Late June, 2019

[andhiswife]

Greta's second worry is that something awful has happened to Elsa -- or perhaps Jessica -- but a few hurried texts are enough to put that fear to bed. Whatever this is, it's Darrow's doing, which means it probably won't last more than a few days. A week, at most.

Her first worry is for Regan and Saoirse, who are alone at the cottage (aside from the dogs, of course). There's no reason they should be unsafe there, especially since they're so much closer to town -- and therefore any potential rescue -- than Greta is here at the Gardens. But she hates being apart from Saoirse, in particular, while there's some sort of Darrow nonsense afoot. Even if it only takes the form of weather so poor that she, the children, and the staff who happened to be working when the skies opened are all thoroughly stuck.

She supposes there are worse things. The children are clearly relieved to have her here, and if she'd been snowed in away from the Gardens, she would have spent the whole time fretting over them and feeling awful that she wasn't here.

But the few days of ridiculousness that she was anticipating stretch into a full week, and then beyond. She's received some increasingly restive texts from Regan that she's done her best to mitigate. They'll be safe enough at the cottage, and the snow in the countryside has drifted so deep that frequent shoveling is the only reason they can open the front door at all. Going much beyond the stoop is a fool's errand.

Still, she'd be lying if she said she wasn't considering it. It's only a combination of pride and her lingering unease with being directly bespelled that's kept her from calling Magnus and asking if he might magically fetch her, somehow.

The absolute last thing she's expecting, then, is a knock at the door. More of a frantic pounding, actually, and she hurries over to pull it open. Who on earth would be out in all this?

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[negative_feedback]

She's freezing.

She doesn't own any clothes that are really meant for this weather. Just the few things Greta had helped her get when she'd first arrived, and that's not enough. Saoirse'd had plenty, so Regan had layered socks and shirts and leggings under her jeans before they'd set out. They'd kept close together, hands clutched tightly.

She isn't sure how they got her. She'd felt Saoirse's hand tighten, a tug on her arm, and even as Regan had whipped her eyes around, they'd grabbed her. They moved better in the snow than she does.

And she'd tried to follow them. She had. But then she'd found herself back at the house, first, and realized she'd gotten turned around, somehow.

So, tears streaming down her face, Regan had set back out to the Gardens. Her eyes are still red, and she's sobbing when she slams the side of her cold-numbed hand against the door. She can barely even feel how hard she's hitting. She has no idea if anyone inside can even hear her.

[andhiswife]

Regan all but falls into the entryway as soon as the door opens, and Greta catches her instinctively, before she even fully registers who she's got in her arms. The girl's shoulders heave with sobs, she feels half-frozen beneath her inadequate layers, and Greta's stomach plummets. Mere impatience wouldn't have driven her here through the snow like this.

Something has happened to Saoirse. There's no other explanation.

Greta scans the front yard for anyone else, but there's nothing to be seen but the furrow Regan plowed through the snow, already half-filled with blowing drifts. For a moment, she wants nothing more than to head straight out and start shouting for Saoirse. Only the horrible awareness of what little good that would do -- and how much Regan needs her now -- stays her.

So she pushes the door shut with a dry sob of her own, then pulls Regan close, thinking only that she has to get warm, and that her own body is the nearest warm thing to hand. "I've got you," she whispers unthinkingly, knowing Regan can't hear her. "You're safe."

[negative_feedback]

Regan leans into Greta's warmth, shuddering now as the warmth begins to seep into her. She still can't feel her hands, but she can feel Greta's breath as she says something close to her hair.

"We," she starts, but her hands hurt. She swallows and tucks her chin to her chest. A sob still chokes its way out. She wants to explain what's happened, but her hands hurt, now, as blood rushes back into them.

