Chapter Eleven

Life after you

Karou led Warren toward one of Alsham Street’s smaller cafés. One would say it was cosy, tucked away down a nameless side alley, and its interior wasn’t overly cramped with its antique furniture, spice coloured walls and fabric wall hangings. Inside, it was just the right kind of crowded in that the tables were mostly full, but the atmosphere wasn’t overly loud.

The tall barmaid gestured for them to sit wherever they liked, so Karou picked a table-for-two by the window to watch the crowds pass by.

Resuming their conversation about Warren in his youth, Karou said, “I suppose everyone was young, immature and spontaneous once... but I’ve never known that side of you; perhaps that’s why I find it so hard to imagine. You’ll always be a suave, sophisticated and regimental businessman to me.” She fluttered her lashes at him over the edge of the menu she had picked up from the little stand on the table.

“I doubt you would’ve enjoyed me much in my youth. I was notoriously hard to pin down and get a decent conversation out of, and I did everything other than behave myself.” Warren rose his brows and grabbed a menu of his own. He regretted many of his youthful antics. His eyes homed in on the wine list. Yes, right about now, he felt he could go for a large glass of red wine. Tonight was the first bit of freedom he’d felt in almost four months.

“Ha, you’ve always been difficult to get a conversation out of!” Karou chuckled. She remembered how quiet and unwilling to socialise he’d been back in their compound days. When she thought back to the person she’d been back then, when Warren first met her in her youth, she couldn’t fathom how he’d come to like her. Maybe she’d ask him.

Firstly Warren chuckled at her comment and gave her a look that meant touché. “A businessman I might be, but I think you outdo me on the status front nowadays, Miss Morgan, or should I say, Your Highness?” Warren chuckled, his eyes skimming the wine list. Then, something crossed his mind, and he found himself wide-eyed again, ”Wait, you are still a Miss, right? ... Or are you hiding another husband?”

Warren’s alarm was hilarious, so she giggled because she rarely saw him lose his cool.

His shoulders sunk; she was laughing at him. But her flutters of laughter were still incredibly adorable.

“I didn’t think you’d care... Y’know, seeing as you’ve never been very good at monogamy yourself.” Karou said and then paused for effect. She watched Warren swallow deeply, suddenly nervous that he’d crossed a line.

He supposed her being married to Eamon hadn’t stopped him, but he had stalled. Karou recalled too, how he’d practically made her beg. Although it didn’t make their affair right, she’d been unhappily married, so ultimately he had no real regrets about what transpired during the 2040s.

Suddenly, Karou continued, “But, no. No husband,” which let him off the hook.

They both sighed but with different emotions.

Karou was saddened to admit that “there was, but he’s been... gone a very long time now.”

Unlike how she talked about Eamon, Karou actually sounded like a widow when speaking about her deceased second husband. Emotionally, she was mostly “over” him, but it was still something that made her sad when she thought about it.

She cleared her throat and hoped that her feelings didn’t show on her face, though it was unlikely.

“I’m sure we’re both filled with stories from our life between now and then.” Karou knew she certainly was. Warren didn’t know the full details and reason for Eamon’s death. He had no idea about her second husband, Remus, and now they’d never get to meet.

She had always wanted to share her secrets with Warren and had hoped he would have a few of his own worth hearing, even if she were oddly dubious about him sharing tales of his escapades with other women. She knew that her jealousy was misplaced and hypocritical, but still, it was there as a lingering flawed thought on the edge of her consciousness.

“What about you, are you married?” Karou asked, trying to push aside her niggling thoughts and appear hopeful.

Warren’s brows furrowed as he peered at her from over his menu; he was no longer reading it and held it half-heartedly in one hand while his chin rested in the palm of his free hand. It was strange that Karou had asked such a question in the first place, he thought, and merely shook his head; no.

In unison, they said, “Do you think - ”

“- you’ll ever get married?” Karou asked.

“- he was the one?” His tone was compassionate and understanding as he lowered the menu onto his lap. Sending a hand to his chin, he rubbed over his stubble in thought.

“No,” she said with a shake of her head. “No, I don’t think he was -” Karou admitted of Remus while only thinking of the man across from her when she thought, I met the one when I was nineteen. “- but he still meant very much to me.”

She was willing to talk about Remus if Warren wanted to know, but it wasn’t a pretty story. As she always had when she was contemplative, she bit her lower lip, letting him decide if he wanted to ask about it or not.

