Buckley Township, Michigan, Wednesday Evening

[firstofitskind]

"I'm assuming you know these woods," Liam said, as they hiked through the uneven, weed-snarled field toward the tree line. Rescuing a missing child hadn't been on his agenda for the first evening of the new year, but then, neither was spending the night in a murder house.

Life with Verity was always an adventure.

Verity	Verity's backpack sloshed reassuringly with every step. Large quantities of lighter fluid tended to do that. If whatever had the kid was flammable, Verity was going to set it on fire. "Nope!" she said.
Liam	Liam stopped, pivoting in place to stare at her. "Excuse me, but did you just say 'nope'?" he checked.
Verity	"Yup," Verity said, popping the 'p' for emphasis.
Liam	"But," Liam started to say. "Your family-"
Verity	"My grandmother grew up here, and my father was born here. He wasn't raised here. My Aunt Laura did most of the raising where he and my Aunt Jane were concerned, and she did it while she was traveling with the Campbell Family Carnival. We have the field guides, and we have my grandma, but I've never spent much time in these woods. Not without Grandma right there to warn me before I sat down on a bunch of igneous scorpions pretending to be a rock." Verity shrugged. "If you want to know what made that spooky sound in the woods back in Portland, I'm...well, still not your girl, because I don't do woods, generally. But if it's an alley, I can totally help you out."
Liam	"Oh," Liam said matter-of-factly, and resumed walking. "So we're going to die out here. That's understandable, I suppose. It was bound to happen sooner or later."
Verity	"When given the choice, I always vote 'later,'" Verity said. "Anyway, it doesn't matter, because we know what we're looking for."
Liam	"Care to enlighten me?" Liam asked dryly.
Verity	"Plant, big enough to eat a kid, smells like weird fruit combinations? It's a swamp bromeliad. According to Grandpa Thomas's notes, we used to have a real problem with them around here. He cleared them out as much as he could, and Grandma Alice cleared out even more, but they couldn't have wiped them out, even if they'd wanted to. Conservation before extermination, remember?"
Liam	"It's adorable how you apply that principle to things that want to eat you alive," Liam deadpanned.
Verity	"You don't sound like you think that's adorable," Verity noted.
Liam	"That's because I don't." Liam confirmed. "I thought bromeliads were a tropical species?" he asked. He'd been reading up on different cryptid species for going on two years now, but there were so many, and he'd focused more on fauna than flora, besides.
Verity	"Guess some of them didn't get the memo. Swamp bromeliads are carnivores. They mostly eat small mammals and slow birds, but they've been known to go for human prey." Verity stepped past the tree line and pulled the ultraviolet flashlight out of her pocket, clicking it on and aiming it carefully at the ground. "Don't step on anything that fluoresces. It's either going to be blood, teeth, or pee, and none of those are things you want on your shoes."
Liam	"This is the most romantic stop yet on our road trip of excitement and delight," Liam informed her.
Verity	Verity shrugged. "I just want you to know what you're getting into with married life, I guess."
Liam	Liam's laugh was soft, almost drowned out by the sound of their feet crunching through snow on the forest floor. "Verity, my love. It's been two years. By this point, while I don't doubt your ability to continue to surprise me," case in point, nearly everything that had happened on this road trip so far, "I doubt there's anything you could do that would make me think we hadn't made the right decision."
Verity	"See, you say that, but then Grandma shows up for Christmas dinner with her patron snake god, or Antimony blows up your luggage, or the mice decide to hold a ritual in honor of your penis, and bam, you're suddenly getting relationship counseling from Karolina." She tried to sound teasing, but she couldn't hide the thread of concern in her voice. She and Liam were rock solid. She knew that. At the same time, relationships didn't usually last in her line of work. Half the time, the stress got to people. The other half, tragedy.
Liam	"None of those are actually that surprising," Liam pointed out. "And in one case, have already happened, remember?" As much as he was loathe to remind her about that terrible (okay, actually really well-constructed if you ignored the subject matter) song and dance number. "That routine is going to haunt me for the rest of my living days."
Verity	"Better yet, you'll probably see it annually," Verity said, immediately cheering up a bit. As he had almost certainly intended her to.
