(This thread continues from O-ho, The Traveling Gypsies-O! - 18+)

BLAAAAAAARTTTTTTT!

Siva tears into the master bedroom and onto the bed, claws from all four paws gripping tight to the blankets and yowling her complaints to the master of the house.

BLLLLLLRRRRRRRUPPPPPT!

Dante whines from the hallway and ducks back into Rekah's room to hide.

BRRRRUPPPAAPPAAPPAAAA!

Missie is sitting on the couch in the living room, cross-legged in her nightgown (thank goodness!), blowing a brass trumpet she's acquired from someplace.

It is 4:30 in the morning.

BBBBLLLLLLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

That one got pretty high. She looks pleased.

BLLLLAAAAAAAAPPPP!

He'd fulfilled his promise, had gone to see Missie's performance with the pair of buskers down by the schoolyard. He'd watched her fling herself and her tiny little schoolgirl skirt with reckless abandon into their directed cartwheels. He'd watched her honk on the trumpet, listened to the laughter of the men around them when Julio?they'd introduced themselves to the crowd before they started?when Julio suggested she suck on it, rather than blow. He'd listened to her singing ditty after ditty, all of them unbelievably off-color, each one worse than the last. He'd seen her innocent enjoyment, seen the pair taking sly advantage of it for the crowd's delight.

It was a wonder he hadn't had himself brought up before the Watch on charges right then and there.

But he'd kept control of himself, somehow. Missie, ever cleverer than she seemed, saw the seething Rage beneath his civility. Her delight faded into a series of silent sidelong glances on their way home. She, Rekah and Mick were at Trina's, now, and he had the baker's word that she'd keep an eye on them for two hours. Surely that was long enough to soundly trounce these two ruffians. Well. "Soundly trounce the ruffians" was rather more proper-sounding than what he actually had in mind.

After dark, the market was a ghost town of a different color. The shops were shuttered and closed, some were barred. The fountain sang its songs to the moons, a liquid coyote. The cobbles were dark, blue-black in the uncertain light. What traffic there was passed through to homes or bars or dens of various flavors and predilections. The prostitutes that ventured here did so carefully. So near to the better parts of town, the Watch was thicker. Besides, there were homes here, above shops, along side streets. Schools. Chapels. And in one unused parcel of land beside a primer school paid for by the locals stood a garishly painted wagon, subdued in the blue and silver moonlight. Its canvas cover flapped like ship's sails in the breeze that chased leaves and trash along the alleys. A barrel-turned-brazier stood a few feet away, still glowing and smoking after the evening meal. The sound of a guitar drifted from the wagon, and some vague illumination made the canvas a shadow play. He stood outside the wagon, watched the peepshow, and listened in shamelessly.

?What was the take today, 'Nesto?? That was Julio.

?Twelve silver, twenty-three coppers and a promise of a kiss from that clerk at the butcher shop.?

A slow song was picked idly on the guitar. ?For you or for me?? A beat. ?For both??

Ernesto rumbled through a chuckle and replied, ?For me, y?arse. Get your own kisses.?

The guitar laughed music back at the night. ?I plan on it. You see that little raven haired woman this morning? She was giving me the eyes the whole time she was here.?

Ernesto snorted. ?You'll get Missie t' spread 'er legs for you b'fore you'll get that fancy wench.?

?You're just mad cause I'll get to the promised land first,? Julio laughed.

?Ye're not gonna get anything off of her, you bastard, I'm telling you. Not unless we convince her to come with us. She said no, again, before you ask.? There was a spark as one of them lit a cigarette, the smell of sulphur and tobacco twining through the air.

?If you'd finish the poster?surely she'd agree once she saw her face and name drawn on a show poster.? The melody slowed, paused. There was a slosh from inside, the sound of audible swallowing. The scent of wine undercut the burning tobacco.

And if he needed further proof of their intentions, he had it now, didn't he? They meant to take her away with them. On a bloom of Rage, he lifted the trumpet to his pursed lips and buzzed out a bleat of sound, just outside the wagon's door.

Ernesto let out a string of extremely colorful curses, his shadow jumping on the canvas peepshow. ?Missie! Y'wench! Stop that.? He threw back the flap of canvas, said, ?Come in?? and stopped dead as he realized is mistake. ?Who in th? nine hells are you??

?Hello, arsehole,? Ali said cheerily, climbing the steps without invitation. His grin was a happy little slice of murder. ?I heard you playing and I thought I?d join in.?

