Quentin

“Where is she?”

“It’s not that late.”

Quentin glared at Raj, “This is Toby who walks into trouble without knowing it. I don’t like it. She’s going to get herself killed.”

“Sit down, I hate when you pace like that,” Raj had a petulant note in his voice as Quentin dropped down onto the couch beside him.

“Fine, not pacing but she should have been back. I should have gone with her and she hasn’t texted or anything.”

“We’re talking about Toby, don’t be an idiot.”

“She uses phones sometimes.”

Raj poked Quentin in the stomach and stretched out more on the couch, “Wait another hour and then I’ll tell my uncle. He’s going to be worried.”

“I’m worried,” He said and absently scratched behind Raj’s ear.

“I know, she’s being stupid but she won’t die out there.” Somehow Raj heard the question in his voice and the worry, it must be a cat thing since Cagney, Lacey and Spike were all near the couch with concerned looks.

May walked in from the kitchen as if she’s heard him mentioning dying when there was a knock at the door, “She should have her key. I’ll let her in.”

There was a brief scent of May’s magic as she put up her disguise and in a few moments she walked back with Sir Etienne behind her. Quentin straightened from where he was sitting and Raj shifted over, “Sir Etienne, what are you doing here?”

Etienne looked around the messy living room and Quentin noticed that he looked tired, “I need to speak to Sir October. Where is she?”

May came from behind Etienne and put a hand on Quentin’s shoulder, “She’s out but she should be back soon. You can wait.”

“You’ll probably find the dining room more comfortable,” Quentin got up to show Etienne in, getting him a drink and then coming back out before giving Raj a shooing motion.

Raj sighed before saying, “I’ll go tell him. Stay here, she’ll get worse if you’re gone.”

“I wouldn’t know where to find her. She should tell me. I’m her squire.”

“I’m not listening to this now,” Raj said with a very cat sigh and then disappeared into the shadow roads.

May ruffled his hair, “Watch some more television, I’ll take care of our guest and she’ll be back soon.”

The door opens onto a park in the fading light of early evening, they're stepping out from a gazebo type area. Across from the park, beautiful painted houses stand, one in particular looks more lovely in the fading light than the others.

A mix of people walk around them, programmers home from a long day at work, the coffee shops and restaurants are active and there's the sound of music and the taste of sea salt in the air, "Here we are."

He woke up to an afternoon sun and worked to get his bearings, he was sitting in the bleachers of Pleasant Hill High School where he used to sit with Katie. His hands went to his ears which were pointed and he started to curse when Katie, the human girl he'd loved was there. Her eyes were older since the Luidaeg made her forget Blind Michael and all of him. She was dressed for school in dark jeans and a purple sweater that brought out the dark colors in her eyes.

Her gaze was tight on him and he had to hide, she couldn't see him. When she spoke her voice was soft and she stopped a few feet away from him and stared, "Hey, don't run away. This is a dream sort of thing. Its because we're officially dead to each other or something."

"What? But you shouldn't see me, its dangerous," He hadn't moved though, not with her looking at him as if she could solve him. It was why he'd liked her, she was beautiful, clever and she wanted to know how everything worked. When they'd studied, she would rest her head on his shoulder and tell him about physics and how it made sense of the world.

"Is that actual bronze in your hair? Your eyes are bluer than I remembered, but I don't remember much. I don't think I'll even remember this, she did that to help me. I don't know if I like that. You're meant to remember the bad and face it," She frowned as she spoke and he could see her trying to puzzle it out.

"Yes, the Luidaeg did that, if she hadn't then you might have lost yourself trying to make sense of what happened. She's not always nice but she's fair."

"But I had already been lost and broken in a place that shouldn't have been. Why would it have been so awful if I understood?"

"Because you wouldn't have understood, not really. Do you remember how annoyed you were when we were studying Shakespeare and how it was all iambic pentameter?"

"Okay, yeah, I mean it sounded nice and all but everything was in it and it didn't have to be. It would have worked just as well if there was some variation."

"This is like that. A lot of it makes sense to me because I'm used to thinking in iambic pentameter, but you're not and you would keep trying to find a way to translate it."

Katie was quiet before she walked closer to him, reaching out to touch the point of his ear, "This is the real you?"

"Yes, it is. I'm sorry," The words felt small but he couldn't think what else to say.

She looked him over once more then tugged gently at his ear, "Thank you for saving me and I probably wouldn't like what I would have understood."

Then she turned and walked down the track and Quentin woke up to the setting sun shining in his eyes from the partly opened curtain of his rooms in Milliways.

When Quentin walks back into the living room dissolving his human disguise, no time has passed and Raj frowns at him, "Where did you find those donuts?"

"What? Oh, we forgot them from an earlier run, are we still on the same channel?"

"You were barely gone, sit down, bring those over and stop looking weird."

Quentin blinked then shook his head and flopped beside Raj and offered the donuts. Raj grabbed one and ended up doing the studied sprawl he did that left Quentin putting his legs up on the table as the horror movie marathon went on.

The current one involved a poor man trapped in his house and Quentin almost threw up his donut, "That's wrong. Zombie babies shouldn't exist and blood isn't that color."

"Shut up and watch," Raj said as he tossed a pillow at Quentin who ended up hiding in it at some points. He'd survived ALH but this was wrong and Toby was never, ever seeing this movie, she had enough issues to do with kids and blood.

By the time it was over, even Raj had a look of disgust on his face, "I don't care who that director is, that was terrible and blood isn't like that."

"Don't talk about blood. We're putting on something else," He said and picked up the remote and they ended up on an acoustic session of a band he liked. By the time Toby was finished with her sword session with Duke Torquill, they were asleep, but they'd left her two donuts.