Liam	Yes, exactly. He loved you so much, Verity, he was willingly subjecting himself to having to endure you humming that tune under your breath while they drove for the next god knew however many days. "Hooray," he sighed. "But as you can see, I'm still here, despite the fact that I now know way too many rhymes for the word 'scrotum'."
Verity	"This is me, not asking for another rendition," Verity said. "Or reminding the mice of the concept of 'remix.'"
Liam	"And see, such thoughtfulness is one of the many reasons I love you," Liam said, bumping her shoulder gently with his. "So... back to the bromeliads; if they're a native species, shouldn't you be working to find a balance?"
Verity	"Ah, but see, they're not a native species. At least, not native to Michigan. We think they originated somewhere in Polynesia and got brought over by some stupid ‘explorer' who went 'gosh, wouldn't these look pretty in my garden?' Maybe it's mean-spirited of me, but I hope they ate the jerk before they went on to become endemic in low, swampy areas." Verity stepped over a fallen log. "They're not exactly like their tropical cousins, which is why we don't consider them an exact match, but there's nothing else like them in this country, and there are no records or myths referencing them before the late 1800s, which usually means human intervention."
Liam	"Like the people who imported poison oak to England as an attractive groundcover," said Liam with a derisive snort.
Verity	"And whoever thought kudzu was a good idea," Verity agreed with a sigh. The smell of strawberries wafted from up ahead. She picked up her pace a little. "So don't worry too much about uprooting a few - we want to keep the numbers down, when we can. There's no way the two of us could wipe them out, even if we tried. They serve a purpose now, anyway. They've been here so long that they've become essential for keeping the tailypo population under control."
Liam	"There was probably a larger predator doing that once," Liam mused. He might be new-ish to cryptids, but he had a general understanding of ecosystems.
Verity	"Sure, but you know what humans do to large predators? We kill them. It's sort of our hobby. So you get things like coyotes controlling deer populations, and swamp bromeliads eating the tailypo and jackalopes that come too close." Verity shrugged. "Circle of life sucks sometimes. Anyway: they have sedative toxins on their thorns, so don't get grabbed or bitten. The smell can be really disorienting."
Liam	"Because it doesn't belong in a swamp?" Liam asked. The boys had said something about apples and strawberries, hadn't they?
Verity	"Because it contains compounds similar to those found in cannabis, and if you're one of those people who get high off swamp bromeliad pollen, you can get really high," Verity sighed. The number of people who got killed trying to get high off swamp bromeliads was a little ridiculous. That was humanity for you. "That's a big part of their hunting strategy. Get you so stoned that you don't care about the tendrils that are wrapping around your legs, and then swallow you when their sap puts you to sleep."
Liam	"That's charming," Liam grumbled, side-eyeing Verity something fierce.
Verity	"I didn't invent them!" Verity protested. "Nature did that. Save your side-eye for nature."
Liam	"Oh, believe me, if I ever meet the anthropomorphic personification of the natural world," which was not out of the question given the very strange island that the two of them currently lived on, "she and I will be having words." He sobered. "Are we retrieving a child or a body?"
Verity	"Honestly, I don't know." Verity looked at him, their faces pale and eerie in the glow from her flashlight. "Swamp bromeliads eat slow and digest slower. There's a good chance he's still alive. There's also a good chance he's overdosed on bromeliad sap and stopped breathing. Anything that knocks you out can interfere with autonomic functions. We'll know when we find him."
Liam	"And if he's... gone?" Liam said, the possibility looming uncomfortably in his thoughts.
Verity	"Then again...I just don't know." Verity's family had a mixed reputation in Buckley. The people old enough to actually remember the days when her grandparents patrolled the woods and kept local deaths to a minimum never talked about that service to the township, but they knew that the family had been on their side. For everyone younger, they were ghost stories and campfire tales, as much part of the terrible oral history of the region as Abraham Parrish and his axe. And just like him, they were frequently cast as the monsters of the piece. Though, to be fair, Abraham Parrish was the monster of the piece. The smell of apples and strawberries got stronger. Verity motioned for Liam to slow down. Swamp bromeliads didn't have ears and couldn't hear people coming, but they did have roots that ran surprisingly deep in marshy soil, and were capable of picking up vibrations. Since they were ambush predators, they were likely to spread their petals and try to entice, rather than closing up and becoming harder to see. That didn't mean they needed to be put on alert before Verity and Liam were close enough to start pruning. They stepped into a clearing. The smell of apples and strawberries was cloying, thick enough to be overwhelming. Verity stopped dead, her mouth dropping open as she played her flashlight across the area. "Oh," she said, weakly.