[andhiswife]

Wishing that Regan could just speak is something Greta has tried to avoid, both out of general wish-related paranoia, and because it had always seemed a little churlish and selfish a thing to wish. But now, with Regan's hands in bad shape and with no other easy means of communication, the frustration is almost enough to make her scream. Something has happened to Saoirse, and she wants to know exactly what, and she wants to know yesterday. Every second of uncertainty is one in which her imagination can churn out horrible possibility after horrible possibility: she's been hurt, she's disappeared, the cottage's bloody roof fell in. It can only be something terrible if it sent Regan sobbing through the snow to get here.

Greta clamps down on her fears and frustration, refusing to let it rise to the surface as she takes Regan's frozen hands in her warm ones and tries to rub life back into them. As she does, she guides the girl over to a bench and sits her down. The snow had long since prompted her to pull out all the throw blankets they'd put in storage for the summer, and she grabs the nearest one and wraps it around Regan's shoulders.

Then, unable to wait any longer, she catches the girl's eye and signs Saoirse's name.

[negative_feedback]

"She's gone." It's bluntly put, but her hands hurt too much to say more. Her eyebrows are arced sadly, tears once more warming her cheeks as they slide down. "Something took her. I didn't see. She was just... gone."

Her signing is stilted in a way that Greta's never seen from her, and her shoulders are starting to shake again as she tries to hold in her sobs.

[andhiswife]

Gone. It's like a horrible reversal of when Regan had stumbled into the fresh grief that permeated the cottage. For a moment, Greta worries that the meaning is the same: the Darrow decided to send Saoirse home and make their separation not just upsetting, but permanent, and she makes a sound she’s glad Regan can’t hear.

But Regan's still signing. It's a little hard to follow with the way her hands are shaking, but Greta understands 'took' clearly enough. She's been taken. Again. It's not exactly a relief, but there's a familiarity to it all that makes it feel a little more survivable.

She will simply have to find who took her and bloody well take her back.

But she still has questions. The cottage has a few small wards on it -- first placed by her departed employers, and then replaced by Magnus. No one should have been able to break in and kidnap anyone; it's one of the biggest reasons she hasn't already tried to bully her way through the snow.

"How?" she signs. "You were safe at home."

[negative_feedback]

Regan closes her eyes, hand reaching up to press against her forehead and cover her eyes in shame. She shakes her head. "No. We missed you, we were worried." It'd been difficult to rein in Saoirse's temper as the time had stretched, and finally, she'd all but taken matters into her own hands.

The dogs were still at home. The plan had formulated in Regan's mind as they'd started their walk through the dark: get Saoirse to the Gardens, make sure Greta was okay, then go back for the dogs and some clothes. But then those things, whatever they were, had shown up, and grabbed her, and now she's gone.

Regan suddenly thinks how stupid she is. She needed to be better, smarter, around little kids. First Beau, now Saoirse? She can't imagine if something terrible happens. If she...

Regan doesn't think she'd be able to live with herself if it comes to that.

[andhiswife]

Regan's response feels like a non-sequitur at first. Of course they were worried, of course they missed one another. That wouldn't make the cottage -- or the Gardens -- less safe.

Unless they left the property, that is.

Greta's blood runs cold at the thought. Yes, they would have been impatient, and yes, Saoirse can be a willful child when she wants to be, but surely they wouldn't have done something so--so profoundly foolish as haring off into the snow to come to her, without so much as a text.

She curls her fingers around Regan's cold wrist, pushing her hand down so she's no longer hiding her eyes.

"You left the house?" she asks, the signs as clear as she can make them, her expression dark.

[negative_feedback]

She's too cold, too upset, to even try to hide the flinch. Greta's expression feels like a slap. And it isn't like Regan doesn't deserve it. She does. She'd made a stupid decision.

"She wasn't listening to me!" It feels like an excuse, even though it isn't meant to be. "She was going to go with or without me. I thought—" The tears sting fresh in her eyes and she looks away, then shakes her head. "I thought she'd be safer if I was there." She'd been wrong. So, so very wrong.

