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Author's note
Previously, some other author's story was posted instead of chapter six. I'm not sure how that happened. I apologize for making you all wait for the conclusion to Part Five.
All sexual acts are consensual and involve parties who are at least eighteen years of age.
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After tracking Patty across worlds, finding Gabriela took hardly any effort.
Picking up on a signal was the easy part. Blocking out all the noise was more of a challenge. It was like there was an endless supply of information out there that he'd never realized was open to him, but most of it was useless. Not unlike the experience he'd had when he'd first logged onto the internet. But once he learned a few tricks for filtering out what he didn't need, it was surprisingly easy to find exactly what he was looking for.
They found Gabriela and Eric on House Moody's private island, outside what used to be the beach house but was now a modern villa. They sat on a terrace above the pool, drinking cocktails and looking awfully damned relaxed for people who were on the king's hit list.
Upon seeing them, Gabriela stood up so quickly that she knocked her chair on its back. Without bothering to pick it back up, she rushed over to them and pulled Patty into a hug.
A few minutes later, they all sat at the table, drinking their preferred beverages.
It all felt too good to be true. Too quiet. Things had been so crazy ever since they'd officially joined the First Court of Summer a few days ago. Or a few hours ago, depending upon whose perspective you took. Either way, Nick's experience with the Homelands made it hard to believe that they could just sit there and relax, without a care in the world.
Of course, things had changed a lot since they'd first arrived in Summer. Even since they'd left to go get Patty. There was a new king, for one thing.
But, in a way, that only added to Nick's sense that this was all a bit too much like a fairy tale. The evil king was slain, and the good king, their very own father, now sat the throne. The sun was shining, birds were in the sky, their home was rebuilt, and the damsel was no longer in distress. A perfect storybook ending.
Except that it wasn't.
Step-mothers were supposed to be wicked, not beautiful and brave and caring. The hero was supposed to slay the dragon, not
be
a dragon. And guys like Wes weren't supposed to die. Especially not while trying to rescue a son who wasn't even in any danger.
The inevitable conclusion was that their father had flat-out lied to them.
Yes, Gabriela insisted that Hank might simply have been mistaken. And Eric seemed almost convinced of his mother's interpretation of events. But he was probably just unwilling to disagree with her publicly. And she saw what she wanted to see in the man she still carried something of a torch for. As far as Nick was concerned, things had worked out a bit too conveniently for a man who, according to Eric, ascended the throne ever so reluctantly.
Eric had apparently considered claiming the throne for himself. But he'd ultimate concluded that commanding the respect of the other houses would take someone older, stronger, and with a larger family at his back. If he hadn't done as much growing up in the last few days as it sounded like he had, though, would their father really have stepped aside?
Nick doubted it. And if he had, he'd probably immediately have set to work on a plan to depose his son. All while claiming to be his most fervent supporter.
Nobody seemed to want to hear his reservations about how happy their happy ending was though. Perhaps Veronica would have been open to hearing what he had to say, if the two of them were alone. But the Moodys were not, and when that became clear, even his sister encouraged him to back off. So Nick held his tongue.
Instead, he marveled at the sword that had been returned to House Moody by the aunt none of them had realized they had, and made the obligatory jokes about how large and impressive it was. Everyone found that nice and amusing. Then he listened politely as Patty described the Eternal Garden of the Sun for Eric and her mother. Finally, Nick told Eric and Patty about the grandmother and grandfather they barely remembered and wouldn't recognize, insisting that they let him and Veronica take them to their grandparents' cabin and reintroduce everyone to one another.
Patty was quick enough to agree to that, but, upon noticing the utter lack of enthusiasm Gabriela expressed for spending quality time with her ex-wife and her parents, Eric mumbled something noncommittal. And no one seemed to pick up on the fact that Nick hadn't been proposing that they do so at some unspecified time in the future.
Perhaps that was just as well though.
They all needed time to decompress. And Patty probably wasn't in any hurry to meet anyone's grandparents again anytime soon. Nick and Veronica could try to assure her that Flori and Randy were as nice as accepting as could be, but it wouldn't have made a difference. Not so soon after her experience with Kurt's grandfather.
In the meantime, Nick called his grandmother to fill her in on what had happened. If you could actually say that what he did was "call" her. Though he had held his phone up to his ear, doing so was as much a means of focusing his effort as anything. Whatever it was that allowed him to speak to his grandmother, it wasn't a cellular network. And there was undoubtedly a reason that he "got better reception" than Veronica, who didn't seem to be able to use her cell phone here for much besides keeping time.
Turned out that his grandparents already knew about Hank, seeing as he'd paid them a visit. And when he had, apparently, Annie had left with him. Nick wasn't sure how he felt about that. And neither was his grandmother. Especially after he explained that Patty and Kurt had never been in any danger. That Hank had almost certainly lied to them. For a moment there, his grandmother considered paying Hank a visit, but she thought better of it in the end. The threat wasn't that Hank was going to hurt her so much as that he'd try to turn her into a pawn. He'd only be more likely to succeed in that endeavor if they allowed him to turn Annie's family into the bad guys. Which they would be, if they treated her like a child who couldn't decide for herself whom to trust and whom not to. So, for the time being, there was nothing for them to do but hope that Annie saw through his charm.
By the time Nick got off the phone with his grandmother, the others had finished their mostly full drinks and started on another round. They were pouring pretty generously too.
As a result, their conversation started to take a racier turn.
Part of Nick wanted to push back against the trend. Wanted to insist that they had a lot of serious shit on their plates that they ought to be focusing on.
But there wasn't anything they could do about any of it anyway. Not Annie, not Kurt, and most definitely not poor Uncle Wes.
Besides, he had the same urges as the rest of them. He was tired of worrying. Tired of pushing himself to the breaking point, trying to learn how to use his talents in new ways. And he was dying to show Patty how glad he was to have her back.