Liam	Liam didn't say anything. There wasn't much of anything to say. The bright-petaled flowers covering every available surface said more than enough on their own. There must have been forty bromeliads covering the ground and dripping from the trees, their roots making the bark look like it was being covered with thin white worms. About half of them were in the blooming state, their petals spread wide and pumping perfume and pollen into the air. The other half were closed, occupied with digesting their prey. None of them were bulging enough to contain the missing boy. He had to be further in.
Verity	Verity sneezed. "Okay, wow, I have never been so glad not to be one of the people who gets high off these damn things," she muttered. "Watch your step from here out. If you weren't worried about losing toes before, this is where it gets tricky."
Liam	"I like crumpets, but no one should ever have to chase a bogeyman around Euro Disney," said Liam in a reflective tone. Looked like analgesics weren't the only thing that got Liam high.
Verity	Verity's heart sank. "Fuck." She turned to face him. She couldn't tell if his cheeks were red - ultraviolet light didn't show that sort of thing clearly - but she could see that his pupils were blown out until he looked like he'd just come from the optometrist. What's more, he looked...relaxed. Utterly at peace, in that way that only the profoundly drunk can ever seem to manage. "Oh god, Liam, you gotta stop getting high off of cryptids, I'm planning an intervention."
Liam	"You're beautiful," was Liam's response to that. "Did you know? You must know. You own so many lip glosses. No one would own that many lip glosses and not know. Do you want to dance?"
Verity	"You're stoned," Verity informed him. She couldn't send him back through the woods by himself; he'd never make it out alive. Even Grandma Alice had only navigated the woods drunk once, and she'd been incredibly lucky. At the same time, they couldn't turn back now, or Neil would be a lost cause. He might still be alive. They might still be able to save him. But only if they kept going. "Fuck me sideways."
Liam	"We could, y'know," Liam beamed at her. "We had that conversation. But it's cold out here. We could dance, instead. You're so beautiful when you dance."
Verity	"Yeah, yeah, poetry in motion," Verity said, suddenly grateful he hadn't taken her up on frustrated cursing.
Liam	Only because instead he'd been pointing out that they'd had that conversation about having sex while high and he was totally fine with it. Except for how it was kind of chilly out here... "No, not poetry," Liam countered. "Not poetry at all. You're like a murder ballad in high heeled shoes. It's amazing. Dance with me, please. It's such a lovely night." It was January in a swamp in Michigan. Nothing lovely about it.
Verity	Verity blinked at him. She thought for a moment. And then, finally, she smiled. Maybe he was onto something. "All right," she said. "Let's dance." Liam had been taking lessons in ballroom for a little over a year now. He might not have been a professional, but he knew how to waltz and he knew how to tango, and when Verity stepped close and formed a proper frame with her arms, he knew where to put his hands. Keeping her eyes on the ground and her flashlight clamped in their raised hands, she began to dance with him across the clearing. Their first task was not stepping on any bromeliads. That was easier said than done: the larger blooms could be up to three feet across, but the small ones were no bigger than healthy mushrooms, and crushing them would just release more pollen into the air. Liam didn't need to get any higher than he already was. If she'd had a glass of cold water and some Benadryl to feed him, she would have.
Liam	Yeah, except who even knew how he'd react to Benadryl? ... That was probably something to consider sometime when they could afford to perform a controlled experiment. "I like this forest," Liam said, tone dreamy, as they slowly progressed toward the far side of the clearing. "The flowers are pretty."
Verity	"Pretty big, pretty dangerous, pretty much a pain in my ass," Verity said, in an agreeable tone. There was no point in arguing with him right now. Kicking a man while he was stoned off his ass on psychotropic pollen just wasn't fair.
Liam	"You're pretty too," Liam added hurriedly, lest she'd think he'd forgotten that he thought so.
Verity	"So you keep saying." Verity kicked her foot up to avoid a mid-sized bromeliad. Just a few more steps and they'd be across.