There are so many factors, and Regan doesn't know how to explain them all to Greta in a way that doesn't sound like she's trying to shift blame off of herself. If anyone in all of Darrow knows she'd made a mistake, it's herself.

[andhiswife]

The flinch barely registers; Greta is far more focused on Regan's hands, and the flimsy excuses they're shaping. She shakes her head, sharp and dismissive, like a horse shaking off a fly. Then she gets to her feet. If she keeps sitting still, she might burst.

She can't believe this. She can't believe they'd do something like this.

She lifts her hands, but it's like the last six months of learning have deserted her: she can't think of the signs for what she wants to say, can't remember if she ever learned them. Instead, she buries her fingers in her hair with a huff of frustration, then digs for her phone, typing out a message with shaking fingers, and then thrusting the screen beneath Regan's nose.

You could have texted you could have CALLED so I could speak with her you could have locked her in her bloody room if you had to! You could have kept her safe!!

[negative_feedback]

You could have left the rocket. You could have listened to your father.

It's a different life. A different moment. But for a heartbeat, Regan feels like she's back there, watching her family shatter. And it's her fault all over again.

"I'm sorry!" Her eyes, her face, are desperate. "The power kept going out at the house. My phone was dead. I couldn't text or call. I'm sorry."

[andhiswife]

"That's not good enough," Greta snaps aloud, unthinkingly, before it can occur to her that that's a horrible thing to say. Horrible and useless, too, because they can't undo this. It's not a Curse to break, or something Regan could fix if she just tried harder now, in this moment. 'I'm sorry' won't bring Saoirse back, but nothing else Regan could say would manage that, either.

And while Greta's an old hand at taking out her frustrations on the nearest convenient target -- generally her husband -- snapping at a half-frozen and despondent teenage girl might be a new low.

She takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. "I'm sorry," she signs, wincing as she slowly approaches the bench. "I'm sorry." She wants to say more, but she's still too flustered to remember the shapes her hands ought to make, so she sits back down next to Regan and curls an arm around her trembling shoulders.

[negative_feedback]

Regan's pretty sure she knows what Greta's just said to her, and she curls up on herself. She's warming, but most of it is from shame, from sadness and guilt. The shudders wracking her now are from the quiet sobs she's trying to control.

She sees the apology, but it's from the corner of her eye, and she doesn't think she can acknowledge it. Everything is too raw, too harsh — and she doesn't deserve it. She tenses a little when Greta wraps an arm around her, but only a little.

[andhiswife]

She can feel Regan stiffen, and it probably shouldn't surprise her. There are plenty of ways to shout at someone, and she's done several of them over the past minute or so. It was too presumptuous of her to go for a hug, and she withdraws her arm, curling it around herself, instead.

Her own cheeks are wet. How long has she been crying? Greta wearily swipes at the tears with the heel of her hand, unable to stop them despite her acute awareness of what a miserable sight they both make. If any of the resident children stumble across her like this, they'll be horrified, and then she'll have that mess to clean up, too.

She lets out a low, frustrated groan -- an indulgence she wouldn't allow herself in other company -- and picks up her phone again. But after typing a few letters, she lets it drop back into her lap. It doesn't seem right to communicate this in the manner most convenient for her.

Her fingers curl absently as she dredges her ASL vocabulary back up from the depths, and then she signs, a little stiffly, "I shouldn't have said that." She looks at Regan, still shivering and miserable, and so desperately underdressed that really, it's a miracle she made it here in one piece. It would have been so easy to get turned around, with the usual landmarks buried under drifts. It would have been so easy to get lost in the dark, or stuck, and to freeze to death.

Greta could have lost both of them, and she wouldn't even have known.

Part of her is still angry, but her eyes fill with fresh tears as she adds, with all sincerity, "I'm glad you're okay."

[negative_feedback]

Regan watches her, focusing more, because as soon as Greta's arm is gone, she wants it back. The way Greta picks her phone up, but doesn't write her a message. The way she wakes up her fingers, like she's the one that's been out in the cold.

