Uncle Jon was undeniably Faith's favorite uncle, but 'Uncle Omniel', as he always told her to call him, was also pretty high on the list.  He wasn't one of those cheesy uncles who did magic tricks or gave you peanut brittle - the kind Faith's friends had.  Instead, he was a complete and total badass.

No, really.

I mean, most people in her family were, but no one told a story like he did.  And telling stories seemed to be his favorite thing to do now.  The best part was that he liked to act them out - and he had this awesome scar across his face that made them all completely believable.

"This castle's been besieged many a-time," he intoned one afternoon, in his somewhat lumbering Irish accent.  "Look over there, Faith, and tell me what ye see."   He pointed across the vast lawn, and Faith leaned out the crenelation, shielding her eyes from the sun and squinting.

"I see Dylan filming a tree."  She waved enthusiastically at her brother, who waved back.  She gestured to her uncle - as if to say 'Come up here and hang out with us', but Dylan just gave her a weird look and waved his hand dismissively.

Faith frowned.

"I'm sorry everyone always seems to avoid you when you visit," she said.  "I think you're interesting."  Omniel fixed her with a strange stare for a moment, but said nothing on the matter.  "Anyways, you were saying?"

"You see the remnants of the wall from here?  They look like mounds now - all grown over."

"Is that what those are?  But they look like they've been buried for ages.  Geez, Uncle Omniel, you're so old."

He smiled, almost sadly, and nodded.

"Aye child.  That I am."

She considered the mounds for a long moment before turning back to ask him a question.  He was gone.

Faith grinned widely and shook her head.

"Like freaking lightning," she said.  "He's so cool."

justprompts : "We think in generalities, but we live in detail." -Alfred North Whitehead

There were some things everyone just knew about Faith.

For example.

She would never pass up an opportunity for fun.

She hated being tied down.

And she was always looking for the next big whatever.

And really, she could hardly argue with any of those things. In most situations, those sweeping generalities applied, and were good rules to live by, in her eyes.

But there were exceptions to every rule. It was moments that defined her, she had found, not these statements of intent.

Right now is a moment, curled up in the crook of Torrigan's arm, in a big chair, with a warm fire.

There is a party blazing in the city of Belisaire tonight, to which they'd been invited as prestigious guests. There would be drinking and dancing and of course, more fireworks. Friends and fun on endless tap.

She was happier here.

There were men who got mooney-eyed when she merely glanced her way. Who bought her flowers and promised her adventures (even a pirate king, or so he had self-proclaimed himself to be), ready to whisk her away with no strings whatsoever.

But she preferred the weight of the new ring on her finger, as her hand twined through her fiancee's. And she definitely preferred the thought that if she wanted to, she could get away with never untwining it again.

To her, on this evening, there was no next big whatever. There was simply the crackle of fire, and Torrigan's breath against her ear, and the comforting rise and fall of his chest underneath her, and the knowledge of another day's work that had made the world a safer place.

She feels older, but not compromised.

Everyone knows that to 'live in the moment' is what Faith does best.

She's happy to have finally figured out what that means.

No matter how many times she left Death, it continued to be a startling experience, like waking up from a bad dream.  In this case, the dream itself hadn't been particularly trying - other than the dankness, the flatness, the unnaturalness that always permeated Death, it had been somewhat of a triumphant success.  She'd tracked the necromancer for hours... maybe days, weeks.  Time lost its meaning there.   And when she'd found him, he'd hissed and spit tendrils of roiling free magic at her, only to be defeated with alarming ease.  Touchstone was going to be so proud of the way she'd handled Binder - she was beginning to feel like a real ace swordsman, and that was all thanks to him.

But now she could go home.  

It wasn't really a longing for the Abhorsen House... places never had had a real way of binding her.  But she could be with her fiancee again, really be together.  The very hardest part about doing her job was that as much as Torrigan would never leave her side for an instant, there was one place he could never, ever follow her.  Not really.

But at least she knew that he was always waiting when she broke free of those icy bindings.  His warm hand on her shoulder would be the first thing she would feel, and all the emptiness of Death would be banished instantly - just that easily.

So when she broke free, she immediately sought for that warmth, turning with a smile, even as her teeth chattered against the cold. 

He wasn't there.

She was on her feet in an instant, sword drawn, anger flashing through her... but it wasn't just Touchstone's absence that was different.  Everything seemed...  

The trees had been harboring bouquets of red and yellow leaves, she remembered vividly, and now they were barren.  The ground was cold, caked in brown and white, traces of a snow.  All that remained as a sign of life was a single red rose laid in front of where she had been kneeling, inexplicably. 