Liam	The moonlight filtering through the trees was pretty too, Liam thought. Especially the way it was glinting off Verity's wedding ring. He smiled. "I'm gonna stay with you always," he informed her, eyes still focused on that ring.
Verity	Verity stumbled, nearly stepping on a bromeliad. It was true, but just...hearing him say it out loud hit her. In a good way, but whoa. Recovering her balance - right, they were on a rescue mission - she said, "Well, here's hoping. Liam, look. If we find the missing kid, I want you to stay back and let me cut him free. You can stand guard, okay?" And not use knives near a sedated child. There were limits to how many risks Verity was willing to take with other people's safety.
Liam	"Of course." Liam nodded agreeably. "I like guarding you. It means you need me to do something."
Verity	"I need you to do a lot of things." They had reached the other side of the clearing. Verity leaned in to kiss him quickly before lowering her hands and stepping away. "Come on."
Liam	"Can't I stay with the pretty flowers?" Liam asked, voice full of wistful sincerity.
Verity	Verity's blood rand cold to hear how much he meant it. "No, honey, sorry, but the pretty flowers will dissolve the flesh from your bones and use it to nurture their sprouts, and I haven't been in Michigan enough to go all Rose For Emily yet. Come on, let's go be heroes and then we can go home and sober you up."
Liam	"Home to our apartment?" Liam asked, still hopeful. He missed his books. And their bed. And home-cooked food. They'd been married for days now and he wanted to make her something special to celebrate except they just kept driving places and eating fast food...
Verity	"Sorry again," Verity said. "Fandom's a little too far from here. We're going home to the murder house."
Liam	"Oh," Liam said sadly. The murder house was not nearly as nice as their apartment.
Verity	"I know, honey, I know." Verity turned and played her flashlight across the forest floor. According to the boys, it had been a single flower that took Neil. None of the tree-based bromeliads could have handled a meal that big without ripping its own roots out. "Just one more stop after this. Someone wants to meet--well, fuck." She'd found it: a single large bromeliad, swollen until it looked like a massive Technicolor tick. It was pulsing softly, increasing the resemblance. Verity couldn't tell if the bulge was large enough to be an intact child. That didn't really matter. "Stay here," she hissed, shoving the flashlight into Liam's hand and pulling a knife from her belt. Tendrils and tree roots caught at her feet as she made her way over to the bromeliad and carefully knelt down. With Liam effectively out of the picture, she needed to be doubly careful to avoid the poisoned thorns on the plant's creepers. "We need to come back with gas masks and clear these damn things out," Verity muttered, feeling for the edge of the big feeder petals.
Liam	"What was that?" Liam perked up. "D'you need me to come over there?" he asked, puppy-eager.
Verity	"No, stay where you are," Verity called. Her fingers found the seam between the bromeliad petals. She followed it upward, until she found the place where they all came together. Then, still being as careful as she dared, she began to slice.
Liam	"Because I would, you know," Liam reminded her. "Come over there, I mean. If you needed me."
Verity	"I know. I really appreciate it. Almost as much as I appreciate you staying right where you are and holding the flashlight for me." Verity tried not to sound frustrated, but the petals were slippery, and oddly tough, like cutting through fruit leather. She was painfully aware that a little boy's body - maybe alive, maybe already dead - was only inches from her knife, and that the wrong move on her part could make Verity, not the bromeliad, his killer. She kept slicing, trying to be as quick as she could without sacrificing her accuracy.
Liam	"Okay," Liam said, at once eager to please and also wanting to do more. But she wanted him to stay, and stay he would. "I can do that."
Verity	"Thank you!" The bromeliad pulsed under her fingers, trying, in its slow, vegetable way, to pull away from her knife. If it had been faster, it might have been able to escape. As it was, Verity just adjusted her position, still careful of the creepers, and kept on cutting. The first petal fell away, and a boy's hand flopped out of the flower, hanging limp. For one heartstopping moment, she couldn't tell whether it was still attached to an arm. Then she followed it back to the shoulder, and started breathing again, even as she started slicing faster. She knew where Neil was now. She didn't have to be as worried about hitting an artery or slicing his throat.