The man blocked the doorway. ?What th? f**k is this??

Ali ducked, set a shoulder against Ernesto?s chest and shoved. The other man grabbed at his shoulder with one hand, took a swing with the other. Ali took the punch, grinning through the pain blooming along the line of his jaw. As Julio beyond swiped something from under a pillow on the bench?a knife, probably?he snarled, ?What the f**k do you think this is? Look familiar?? The trumpet sailed over Ernesto?s shoulder at Julio.

Julio reached for Ali over that shoulder and missed. Ernesto swore at the sight of the ribbons on the trumpet, recognizing it. ?Aw, now, hey, man?what?s the problem? So your sister likes to sing and dance?? He slid aside, giving Julio room to swing that knife.

Ali dodged back, clamped a hand on the doorframe as his bootheels slid off the edge of the steps. ?Ever notice that ring on Missie's hand?? He caught the frame overhead with his other hand and swung into a shove of a kick at Julio. The knife licked along his leg, splitting fatigues and skin before it hit the edge of the leather boot and was deflected.

?Sister,? Julio snarled, and stumbled back from the kick. It was a big knife, single-edged with a wicked curve; if he had a chance to stab with it, Ali was going to be in trouble. Ernesto threw back his head in a bark of a laugh and reached up, pulling down a length of metal used to tie the horses down: twisted wrought iron, with a spike at the end.

?Wife,? Ali corrected him, on a hiss as the pain registered. He twisted, fists still knotted around the doorframe, and lashed another kick sideways at the wide-open Ernesto. He hadn't touched the guns in their holsters, yet, despite the threat of the knife. He was having too much fun.

?F**king wife,? Julio grunted, a hand against his side as if the kick had cracked a rib. He scrambled toward the front of the wagon and dropped down out of sight. A trapdoor, maybe?and that meant Ali?s back was exposed.

The kick landed, doubling Ernesto over, but he swung that spike and caught Ali?s ribs with it. ?She's a f**king good lay,? he wheezed through a slash of white teeth. ?Real,??gasp??wildcat.?

Ali dropped off the doorframe, grabbed the spike and swung the man into a reel. That put Ernesto?s back at the open door, saving him the trouble of getting stabbed, but the man jabbed the spike up at him. Ali still had a grip on it; the shove pushed it?and him?back against the front wall of the wagon. Ernesto went staggering backward, out the door and into the scrubby dirt with a heavy thud.

He heard them scuffling in the dirt outside and atop the wagon, whispering to one another, readying a fresh assault?and that left him alone inside. Hmm. He looked around, raised his voice to call to them, ?Is this all wood? It looks it.?

There was a sudden shocked silence outside.

He dropped into a crouch?his calf yelled at him for that?and pulled out a lighter. As he flicked it on, Ernesto coughed, ?What?what are you doing?? Surely this would suit as proof?if they hadn?t already realized that they were fighting a madman, they knew it now.

?Get him out of the wagon!" he heard Julio hiss at the other busker, from up above.

?I'd really rather not have to kill you both. I could burn the wagon down.? He reached for Julio's pillow, set the lighter against a corner of it. Wool, perhaps? Maybe down.

?S**t, man. Can't we talk about this? We didn't know she was married.? Ernesto said, and through the sudden haze of smoke as the pillow caught, he saw the man?s face go white.

?You're honestly going to tell me you didn't notice the ring? A clever pair of bastards such as yourselves?? Definitely down, from the sudden stink. ?This is a nice guitar,? he growled in plain threat.

?Women have jewelry?doesn't always mean anything. Besides, you know how she is? We figured?we figured, who'd marry her??

Ernesto was lying, patently; they?d probably looked the ring over and done their best to steal it from her. Still, those words drowned out Ali?s reason: he?d heard them too many times before, seen the horror, seen the pity. Who?d marry her? He felt the Rage rise up and choke him, and he went sailing out of the wagon at the man, coughing curses as he went. The smoking pillow was left behind.

?Arsehole! You're burning down our house!? Ernesto howled and landed hard on his back as Ali plowed into him. Ali took another blow to the ribs, and a sudden shock of agony from his back?cut rather than stabbed, he thought; the pain from a stabbing always felt like being punched, at first. He flipped over Ernesto and rolled onto his feet. Julio was gone. Inside the wagon, from the way the smoke billowing out had begun to stutter.