How long was I gone? she thought, remembering how it had felt like weeks.  There was no way that Touchstone would have abandoned her.  He would have remained, would have woken her.  This wasn't possible.

She had to have answers, so she struck off, back the way they had come, out of the wood.  Her instincts told her to turn homeward, and so she took the long and treacherous path back, alone.  Her haste almost caused her to trip over briars and stones that a more cautious eye would have easily avoided.  She felt reckless, wavering.

Step by step she crossed over the river.  It at least appeared the same, the water rushing onward through the Ratterlin, regardless of the season, unstoppable.  The walls of the Abhorsen House stood unchanged as well.  There was comfort in it.  She gripped on to it somewhere deep down.

It was Aadi who answered the door, before she could even knock, and she stared back at Faith with eyes that seemed surprised and even... Was she going to cry?  What was she even doing in the Abhorsen House?

"Faith?" she asked, and the word was colored with complete disbelief.

"Uh, yeah, it's me, what's..." Faith began but was cut off by a hug that sucked all the air right out of her.  "Ooo ow.  Bones."

"Faith," Aadi said.  "What are you... how are you... We thought you were dead."

Well, that was quite a pronouncement.  Faith's mouth opened, and then flapped uselessly.  She obviously wasn't, so denying it seemed a waste of breath.  "How?  Why? Why would you think that?"

"Because your body petrified," she said, in what was a forcibly even tone, as if she were trying to look at this reasonably.  Or break something to Faith gently.   Her eyes were casting over her as if she was some kind of spectre.  "We thought you were lost, and when I went into Death, you weren't there anymore.  All traces of you were gone and..."

"Mom?" came a voice from behind Aadi.  A strapping lad, no - a full grown young man stepped around Faith's cousin.  He had River's clear strong gaze, but Aadi's bone structure.  It was undeniable.  Faith gawked.  "Who is this?"  he asked.

"Go back inside," Aadi demanded.  "I have to talk to..."

"Wait a minute," Faith said heatedly, as the young man... Aadi's son, retreated back into the door.  "How... Aadi, he was just a baby, how long has it... Oh gods... how long has it been?"

They stared at each other for a long moment, and Faith feared that Aadi didn't have the heart to tell her.  Finally, however, she spoke, though her voice was so quiet that Faith had to strain to hear it. 

She immediately wished she hadn't.

"Fifty years."

"Fif--"  It was all Faith could get out.   Her eyes widened, as her thoughts rushed towards one place, her stomach sinking in a wretched lurching motion.  "Touchstone." 

"He's alive," Aadi said immediately, as if she could read Faith's mind; as if she knew that was her first worry.  But it wasn't her biggest one.  "But we don't know for how much longer."

"This isn't happening," Faith said, stepping backwards, and burying her hands in her hair, yanking it away from her face, tangling it in her fingers.  "All that time can't just be gone.  I have to get it back.  He and I have to get it back.  We never had enough time in the first place.  We can't lose this much of it now..." The words were growing into shrieks of fear, and horror, and she felt like yanking the hair right out of her skull.  

This was all her fault.

She'd known the risks, but never dared to imagine they could run this far.  She'd given up her time with Touchstone, willingly, and this was her penance for putting him second.  It didn't make any sense.  Didn't fate want her to put saving lives before anything else?  This was wrong.  All wrong.  

No - worse than that.  It was irreversible. 

She was crying now, and screaming, and pushing Aadi away when she tried to touch her, grab her shoulders, turn her around.  She was running as far and as fast as she could.  Running away from time.

----------

She woke up with a gasp, teeth chattering against the cold chill of the sweats she'd broken into.  Touchstone's warm hand on her shoulder had roused her, pulled her out of the nightmare.   Put breath back into her lungs.

She clung to him and she refused to tell him why she cried as he held her.  Why she didn't want to sleep again. 

She didn't want to miss another minute.

Kalila had long since known that Faith and Fiona were a little bit on the eccentric side.  Ok, maybe that was being charitable.  Eccentric boiled down to really weird when it came to them.  But this was new.

The two had decided that the night before their upcoming big party, they wanted to have 'a big girly slumber party with pillow fights and truth or dare and braiding hair and stuff."  Not to anybody's surprise, Touchstone and Mogget weren't so much absent from the party as they were simply barred from entering Fiona's bottle, where it was going down.  Kalila suspected that before the night was over, Fiona and Faith would cave, and their girly party would be crashed by the boys.

Aryz was sprawled over four purple bean bag chairs that Sade had pushed together to make one super mondo "Preggers" seat.  Aadi lounged on the opposite side of it, so that her head leaned back right behind Aryz'.   Faith hucked a pillow at them.  "Hey sluggos, being pregnant is not an excuse to not participate in our fun time games."