Neil (... sort of)	The second petal fell away, and the bromeliad lost its structural integrity, dumping the body of its prey out onto the forest floor. Neil landed in a pile of limbs and viscous sap, unmoving. He had also landed squarely on the creepers, which might explain some of his motionlessness. That much bromeliad sap would put out a full-grown adult, and he was far smaller than that. Carefully, Verity wiped her knife clean on the leg of her jeans and slipped it back into her belt before she started feeling for a pulse. There wasn't one.
Verity	"Shit," Verity hissed. Less careful of the creepers now, she wrestled him into a sitting position and smacked him twice, hard, between the shoulders. If he was dead, it wouldn't leave a bruise. If he was just having trouble remembering how to breathe, it might not help, but it wasn't going to hurt anything, either. Not at this stage.
Liam	"Verity?" Liam said, concern cutting through the bromeliad-induced haze. "What's wrong?"
Verity	"Kid doesn't have a pulse." Verity whacked him again. "We may have been too late." Of all the times for Liam to be stoned off his gourd... "Liam. Can you still use the shaqarava? Can you still control it?" It was dangerous for him to try to heal the kid in this state, sure, but what did they have to lose?
Liam	Liam held out a hand- the one not holding the flashlight- palm up, shaqarava glowing in the center. "Yes," he said solemnly, meeting her gaze. "Yes, I can."
Verity	Verity leaned back and pulled her shirt off, using it to clear most of the sap from Neil's face before she locked her arms around his torso and hoisted him over her shoulder in a fireman's carry. Her shirt, which was now ruined, wound up abandoned on the ground. That was fine. She wasn't going to want to wear it again anyway. she half-walked, half-staggered across the field of bromeliads to where Liam was waiting for her. "Trade you for the flashlight," she said, leaning in his direction so that he would take the kid away from her. Maybe asking a stoned man to carry an injured child through a dangerous forest was irresponsible, but no more so than asking him to heal.
Liam	"This is a very heavy trade," Liam said dubiously. Still, he didn't hesitate to hand over the flashlight and take the kid in exchange, holding his still-glowing palm over the boy's chest. He closed his eyes, swaying in place just slightly as he focused on clearing the drug from the boy's system.
Neil	For a long moment, nothing. And then Neil coughed, breath hitching as he began to breathe.
Verity	"You did it," Verity said, closer to tears than she really wanted to admit. "Liam, you did it you saved him."
Liam	Liam beamed down at Verity. See! He'd been able to control it, like he'd said, and now the boy was breathing again. "He'll be fine," Liam declared, certain.
Verity	"You did," Verity said, giving him a proud smile. "Let's...let's go back now. This kid has a panicked older brother waiting for him back at the murder house." As they came to the edge of the wood, it was easy to see why the boys had seized on the Parrish place as the answer to all their prayers: the porch light was like a beacon in the darkness of the field beyond the forest, calling to weary travelers who might have gotten lost within its sphere. Verity felt like a moth following a flame as she walked toward it, moving slowly, so as not to lose track of Liam. The bromeliad pollen was still working on him, although his head seemed to be clearing the further away they got: he wasn't staggering as much anymore, and his pupils were returning to their normal size. Thankfully. She wasn't sure she could cope with a sick kid, panicked siblings, and a thoroughly stoned boyfriend at the same time.
Liam	"It's very quiet here," Liam mused, when they were halfway across the field.
Verity	"Yeah," Verity agreed. "My grandma tells stories about chasing fireflies in this field."
Liam	Something was buzzing in the back of Liam's head, knowledge that was his and not-his at the same time. "Must've been very hard for the Healys to adjust," he told her, oddly certain of the truth of this statement.
Verity	Verity blinked, giving him a sidelong look. "What do you mean?" Was this more of the bromeliad pollen talking?
Liam	In a way, yes. It wasn't just muddling his thinking, but also the line between his own thoughts and memories and those that weren't his, ones that he'd spent the last ten months hiding behind painstakingly constructed mental walls. "It's always loud, in the halls of the Covenant. So many people, saying so many things." A bone-deep weariness settled over him suddenly, and he sighed. "It can be exhausting, learning not to listen to the things that don't apply to you." That second statement was more Liam than Robert. One of those lessons he'd had to learn working for beings who considered humanity drastically inferior to themselves.