He got no more than a glimpse of it before Ernesto lunged up and tackled him. He was hit in the face, again, and again; the man was wiry and strong. The busker should have stuck to shepherding, though, Ali thought, and sent a series of short sharp jabs up into the man?s ribs as they both scrambled to their feet. Ernesto coughed blood into Ali?s face before jerking back to try to protect those ribs. Then he reached out, grabbed a fistful of Ali?s tied-back hair, and yanked, hard.

Ali staggered and went down again. A leg tangled in Ernesto?s brought him crashing down, too, landing right on Ali. He felt a rib give.

?Crazy bastard!? the busker hissed at him. ?She has to be a f**king good lay, f**king crazy b*tch.? They grappled in the dirt for a minute, before Ernesto made the mistake of wrapping both hands around Ali?s throat. That left him wide open. Ali punched him in the crotch and the man promptly tied himself into a moaning knot.

From the door of the wagon came the shout, ?Gods! He didn?t get into her frilly panties!?

Ali climbed to his feet, took a long step away from Ernesto in case the busker recovered enough to grab an ankle. His guns were still secure in their holsters, one visible under each shoulder. ?Not for lack of trying, is it?? He turned his head, spat blood, wiped his mouth with the back of a hand. Frilly panties. F**king cartwheels. Yellow eyeshine gleamed as he fixed on the man. Everything stank of blood and burnt feathers.

Julio sat down on the top step. ?Obviously you tried. What do you expect? You don't want men coming on to your wife, marry an ugly girl.?

He goggled for a second at that. Actually goggled, with jaw dropped and eyes rounded, and responded, ?You have got to be f**king joking. It's her fault that you can't keep your c*ck in your pants? Honestly?? As Ernesto made it to his knees, he slid a little farther to the right.

?Come now.? The arsehole looked perfectly serious, as if they were engaged in some kind of civilized debate. ?No one had their c*cks out in this foursome but you. Because you put a ring on her finger, you are better than us? Tell me, in the face of whatever god you worship...you?ve never made bawdy comments or flirted with a woman that might have belonged to another??

?Besides,? Ernesto gasped as he finally made it to his feet, ?have you seen her tits?? Julio nodded solemnly, as if this only proved his point.

?I'm not here to debate your lack of morals,? Ali sneered. ?I?m telling you that if either of you come near her again, I?m going to burn down that f**king wagon. If I?m lucky, you?ll be in it.?

?Our lack of morals?? Julio demanded of the other busker. ?She looks half his age and is on the slow side...and we are the ones taking advantage?? He flicked a look back at Ali. ?If you want her gone, then you need to tell her to stay away.?

?Maybe he likes children.? Ernesto was following Julio's lead. ?And for the record, we didn't go looking for her.? He was limping as he started forward, gesturing broadly.

Ali turned on a heel and stalked away, limping nearly as badly as Ernesto. He?d said what he came to say; there was no point in standing about listening to them drum up a good spot of faux-righteous indignation. Behind him Julio said, ?That's right. She came to us. Again and again. Try keeping her on a shorter leash!?

?Came again and again,? Ernesto echoed with a nasty chuckle. Ali?s hands fisted, but he kept walking.

?Why did you let him beat you so bad?? He heard Julio say, as he rounded the corner.

?Bring it, if you think you could have done better.?

In Rhydin, every sunset is a melodrama.

This one was no exception, even though the day was a dreary and drizzly one. The sun had sunk into a gloom of which Catherine and Heathcliff would have thoroughly approved. As the shadows clustered, Ali huddled into his jacket and walked the last few yards up the street to their building under his wife?s watchful Eye. He?d closed the shop early and spent the better part of the afternoon trawling the lanes and byways and thousand startling instants of the Marketplace.

Now, at last, he was home, doubly satisfied with his outing as he climbed the stairs. There had been no sign that the gypsies had lingered after their heart-to-heart of the previous evening. The Watchmen he?d talked to confirmed to his utter delight that they?d exited the city by the North Highway sometime around dawn. That they?d left without Missie was a certainty: he?d been asleep and twined around Grace at that hour still, and left her sleeping soundly when he?d finally slipped out of the apartment and hobbled across the street just before nine.

The other reason he had for being pleased with the day rested in the black case in his hand. Damnably hard to find at a price he could afford, but he?d willingly parted with every last copper. Yes, he had reason enough to be pleased. Even his keys sounded cheerful as they chattered their clinking "I'm home" song in the lock: a soliloquy with a purpose, and the exclamation point at the end arrived with the door's closing behind him.