“I’m glad he made you happy, Karou. I doubt I’ll ever marry.” He watched her studiously for her reaction.

“And why not? Why don’t you think you’ll get married?”

“The time never came.” Was all Warren was willing to say; the notion was quite painful for him to discuss. He’d never had the luxury of following his heart, not because he had duties to other things, but because the woman he happened to love deeply enough to promise himself to did. Besides, he’d tied himself down with so many career endeavours in his solitude that he was always engaged in other tasks to focus on his love life by the time a real love found him. Perhaps that was why Karou’s admission stung as it did; a sharp pang felt to have pierced his chest. It seemed to him that she hadn’t yet found true love, yet he was sitting across from her, willing to bet he already had in her. She was the only woman he’d ever met that he’d felt ready to settle down for. Perhaps after all this time, she’d finally realised he was no good for her, so she ultimately didn’t feel the same.

His façade never allowed his jaw to waver even when he forced himself to say, “I’m sure that if you keep looking, you’ll find him.” Despite the bitter taste left in his mouth by those words, he hoped they brought her but an ounce of comfort.

Warren lowered his menu so it wouldn’t distract him and leaned his elbows onto the table. Staring at her with an open expression, he waited. He could tell that she wanted to share her story with him; after all, wasn’t that why they’d come to this café in the first place.

“Go ahead. I’m listening...” He urged, and the left corner of his lips rose into the lop-sided grin. The very one that had always given her butterflies, she loved what it did to his face and how it touched his eyes.

Karou took a moment to centre herself. She’d told the story of her and Remus a few times before, but she still struggled to maintain eye contact when she did. It took her a second before she could find the words to start.

“He was one of my first friends here and was very kind to me from the beginning. He was the second captain of the guard by the time I met him. Despite already holding a noble title, he’d joined the Royal Guard as an initiate when he was twelve. He could’ve been the Lord of his own house, but he chose hard labour and physical discipline over an easy life. I always admired that about him.” Karou smiled.

The flame from the candle at the centre of the table flickered in her eyes, though her gaze was warm while talking about Remus.

“He was a diligent and well-respected man in his field, but personally, he was such a gentle giant. After Eamon, he was a breath of fresh air. But it wasn’t long after Eamon’s death that the Court started pressuring me to marry again. I was desperate not to end up in another loveless marriage. A widow Queen didn’t fit the image the Court had in mind for their monarch.

One day at court, I was introduced to three men. Although Callida wasn’t so obvious to say that’s why they were there, I knew. Possible suitors. I knew the process of leading me into a courtship had begun, and I cried so much that night. Remus couldn’t stand how it was torturing me; he was such a sweet and gentle-hearted man. In his own act of desperation, he proposed to me. I was shocked, but after some thought, it seemed the best option. He said he’d rather marry a friend than a pompous noblewoman, and I felt the same at the time. And, honestly, it was exciting, beating the court at their own game. We’d taken matters into our own hands and chose for ourselves, rather than let them force onto us people we’d never even like, never mind love.”

Paused for a moment, Karou glanced over at Warren. He was still listening and as tentatively as he always had, but it hit her that she was talking about how she’d grown to love another man to her first love. She didn’t want to hurt him, so she chose to skip over the obvious topic of their wedding and continued when she said, “It was very awkward at first. Most of the time, our romantic life was just a show for people. He never slept in the same bed as me until we’d been married nearly six months. Then people started to get suspicious. It took a year or so before we had anything close to romantic feelings for each other.”

She paused, again, for a breath. “Although people questioned if there would be any more heirs, I just laughed it off, feigning that it wasn’t for lack of trying. We’d never tried, but after one drunken night that I can barely recall, I found out I was pregnant, and the rest kinda just happened. But, don’t get me wrong, we were so happy when we had Cassandra.”

“Alice, too. She loved Remus, and Cass had a best friend from the day she was born. When Cass was three, we thought we might have another...” Karou grew a little quieter then, almost whispering. “Everything was going so well. Well, that was until something went wrong. We still don’t know what, even to this day, even with all the technology at our fingertips.”

At another pause, Karou bit her lip, a nervous habit. “A couple of weeks before the baby was due, I woke up, and I was bleeding so heavily the doctors thought both of us were going to die. In the end, he was stillborn, and Remus just couldn’t handle it. He didn’t deal with his grief well, not when the ordeal had almost taken me from him too. He wasn’t the same after that.”