Verity	Verity frowned, though more thoughtful than displeased. "Maybe it was a nice change," she said. "...It's quieter with me, isn't it?"
Liam	"Mmm," Liam hummed agreeably. "Except for the mice. Did I tell you they wrote me a song?"
Verity	"Yes and please don't sing it," Verity said, before he could start. Normally she loved the song and the many shades of red Liam turned while it was being sung, but... "You're carrying a minor."
Liam	"Aww," Liam whined, and it was a testament to how strong that bromeliad pollen was that he sounded genuinely disappointed, instead of relieved, at being stopped from singing the song.
Verity	"Maybe later," Verity said, stepping up onto the first porch step and turning to help stabilize Neil, who was still dangling limply over Liam's shoulder. "In the SUV, we'll sing it three times if you want. I'll--careful now. We don't want to drop him."
Liam	That at least seemed to mollify Liam somewhat, although by the time they were back in the SUV he would want to be singing it exactly zero times. Which Verity was fully aware of, of course. "No we don't," Liam agreed in regards to her second statement. Moving slowly together, they managed to get Neil up the steps without any incidents, where Liam waited patiently for Verity to open the door. Verity led Liam to the couch, where he carefully lay Neil down on the cushions. The boy still hadn't woken, but his breaths were coming strong and even. He'd be fine. Liam swayed slightly as he straightened, looking around the living room with a kind of drunken appreciation. "I like how the wallpaper moves," he commented thoughtfully.
Verity	No but she had promised, Liam. Promised. "Yeah, a lot of things in this house can move," Verity cautioned. "I don't want to follow Grandma Alice's lead and chase you through a rip in the fabric of reality, so stay right where you are, okay? Don't go looking for things that move."
Liam	Yeah and he would absolutely not hold you to that promise, Verity. Absolutely. "Okay," he chirped, agreeable and pliant in his current state.
Verity	Oh, don't worry, Liam. Verity would hold herself to that promise. Speaking of, his agreement was probably about as good as she was going to get. She checked to make sure that Neil was still breathing; she had Liam's assurances that the child would be okay, but still. Then she straightened and headed for the kitchen. Mary had the boys sitting at the kitchen table, sipping their water and casting doleful looks at the back window. Both of them jumped when she appeared in the doorway. Mary didn't. She had been dead for too long to be skittish. "I found your brother," she said, skipping the preamble in favor of getting straight to the important part. "He's in a bad way. Does he have any allergies?"
Andy	"No," said Andy, half-rising from his seat. "Where is he? Is he hurt? Can I see him?"
Verity	"He's not hurt, but he's been sedated by the flower that was trying to eat him. It's basically an allergic reaction. I need Benadryl. Mary, can you get some from the car?"
Mary	"On it," she said, and walked briskly to the hallway. Her footsteps stopped abruptly after that - she was gone, off to get allergy medication from the nearest convenience store.
Verity	Verity hoped she was paying for the stuff, but under the circumstances, she wasn't going to get too worked up about it. She turned her attention to the boys, who both looked terrified. Good. "I'm going to do what I can for your brother. You can come into the living room if you want to, but I need you to stay out of the way, you understand?" Liam had ensured the boy would live, but Verity didn't want the boys to get unruly in their excitement.
Andy	"Please don't let him die," said Andy, in a very small voice.
Verity	"I'm trying," Verity said. She turned her back on them and walked back into the living room. They would follow or not depending on what they needed. In the meantime, she needed to finish fixing a little boy.
Mary	Mary was already back from her Benadryl run, crouched down next to Neil and holding a small plastic cup to his lips. Liam was sitting on the floor next to the couch, his head in his hands. The bromeliad pollen must have been wearing off, and leaving him with one clanger of a headache. "How's the kid?" Verity asked. "His breathing's steady, and his heartbeat is strong," said Mary. She looked up, meeting her niece's eyes with her empty highway stare. "He's going to live." She glanced at Liam. "Not sure how, but he got some serious care before I got back with the Benedryl. That probably saved his life."
Verity	Verity let out a slow breath, then gave a very deliberate shrug. Liam's abilities were his secret to share - or not - not hers. "Sometimes the fates are kind, I guess."