The utter quiet should have been his first inkling.

As he stood in the intersection between in and out, Siva emerged from the dark hallway with a sleepy stretch, winding and winding herself around his ankles. At least someone was happy to see him. The black case he was carrying dipped as he bent to stroke Siva?s head and murmur to her in Kheuar, ?Where is Fio??

The cat displayed the sort of magnificent unconcern that only a cat could; giving the feline equivalent of a shrug, she flopped to one hip, threw a leg up and commenced grooming her nether regions. The message was clear enough: Ask me if I care.

He sighed, straightened, and began working his way through the house, one room at a time.

The apartment was, he found, a lovely disaster. It was easy enough to assume that Rekah was out on her evening patrol with Dante. There was no sign of either one of them, and their absence early in the evening was unremarkable. Her room and Bast?s shrine were the only ones that seemed to have escaped the cyclone that had torn through the place while he was out. No pillow or couch cushion had been left unturned in the empty living room. In the bedroom he shared with Fionna, clothes were pulled from the dresser drawers and the closet and left on the floor or draped across the bed disconsolately and indiscriminately. Half the lights in the house were on, and cold cereal lay scattered on the kitchen table like someone had played a random game of jacks with it. Every room was like a dash on the curling line from one of Rekah's maps. Here and here and here, it all said as he followed the swath of disarray.

He had to stop and tell himself to calm down, remind himself that if someone had broken into the house, the spirits warding the place would have warned him. He stood in the kitchen, practicing his breathing, when he noticed the twinkle lights on the deck were on. The chickens weren?t big enough to set off the motion sensors. Fio. He reached the back door in three long strides, peered out through the glass at the lights, then opened it and stepped out onto the deck.

Not Fio, he decided as he looked her over. Missie.

Well, good. Good. She was the one he needed to talk with anyway.

(Music: Across the Universe)

He'd said he was sorry in a tone of voice that had nothing to do with chagrin or apology, and went stalking off into the depths of the house. He'd rampaged through a shower, practically tearing his own hair out in sheer frustration as he washed it. He'd done it for her. (run off two of her tiny cadre of friends, yes.) Why was she not glad to know he was still her protector, her hero? (had they ever been openly cruel to her, Ernesto and Julio? how was she to know, otherwise?) How could she call him a liar? (using the evidence of her own eyes and ears?) He?d spent all afternoon finding that trumpet for her. (so that it could remind her of the people who?d left her?)

As that wicked little voice picked and tore at his anger, as that anger ebbed into something more closely approximating exhaustion, he realized what he'd done: he'd let his eyes fool him. He?d looked at her beautiful and beloved face and only seen the adult, Fionna, not the child trapped inside. It didn't happen often. When he slipped, it was generally less harmful. This, though...this was something else, again. This was plainly mean, to yell at Missie as if she were Grace or Fio, capable of standing up for herself, of relating to him in a meaningfully adult way.

Furiously self-chastened, still afire with internalized anger and shame, he combed out his hair, dressed himself in a long-sleeved t-shirt and a pair of drawstring pants. There was a brush in one hand and a comb in the other as he limped down the hallway to return to her. She hadn't moved, really. The living room had gone dark with the fading of twilight. The kitchen light cast a long rectangular slash of brilliance across the room, but not on the couch where she lay. A finger was tucked into her mouth, and her eyes were closed.

He turned one of the floor lamps to half power, tuned the screen to play something that sounded like lullabies, or children's choirs; eased onto the couch by her head, and reached for her. It roused her enough to reap a snuffle, and a bleary blink; her face was hot and damp, and she went to him without a fuss. He eased her into his lap, pressing her face against his shoulder, stroking a ferociously warm hand down her back. The comb and brush he balanced precariously on the couch's arm, for the moment. He'd get to them in a minute. Maybe two. Right now, he was rather more concerned with breathing in her sweet, sweet smell, sighing it out into her hair; filling all the hollow spaces with the simple solace of her presence. She drew in another shudder of a breath, and hooked the finger that had been in her mouth in the neckline of his t-shirt.

?I'm sorry.? This time his apology was sincere, hardly more than a whisper.

?If they really liked me,? she sniffled into his shoulder, ?they woulda said goodbye.?

And again he said, ?I'm sorry.?

She lifted her head a little, just for a moment, at that. ?S'not your fault. People pretends to like us, but they don't.? Her face went into his shoulder again. ?Not really.?

?Marcus liked you.?