“When the Court tried to suggest I pick a more “suitable” match and divorce him, he completely lost his grip on his senses. He didn’t leave his study, didn’t speak, didn’t eat, nothing. I didn’t plan on leaving him; he was still my very best friend and Cassandra’s father. But it didn’t matter what I said; he felt like he’d failed to protect me. That loving me had brought me so close to death; he couldn’t bear the thought of that.”

She went silent for a few long seconds before ending her story with a simple sentence, “Eventually, he shot himself.”

Warren sat stoically; his hands clasped his forearms as he leaned forward over the table towards Karou, listening intently. Every so often, his knuckles whitened when his hands clenched about his arms in discomfort. Watching her retell something so obviously upsetting wasn’t pleasant, and he fought the urge to stop her.

Karou’s aged grief was plain to see, and how it pained her still caused him a swell of compassion, yet it also angered him. He dropped his hands into his lap along with the menu he slipped from the table, which he crumpled into his fist to try and hide the rage smouldering inside him. Fortunately, his face revealed little; it wasn’t unusual for Warren’s dark brows to set down over his eyes, and how his jaw tensed as he took a long and slow inhalation of breath didn’t clue Karou into how he was feeling.

To Warren, suicide was a selfish, cowardly act. He didn’t enjoy his life most of the time, but he’d be leaving behind too many responsibilities if he were to end himself. He couldn’t deny he’d considered it and more than once, but Warren couldn’t calculate how a man so lucky as to have Karou, a daughter of his own and another stepdaughter, could throw all that away rather than fight for it. How could Remus have loved her at all when he robbed her of himself?

Silence became him for a long moment; the air around him thickened - that alone was how Karou could tell Warren was harbouring negative feelings. Although she didn’t know precisely what he was thinking, she spoke up quickly, hoping to defuse the melancholy. “I’m alright now, though.” She lied. “It’s been a long time.”

“It was so hard at first because Cass was so little, so she didn’t really understand what had happened and why he wasn’t coming back. It’s been far harder on her than it has been on me.” Karou nodded, looking down into her lap.

The loss of her father at such a tender age explained a lot about Cassandra’s behaviour as an adult - her aggression issues, her bad habits, and her tendency to flit from one sexual partner to the next. All those things resulted from not understanding how her father could have killed himself while she was still in the world. She had grown up thinking she would never be enough. To her, that was why her father was no longer around. Karou had spent many nights by the girl’s bedside, holding her and trying to calm her down after her fits of rage.

Karou tried to meet Warren’s gaze again, still biting her lip anxiously.

The cloud lifted as Warren lent back into his chair. As he relaxed, he exhaled, and with that, his whole body seemed to emit a wave of warm air that’d gathered around him. It blew a gentle gust over to Karou, enough to disturb her hair and the waiter’s shirt behind her, who jumped as the chill ran up his spine.

“Time is a healer.” He nodded.

“Yeah, and like I said, I’m fine now.”

“You don’t have to lie to me, Karou.”

She looked down into her lap. She had lied again, and he knew. “I-… I just wish he’d stuck around for Cassandra’s sake.”

“Hm, yes, I’m sorry that Cassandra had to endure that. I truly am.”

Shaking his head, he half smirked as he straightened out the crinkled menu on his thigh and began to reread it. Wine. He definitely wanted wine now. “You have poor taste in men; have I ever told you that?”

What he said hurt her. Like he’d tried prying open an old wound barehanded, she flinched and rubbed the back of her wrists as if that was going to help remedy the sting somehow.

Like you were so perfect, her inner voice hissed. She thought to herself, and be damned if she let him hear how he’d gotten to her. No, her mind was sealed up tight, if only for that one thought.

But she couldn’t help how her emotions flared, struck with the desire to defend Remus. She wanted to tell Warren that his end had all come about because of his depression. It was a sickness of his mind! A strong man brought low by grief. A man heartbroken over the death of his child was not something to judge so harshly, so heartlessly. Did Warren really have no compassion? Did he have no heart?

After all, she had tried harder than anything to fix Remus’ broken heart. She had spent entire days sitting with him, talking to him, reading him books, idle chit chat, but never got anything back in response. She had tried so hard to make him laugh, but it never worked. It made her feel like a failure. All the love she had tried to give him had never meant anything in the wake of his grief.

