell me what happened.”
She shrugged, and shifted a bit, leaning over a little more. “I had orders,” she said, simply. “I couldn’t tell anyone, not even Simon. Nobody knew except Commander Luccio. And I…” Her voice faded.
He waited. Mouse wheezed on the exhale, someone upstairs clunked across the ceiling, Maggie’s pants scraped across the couch as she shifted again. And finally she looked up, and her eyes were full of tears, and so very, very blue.
“I’m sorry, Daddy,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry. Please…”
She didn’t finish, and Harry let it out.
“You’re sorry?” he yelled, knowing he was yelling, hating it and unable to stop it. “Two years, Maggie! Two goddamn years! Julia nearly collapsed when I told her, did you know that? Arthur thought she was going to have a stroke. We had a funeral, Maggie. I can show you your own grave. It’s right next to your mother’s.”
Maggie flinched, visibly, and tightened in on herself further. Mentioning Murphy hadn’t been fair, but it still hurt him, and it should still hurt her.
“She’d been dead less than a year, Maggie,” he said, quieter now, still vicious, still hurting. “Did you even think about that? Less then a year after losing her and you go and—“
“I had no choice!” Maggie yelled, shrilly, bolting out of her huddled seat to stand upright and facing him. She was crying freely, tears streaming down her face as she screamed. “I was ordered! Six dark wizards and two Corpsetakers and they were going to take over, wipe out the Council, I had no choice!”
Harry clenched his fists, more to feel his nails biting into his palms than out of any real desire to hit anything. “You couldn’t even tell your family. You couldn’t even tell your father? I’m a Warden too, Maggie! I am capable of keeping a secret!”
She shook her head frantically, sobbing. “Nobody, nobody, she wouldn’t let me tell anybody…and I’m sorry, Daddy, I’m so sorry, I didn’t have a choice, I’m sorry...”
That was enough.
He crossed the room in two quick strides and wrapped his arms around his daughter, holding her as tightly as he could. Maggie threw her own arms around him and cried into his shirt, shaking.
She was alive. She was alive. Every breath she sobbed out, every time her fingers scrambled across his back to get a little closer, even the way she tucked her head down against his chest like she’d done as a child, scared of shadows… she was alive.
“Oh, Maggie,” he whispered, and sank down on the couch, settling her on his lap like she was a little girl again, when he could wrap her up and keep her safe. He stroked her hair, rocked her back and forth. “Oh, Maggie. I’m so sorry.”
Maggie shook her head again, and cried on.