"Faith!" Chastity squeaked.  "You can't throw things at pregnant women!"

"Hrmmmm," Faith said, lips scrunching out to one side, as she scratched her head and looked to Fiona with a little shrug.  "I think I just did."  Fiona dissolved into laughter, which Nicole joined in slightly, though she immediately stopped and shot Kalila a harsh look from where she had her trapped on the little seat in front of her.  "No moving," Nicole warned, and continued to paint Kalila's nails a vivid and unnatural gold.

Sade was pacing around the room in circles around them all, head buried in a magazine.  "Man, this used to be my favorite magazine and now it seems kind of ...inane."

"There will be no bashing of girly magazines at our girly party," Faith said solemnly.  

"Sade's looking at girly magazines?" Aadi spoke up.  She let out a tsk and shook her head.   "We always thought it'd be Aeryn."

"Har har," Sade retorted, as Aryz let out an extended laugh that turned into a snort.

"Did someone give Aryz Pepsi again?" Fiona asked.

"I hope so," Nicole chirped blithely, as she started dripping glitter onto Kalila's nail polish, that seemed to appear out of nowhere from between her thumb and forefinger.

"So is everything set for the party tomorrow?" Kalila asked, in her usual sensible tones. 

"It sure is," Faith replied happily, hugging a pillow. "And what's not... we'll wing it."

"That's what we did to kill Chlorr, and hey, look, that worked," Fiona said, nodding in agreement.  Faith returned the nod, and then clinked her glass against Fiona's. 

"Hear hear!"

"I still say you should let me invite some more friends," Nicole said, lip pouting out slightly, as she turned saddened eyes back towards Fiona.

"Noooo, I don't think that's a good idea," Aadi warned, shooting a glance at Chastity, who looked just as apprehensive about the thought.  Almost everyone there remembered the last party they'd all attended with Nicole's friends.  None of them were ready to relive that level of excitement any time soon.

Well, maybe Faith was, but she wisely kept her mouth shut.

Nicole sighed melodramatically, and then blew on Kalila's nails.  "You're done, honey.  Hair?"  

Fiona sat up straight abruptly.  "Touching - someone's touching my bottle!"  Everyone jerked up, and stared upwards, as if they'd be able to see out a hole or something.  

"Are you ladies staying in there all night?" came Maddock's distinct voice.

"Maddock, put my bottle down!" Fiona retorted.  They could hear Touchstone chuckling, and then Aadi rolled her eyes. 

Maddock, she thought to him, it's not like you don't know everything that's going on anyways, punk.

"Just wanted you ladies to know," he added, "that we're having a party of our own.  All the men folk.  There's much drinking, and carousing, and maybe some foozball, but probably not, since Touchstone is just staring at me  like I'm crazy, since, come to think of it, foozball is a really weird word."

"Maddock!"  chorused several voices at once.

"Okay, okay!" he said, and then there was silence again.  The girls glanced around at each other, except for Nicole, who was examining Kalila's hair.

"What do you think they're doing up there?" Aryz finally asked.

"Talking about us, probably," said Nicole sagely.  "Why wouldn't they?  Or maybe they got some strippers, since they know all the girls are out of the way."

Fiona and Faith exchanged a glance, and then both pretended to casually ignore the shared look.

"Naw," said Aadi, who of course, knew exactly what they were doing.  "They just raided the liquor stocks and are planning on drinking, or sword fighting, or something like that."

Impressively, it took about forty five entire seconds for Faith and Fiona to decide that this sounded like way more fun than a 'girly night'.   

No one was really disappointed, except for Nicole, when they joined the guys moments later, and merged the parties into one.

Faith insisted they keep the pillow fight though.  The girls won.

The boys let them.

It's so nice to have options.

Option One:  Bite the bullet and get married, maybe even pop out *gulp* a baby to make him happy.   Feel old for the rest of my already freakishly long existence.  When he's gone, be forced into the awkward position of being our kid's only living parent, and a really ineffective one at that.  Hopefully, they'd be old enough to not need any sort of parental involvement at that point, but what if they're weird and they do?  Also, I have no idea what to do with a baby.  Also, I have a job that requires me to never sit still and sometimes parents have to sit still.  And I need Torrigan with me, so he can't be the one sitting still either.  So this option amounts to being a really crappy parent and disappointing both Touchstone, and our kid.

Option Two:  Back out of it and face that look of crushing disappointment on his face.  Doubled guilt after he says that he doesn't care, and I know that he's sort of telling the truth.  He doesn't care if it's what I want, he would mean.  But I know what he wants.  Worse - I know what he deserves.  

Option Three:  Run away and become a pirate.  Looking better every day.