trans_9 | Reunion

Visitation Day came and went and Goliath still had not seen any of his clan in what felt like, and might have been, years. He still had not seen Elisa since she was nearly killed in his sleep, then vanished angry at him. There had been several times like these before, when the gathering of new crew members has been too painful for him to attend, knowing that his clan would come from elsewhere and at other times, and so podpops offered him only one chance at reunion with a loved one.

Disappointment had settled on him again, and he warded it off with productiveness. Elisa's car shone with the evidence of regular care, but the rest of the castle needed maintaining. He would invite more people in to work in the gardens, dispose of more of Xanatos' things - but first, he felt there was more still to gain by researching the Mayan sun amulet that he hoped could give him control over his waking and sleeping. It would be a good idea to contact Lupin again, but at the moment, it it pleased Goliath to conduct his research in solitude.

Deep in his reading in Castle Wyvern's library, he didn't hear footsteps until the door had already been opened behind him.

[EDIT: Subthreads now open for other characters to comment, starting with the Drunken Dragon]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

It was difficult to measure the passage of time on the ship, but you'd definitely been working for too long when you started to be grateful for paperwork. Report writing had always been Elisa's least favourite part of police work. Especially when she had to work out how to deal with the involvement of her gargoyle friends.

She appeared from behind Goliath's shoulder with a smile, holding out her hand to greet Billy.

"Hi. I'm Elisa Maza."

Goliath was not aware that Billy and Elisa had met before, but neither was she, so the two were still on the same page.

"Elisa is part of my clan." That was always the easiest explanation for what she meant to him. "Billy has been a good friend to me for a long time now. I hope the two of you will become friends in time."

It could not be clearer that Goliath was happy as he had not been for a long time. He rested his hand on Elisa's back, comforted by the contact with her.

Billy could see their happiness. He was more aware of such things now that he knew Kaya and Ronnae, and it was most definitely a welcome sight. As clan-mates, or whatever term they preferred to use, they had each other to rely on. Goliath could use that in his life.

"It's good to finally meet you properly, Elisa. I'm Billy Cranston, co-chief of this department. We'll build any tools or weapons you need, and we'll repair anything that breaks."

He tried not to look at Goliath and smile as he said that. "And I'll also do paperwork, apparently."

It was certainly the simplest and most effective way of explaining their relationship at the moment. In fact, until they had time for a more serious conversation about it, it was the only way of explaining their relationship.

Elisa could live with that for a little longer. Wrapping her head around the end of the world and the strangeness of the ship was more than enough for now.

"Properly? Let me guess, we met last time I was on the ship?" Elisa shook her head in exasperation. The gap in her memories left her feeling strangely vulnerable. Who else had she met and then forgotten? Did she have other friends and enemies on the ship? Or had she disappeared back into the pods before she'd got past the acquaintance stage? "I'm sorry I don't remember any of it."

She eyed the paperwork and gave him a wry smile.

"Every job involves paperwork."

And everyone hated it.

"I did not know this." Goliath looked from Billy to Elisa with some surprise. Still, he'd missed a lot the few months he was in stone sleep after that time.

Speaking of things he'd missed -

"Elisa and I had the fortune to meet your mate in the Drunken Dragon." Billy gets a congratulatory talon on the shoulder. "I am glad for you, my friend. I did not know you had chosen a mate."

Billy didn't like that trick. All this tampering with memory was not helping their cause at all. He shook his head. "Oh, don't worry about it, it was only brief. The only thing I learned about you that you haven't just told me is that you're a detective. I've also been acquainted with your car, but that was a while before. It's a nice car, by the way."

As he said it, he hoped it was still running well. He'd checked for damage after the quick escape he'd had to make, but there hadn't been time for a thorough inspection. If anything was wrong, he'd offer to fix it.

At the mention of Ronnae, though he didn't know it, his faint embarrassment was almost identical to hers. "Ronnie was there? I didn't think she liked the place. Anyway, she's wonderful. Meeting her helped me through one of my worst times in recent memory."

He seemed to have a far-off expression when talking about her, as if he was recalling moments past.

"Not that you're here to hear about all of that! Everything went well, though, right?"

The ship - Stacy - had gone to the trouble of saving them from their worlds and assembling this army. She had to have something in whatever passed for her mind when she erased their memories. Elisa just wished that she'd share it with her crew.

"Maybe we should start from here," she suggested, "And thanks. I wasn't exactly expecting to find it here."

She couldn't help but smile at the expression on Billy's face when he spoke about Ronnae. Their feelings were clearly mutual, though her smile turned into something closer to a frown when he mentioned ... whatever had happened. It didn't sound pleasant.

"Love can do that. Hopefully you will not need to help each other through more such trials, but it is better to face them with loved ones than without.

Goliath was reminded briefly that it would have been nice to have gone through this congratulatory process with his own children. The Avalon clan, and even his younger brothers in the Manhattan clan, had been close to choosing their mates before the world ended. If they ever had the chance to awaken and live out their lives, it might still be long after he was around to see it.

Still, it was good to see a younger generation of any species carrying on with their lives in spite of the war. In spite of the dire condition of the universe, in spite of the time it might take, perhaps one day the rest of his race would live to do the same.

"I wish you many happy years together."

"I'm doing everything in my power to stay at her side," Billy vowed, with the tone of someone who'd thought through this problem many times before. "It's difficult because we're from different worlds. If we must go back, I could create an inter-planetary transport, but we'd have some explaining to do. Ronnie's family is much more accepting of inter-species relationships. Mine doesn't even know there are sentient beings of other species that a human could be interested in."

He shrugged, pushing that problem off for a later time. Billy would find a solution. He had to. Abandoning her was not an option at all.

"Anyway, yes. Let's start there. We'll take requests if you need tools, and the Security department would definitely welcome you if they haven't already."

"You'd be surprised what a family can learn to deal with for the sake of someone they love," commented Elisa and, although she was appeared to be speaking generally, there were plenty of specific examples in her own life for her to draw on if she needed to. Her family had accepted Derek's mutation and her friendship with the gargoyles. There was a good chance that they'd accept Elisa's feelings for Goliath as well. (Once she'd finished working out how to accept them herself, of course.)

"Thanks, but I'm fine with a hand gun for now. I found one that was close to the standard police issue." She gazed around engineering, then back to Billy. "What sort of resources do you have down here?"

Edited 2011-10-23 22:52 (UTC)

It took a significant effort on Goliath's part to pass this conversation gazing down at Elisa and smiling at her softly only a minimum of times. He set his hand gently on her back, glad for the contact with her as Billy answered her questions.

Reunion

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