Mary	"Not usually," Mary said, giving Neil another drink. "Anyway, next time he might not be so lucky. He'll be sensitive after a dose this big. If he gets hit again, he could go into anaphylactic shock and die."
Joe	"We won't take him back into the woods, we swear," said Joe. The boys were standing in the doorway, staring at Neil. "We didn't want to take him this time."
Verity	"You two shouldn't have been out there, either," Verity said. "Where do you live? I'll drive you home."
Andy	"Mill Road," said Andy. "Joe's sleeping over."
Verity	Verity's heart sank. Of course. "I think I know the house," she said. *** Walking the boys up the steps of her family home was difficult, and not just because Neil was still asleep. His breathing had evened out. By morning, he'd be right as rain. No, the difficulty came when their mother opened the door and looked at Verity like she was a monster. Verity could see it in her eyes - she knew who this tiny blonde woman with her son in her arms was. She also knew that Verity didn't live in Buckley, that she was a visitor at best and a tourist at worst. To be in town the night her youngest son was hurt... It wasn't going to matter that Verity had saved him. All people would remember was that she had been the one to bring him, pale and wan, back home. Verity drove back to the Parrish house in silence, her hands clenched tight on the wheel and her eyes fixed on the road. Even seeing the porch light welcoming her home didn't help her mood.
Mary	Liam and Mary were in the kitchen, him slowly sipping from a mug of black tea, her leaning up against the counter. She smiled when she saw her niece. "It's been fun, but I need to go," she said. "Ghost things. You going to be okay without me?"
Verity	"I have been so far," Verity pointed out.
Mary	Mary snorted. "That's what you think," she said, and disappeared, leaving the newlyweds alone together.
Verity	Verity walked over and sat down across from Liam, reaching out to take his hand. "How are you feeling?"
Liam	"Like an idiot," Liam admitted. "With a killer headache." He made a face. "I didn't really anticipate being so affected by that pollen." Getting stoned off his gourd (again) was embarrassing, and bad enough. But there was the other thing too; the part where Robert's memories were now much closer to the surface than they had been.
Verity	"You never know who will be until it's too late." Though at this point, they might be smarter to start just assuming Liam will be and taking precautions. "At least the stuff wears off quickly. And even high as a kite, you managed to heal Neil. That's pretty awesome."
Liam	"That's true," Liam allowed, a hint of a smile appearing on his face. "So. This is where your family comes from, huh?"
Verity	"Yup." Verity shrugged. "This is as bad as it gets." And times like this, it was pretty bad. Fuck, she wished she had some coffee.
Liam	There was tea? Liam wasn't sure whether it was old and had been kicking around the kitchen for a while, or something Mary had picked up during one of her 'trips to the car', and he was making a conscious decision not to try and figure that out. "Well," he said slowly, over another sip of said tea, "I seem to remember promising something about always being by your side? Pretty sure that includes the bad stuff as well as the good."
Verity	"How do you feel about pushing on?" Verity asked. "I know the plan was to crash here tonight, but..." She ran her hands over her eyes. God, she was tired. But more emotionally than physically. "Get a few more hours in, catch a hotel?"
Liam	"Completely okay with that," Liam confirmed. Yes, he was willing to stick out a night in the murder house if she wanted, but if she was offering an out, he wasn't stubborn enough to not jump at the opportunity. A beat. "Where are we going next, anyway?" he wondered. They weren't too far from the east coast now, after all. Practically home!
Verity	"New Orleans," Verity said. "There's one more thing we have to do before we go home." Her Aunt Rose wanted to meet him.
Liam	"New Orleans?" he echoed, frowning. "But that's-" He stopped. Took a deep breath. Grinned. Because the fact that it was kind of out of the way didn't really matter, not if she had a reason for them to head there. "Okay. Let's go."
Verity	"You make sure we're not leaving anything behind while I round up the mice?" Verity asked.
Liam	"On it," he promised, standing up and pressing a kiss to the top of her head before moving over to the sink to rinse out the mug from his tea.
Verity	And fifteen minutes later, they were on the road again heading for their last stop. The Big Easy, here they come.

[ooc: Part 2 of 2! Adapted from Seanan McGuire's Swamp Bromeliad, and preplayed with the marvelous arboreal_priestess. NFB & NFI.]