?Nuh-uh. He didn't say goodbye neither.? She took a few hard breaths.

?Is that the criter?? the criterion for loving you? Being able to look you in the eye and say goodbye? He shook his head. His lips moved idly over her forehead, paused there as he asked instead, ?Shall I brush your hair??

?Is it gonna hurt?? She gave the tangles a careless swipe.

?I'll do my very best not to hurt you, my love.?

Her fingertip, the one in his shirt, was rubbing back and forth along the little bit of his collarbone she touched. It was a fretful, idle thing, a clear sign of how upset she still was. ?'kay.?

Another Fio might have found his hands rousing, as they drifted through her hair to ease it loose from its knots around her neck. This one was more likely to find the slow and gentle touches along her face, her neck and scalp soothing; and indeed, her eyelids were already heavy. As he caressed her, they went half-lidded and drowsy. At the sight of it, of that instant and absolute trust returned, his heart was broken and made new. ?Love you,? he whispered to her.

?Ali??

?Yes?? He wielded the comb with infinite care, teasing out the tangles one at a time as she pressed her face into his shirt.

?You wouldn't ever go 'way?? Leave her all alone? was the echo in her voice. Not say goodbye?

?Not of my own will.? The spaces between their slow conversation were filled with sound: a breath, his and hers shared; the steady susurrus of his blood in his veins; the whisper of his shirt against the leather of the couch, as his arms moved with his work. ?If it ever seems like I have, then something has happened to me.?

?I don't want something to happen to you!? Alarmed at the prospect, she looked up at him, all misery again.

?I don't want anything to happen to me, either, pretty girl.? His mouth curled, though his eyes were serious above it, and mortality rode each of his heartbeats.

A voluble sigh and a shiver, and she hugged him tighter than before.

?If that ever happens,? he went on, ?I want you to go straight to Lucien and tell him.? And listen to him cheer, probably, he thought, but did not say.

?No!? Her fretfulness turned into a whine of panic?perhaps she had some hazy shared memory of all the times Fionna had clawed her way out of a grave and gone to Lucien before. He couldn?t know without asking, and there was no way he was going to ask.

?No?? His lips touched her forehead again, his breath washed over her. ?What do you think you should do, then??

?Go an' find you.? There was too much white showing around her eyes; she was close to panic.

He thought about trying to calm her down. He thought about demanding otherwise, and he thought to beg her to be careful. But if they were ever in that position?himself missing, and her alone?what right did he have to do either? How could he ask her to behave differently than he would? It was a question with a simple answer: he couldn't. And so he said, ?All right. But I won't leave you, so it won't matter.?

She looked at him a moment longer, then settled back against him uneasily. ?Promise??

?I swear on my blood and bone that of my own will, I will never leave you, Missie. I swear on Bast's name.? Softer, he asked her, ?And you won't leave me??

That was apparently enough to settle it for her, and she relaxed noticeably with the next breath. ?Never ever,? she declared with the easy confidence of a child. ?We already told the cat lady that. All of us did.?

?...you did?? He?d overheard her one conversation with Bast, late in the night; it was the tipping point, the one moment in which he realized that he couldn?t live without her. He?d asked her to marry him a week later. Were there others, that he?d missed?

?Uh-huh.? She was playing with a lock of his hair, twisting it round and round her finger and watching it spiral free again. There was a lot of hair to occupy herself with; it was more than a third of the way down his back, in heavy waves. He needed a haircut soon.

He busied himself with combing hers. ?You make me think very hard sometimes, Missie.?

?How come?? She paused mid-twirl.

?Because you're very smart in ways that it never occurs to me to be.? He was perfectly serious. She had a boundless compassion, as all of Fionna?s selves did, and a gift for befriending others?people and beings it would never in a million years have occurred to him to reach out to. What might have happened to Sinjin if she had not seduced the demon that rode Marcus with her wisdom, her ineffable sweetness?

She frowned a little, then resumed finger-combing his hair behind his ears. ?You have big ears,? she informed him solemnly.

Which?exactly proved his point. He grinned at her, all at once.

Her nose crinkled, and the beginning of a smile appeared on her own face. ?What??

?I do indeed have big ears. All the better to hear you with.? He?d been learning about the Brothers Grimm. Missie, with her fondness for monsters in stories, had a special place in her heart for the Wolf. He poked her belly with the comb and growled at her.

Giggling at that, she squirmed and settled closer; and soon enough he was recounting yet again the folktale to her.