Karou squeezed her eyes shut and turned her head off to the side - the feeling of failure combined with Warren's reaction threatened to well up in the form of tears.

Chair legs scraped over the wooden floor of the cafe as Warren stood from his seat. Making his way around to her side of the table without reserve, he offered his hand down toward Karou. “You’re angry with me… It was a poor attempt to lighten the mood on my part. I didn’t mean to hurt you with my words.”

She took his hand and looked up at him slowly. “I know I said I’m over it, but it’s still such a heavy subject. I just wanted to share the stories of my past with you.”

“And you can tell me anything,” Was all Warren said; then, quite suddenly, he pulled Karou from her chair and led her out of the café.

The way he led her out wasn’t at his usual, casual pace; his movements seemed urgent. They hadn’t ended up ordering anything, so there was no need to pay, but Karou still didn’t understand why he suddenly wanted to leave.

Once they had gotten back out onto the street, though the hour was later, the crowd was still bustling; Warren turned them around to walk towards the exit of Alsham Street.

After a few moments of lingering silence, in which time he’d taken the time to slip her fingers through his again, he said, “I want to hear all of your stories Karou.”

“I’m sorry they’re not all happy ones… Maybe I should’ve picked a different topic.” Karou made her excuses and shook her head and her sadness away. “Sorry. Let’s forget things that make us sad for now and go back to being happy that you’re here. Please.”

“Alright. But can you blame me for being angry at him for hurting you?” Warren asked, contrite. “Especially knowing that Eamon nor I were perfect either…” He shook his head, feeling disappointed that she’d had someone torture her emotionally again.

Her eyes turned down to his feet. For a second, she wondered, had he heard her thought? He hadn’t; he just knew he’d made mistakes when their love was kindling.

“Warren… The moments of sadness you brought me at the beginning paled in comparison to how happy you made me in the end. Please don’t tell me you never realised that?”

A soft smile tugged up the left corner of his lips, and he turned to catch her eye. Tearing his attention away from the street, he focused entirely on the woman next to him. Karou. His grown Fledgling. He took a moment amidst the crowd to really look at her. To Warren, the crowd around them had disappeared.

When he first began admiring the woman she had become that evening, she had been busy enjoying the crowd - taking in the atmosphere and marvelling at the teeming throngs of mythicals surrounding her. The air was filled with laughter and joy; it was infectious and lit up her beautiful eyes. But now, after her sad story and even though her happy mood had waned, she was still stunning to him.

Stopping them in their tracks, they stemmed the flow of the bustling crowd, but Warren didn’t care. A sense of bittersweet pride overwhelmed him for a moment. He turned to face her completely and looked her over, head to toe.

Since he’d arrived in her room earlier, something had been on his mind.

“Karou, you’ve come such a long way. I’m sorry if I seem bitter; it’s just, I wish that I’d been here,” He started, “Maybe not with you, but... just here for you at the very least.” He exhaled a disgruntled sigh.

It drew her attention when Warren spoke this way, so heartfelt like earlier, back in her bedroom. She tipped her head back a little to meet his gaze fully, maintain unwavering eye contact and listened to what he had to say.

“I haven’t seen you progress in your career as I would have liked. I regret that. You’ve become a Queen, for God’s sake, and I wasn’t here! I always wanted you to have children, and I even missed that.” There was a slight note of pain in his voice, the way his expression changed and his brows furrowed together. “Alessandra and Cassandra, I missed their births, their childhoods, watching them become women and find themselves. Those girls are what the only thing I’ve ever made has made. I should have been with you as you became a mother to your children….”

Meeting Alessandra was bittersweet, and Cassandra, too; their encounter with her earlier that evening now had such a deeper meaning.

“I guess what I really wanted to say is that I regret not following through. You put up with so much from me in the beginning, and you deserved so much more from me. You deserved some support and for me to share things with you as you’ve moved on from our little beginnings. I’m sorry I kept myself away. I think that the only way I can move forward is if I let you know that I realise now that letting you go was the worst decision I ever made. Can you forgive me, Karou? Do you forgive me?”

It was easy to identify the sadder, more pained tones in his voice, but she had never heard him apologise for anything before or even come close to asking for forgiveness. Not when she saw him in Brazil. Not when she’d turned up in Italy, starved, oppressed and on the verge of killing her husband. Nor when at the beginning, he’d all out ignored her existence. Warren Howard never said sorry.