"It's fine," she answers, sort of absently. It's not. Nothing's fine. But she doesn't know what else to say. She doesn't know how to do this. Her parents never said anything like this to her, after Beau.

They never really said anything. Nothing important, anyway. She reaches up to rub the tears from her face. They're cold against her palms, which must mean her fingers are warm, but they don't feel warm. Everything feels cold, still.

"I'll find her," she says, turning towards her a little. "I'll fix it. I'll find her and bring her back."

She doesn't know how, but she has to do this. She has to.

[andhiswife]

It's such an absurd attempt at reassurance that Greta almost laughs. "No," she replies, though there's no longer any recrimination behind it. It's just a statement of fact: none of this is 'fine.' Not their ill-advised attempt to visit, or Saoirse's resultant capture, or her own reaction. It's all terrible.

And so is Regan's insistence that she's going to fix this, somehow -- a different sort of terrible, but still. Greta shakes her head, sitting up a bit straighter. "You can't." That's not exactly what she means, but her signing is still rather basic. This is less about Regan's capabilities, which are hard to even judge given that neither of them know what they're up against, and more about the fact that Greta just won't have it. Regan could have died on the ostensibly straightforward walk from the cottage to the Gardens; she's not up for a bloody search and rescue mission. Neither is Greta, on her own, but she at least knows who she might ask for help.

She gives in and picks up her phone again. You're not going back out there. I need you here, to help with the children.

[negative_feedback]

You can't. It's another slap, and Regan looks down and away. She tries not to get upset again, but it's hard not to be. It's something her dad would say. She can't. She's too young, or too deaf. It stings all over again.

Then Greta shows her the phone, and she takes a breath. She's needed here. That's. Different. She's not sure how Greta can trust her after losing Saoirse like this, but she can't let her down now. Not again.

[andhiswife]

Regan doesn't respond -- not with words, anyway. But Greta's paying attention, and she sees the way the girl almost flinches at first. It goes beyond mere disappointment or frustration, but Greta thinks she understands. Goodness knows she hadn't tolerated being left behind when there was a Curse to break. Granted, that was different: she knew what dangers the Woods might hold (or thought she did), and her husband was no more qualified for the task at hand than she was.

He'd needed her help. What she needs from Regan isn't 'help' as much as it is some bloody piece of mind.

Her first phone message seems to mollify the girl a little, but Greta types out another one, just to make things clear.

I need to know at least one of you is safe. I can't lose you both.

Typing that last bit makes her eyes fill again, but she blinks the tears back as she shows Regan the screen.

[negative_feedback]

Regan's chin trembles as she reads the message. "I can help," she insists. "I'll do anything you want." She doesn't want Greta angry with her anymore. They need to find Saoirse, and they need to take care of the children.

[andhiswife]

The obedient promise just makes her feel worse, as if she's terrified the poor lass into acquiescence. Greta shakes her head, more at herself than Regan. She shouldn't have lost her temper.

"I know you can. It's okay," she signs, before cautiously resting her hand on Regan's back. Wary, once again, of overstepping.

[negative_feedback]

This time, Regan leans into the contact. Then she turns and wraps her arms around Greta's middle, hiding her face in Greta's chest. She just... needs to feel this. For a moment, it'd felt like she never would again.

[andhiswife]

It's an awful sort of relief when Regan clings to her, enough that her breath hitches with it. Given the circumstances, she isn't sure that she deserves it, or that it does anything but shine a spotlight on her own harshness. But it would be harsher still to push the girl away, or sit stiffly until she let go of her own accord. No, that's... unthinkable. Despite her lingering guilt, it feels far more natural to curl her arms around Regan and just hold her.

Part of her still wants -- needs -- to find Saoirse as quickly as she can. But this is needed, too, and she holds Regan close, absently rocking her a little.