This - what he’d just said, was recompense for all the years she’d spent wondering if he’d thought about her in their time apart. She had spent endless nights wondering if he was out there somewhere wondering about her and what she was doing with her life.

But now, in the wake of his monologue, Karou didn’t say anything. She didn’t need to because her eyes said it all. Still holding his hand, she lifted it to her mouth and grazed her lips lightly across his knuckles, always having been the affectionate one. She knew he meant every word, and her empathy could be easily seen on her face when her expression softened and her lips formed a small, warm and sincere smile.

Warren wasn’t finished. His mind had boiled over, and he just had to speak his thoughts into words! Another cluster of feelings he didn’t truly understand washed over him in a great wave, but he had learned to go with it and say what his gut told him to. Now was one of those moments.

“I’d like to linger here a while… If I’m cleared of my charges and allowed to stay, that is.” He admitted hopefully.

He couldn’t take another step tonight before he felt safe that the past was the past. He wanted to enjoy this night as if it was the first of many in a new chapter of his life - a life he could make in Enoch.

“I’ve missed you, Karou. I tried to make myself believe I could live without you, but I was lying to myself. It’s pitiful that I only see that now.” There was a longing in his eyes that he wasn’t usually inclined to show, but now that fate had brought him back to his Fledgeling, even when he’d actively stayed at a distance, who was he to fight against the odds? Regardless of what he had told Alessandra and Cassandra, he couldn’t say goodbye again. He needed Karou to understand that she had been his reason not to give up in their time apart; he’d always pined to get back to her one day. Now he hoped that today was that day.

“I forgive you. I always forgive you, don’t I? I’ve missed you more than you could ever imagine, Warren. I need you to stay this time. I won’t let you go again.”

The heavy shadow of fear that had hung over him as he waited for her to answer dissipated when Karou responded to his plea. He could stay, she’d have him, and what was more, she wanted him to. His repentance had been accepted without admonishment; how that pleased him made his chest feel tight and full of warmth and overwhelming gladness.

“… And,” she added, letting their hands lower again. “I know you let me leave the Compound thinking that you were letting me go on to a better life, and in some ways, you were right… but that never meant I wanted to leave you behind. I wish you could’ve remained a part of my life, too. But I also know myself well enough to know that Eamon and Remus, or any other man for that matter, would never have attracted even the slightest bit of my attention if you had been here. I’ve only ever wanted you. We still have time to catch up on what we’ve missed in each other’s lives and so much more life left to live. I hoped we'd do life together from the moment I was reborn when you Sired me.”

In response, he just nodded. They’d come to an understanding, and together, forever sounded like just what he needed. He relaxed, glad to have gotten his thoughts off his mind, the weight of his feelings off his chest. It all came at the expense of Warren’s precious façade; it had lapsed while he’d let his emotions spill out the flood gates. However, Karou’s reception had too thoroughly warmed his heart to raise it again. So he kept a firm hold on her hand and returned to his usual quiet, contemplating self.

Letting the subject pass, Warren turned back down the street, ready and raring to continue exploring.

“Right! Where to Ms Morgan?”

Eventually, after another hour of wandering the length of Alsham Street, they came to the end once again. Standing at the place where the glamour began, hanging like a sheet from the sky, Warren paused before they ducked through it and looked down at Karou again.

“Karou, where do we go from here?” He asked, suddenly worried that he might’ve come on too strong and too quickly.

Karou’s signature half-smile remained on her face; she squeezed his hand to reassure him. As much as she wanted him to whisk her off her feet and carry her to bed, she knew that that wasn’t likely. It would’ve been easy to just dive back in for her, especially because she was still as attracted to him as she always had been! Oh, and with all that in mind, another bout of wanting to lift up onto her toes and kiss him came! Against herself, she wouldn’t push it too far in one night! She’d have hated for him to pull back into himself now. “You wanna take it slow?”

“I haven’t even dared assume where this is going, Karou, never mind how quickly we get there.”

“All that matters is that you’re here for now. Tomorrow morning, I’ll get up early and get my Court to drop their ridiculous charges against you. Even if I have to behead Cambria to do it.”

“Now that I’d like to see.” Warren chuckled, “C’mon, let’s get out of here. It’s past my bedtime.” He said, pulling back away from her cheek.

“Come on then, up to bed for both of us.”