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sakon76Second Chances
by K. Stonham
first released 2nd March 2022
September rolls around, and with it a new school year.
Douxie has managed to pull off the impossible, and has tested into ninth grade, so he's starting high school with his peers. Jim, never the best of students, is frankly amazed, and so proud of Douxie that he almost doesn't know what to do with himself. It doesn't hurt that Douxie's pretty damn proud of himself, too, especially on the day they get his results back.
The intake interview with Principal Uhl takes some time. It's not that Douxie's the first wizard going through the school during Uhl's tenure, or the first foster care student. But he's possibly the first student who combines those two situations, and is thus a little more volatile than the others.
But Uhl remains unflappable, as easily taking Douxie under his wing as he'd once upon a time done for Aja and Krel.
Which ends up being kind of a funny story, actually... because almost half of Steve and Aja's royal half-Akiridion brood will be Douxie's classmates this year. Maja, Daja, and Eli Junior are staying with their uncle and enrolling in Arcadia Oaks High as foreign exchange students.
"Well," Krel says with a shrug, "at least the four of them can be 'odd ducks' together?"
Jim eyes him. "Are the other four coming next year?"
Krel snorts. "No. Two, then two. I will not be dealing with the bulk of my sister's offspring at any given time. I am not that foolish. That is what she and the blond oaf have nannies for."
Douxie and the Akiridions take to high school like they were born for it. He's gifted in music and theater; between the three of them, the pseudo-triplets are brilliant in all the various maths and sciences. It's the social studies classes that make them all work hard together, and Jim gets used to coming home to find Aja's offspring taking over his living room, or having to go to Krel's place to retrieve Douxie for dinner.
Miss Janeth, it turns out, adores Douxie. He suits her sense of appropriate high drama.
And in mid-October, a dragon descends on the town.
Jim is one of the many who nearly drive their cars off the road. Even in Arcadia Oaks, invasion by giant flying serpent isn't common, and he was on a run for groceries. But then instinct kicks in and he wheels the vehicle around, heading for the town square.
Heading for GDT Arcane Books.
By the time he gets there, the crowd is thick and the immense black dragon is arguing with a pink-haired witch in front of the HexTech shop. "I'm telling you, he's not here, dimwit!" Zoe snaps as Jim shoves his way to the front. She spies him and points with a hot pink fingernail. "Ask him, he's the Trollhunter!"
Jim manages to glare a conveyed sarcastic thanks at her before the dragon picks him out of the crowd and studies him myopically.
The dragon is black through and through and Jim has absolutely never seen it before in his life, but the dragon blinks and asks in an astonished voice, "Jim Lake?"
It's been a decade and a half since Jim's heard that voice, and it certainly wasn't as deep and rumbly then as it is now, but he's not the Trollhunter for nothing, so he squares up his shoulders incredulously and asks "Archie?"
"Where is he?" the dragon demands, laser-focused.
"Where are your glasses?" Jim retorts, crossing his arms because he is not impressed.
Archie blinks. "Oh. I quite forgot them. My apologies." He takes a pair of gold-rimmed spectacles out of nowhere and settles them on his nose. "Oh, that's much better," he says happily, no longer squinting. "Now, as to my question...?"
"He's at home. Probably. Or he was when I went to the store," Jim replies.
"Oh, very good. And where's that?"
Jim sighs. "Just follow me," he says, and walks back to his car.
The dragon trails him all the way home. Once he's parked, Jim looks at the dragon, then at his house. "I don't suppose you can still shapeshift...?" he asks dubiously.
Archie actually looks contrite. "I'm afraid not. Without my wizard, I'm not a familiar. And if I'm not a familiar, I'm stuck as a dragon."
Jim sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose. "Gimme just a minute," he says, and goes inside.
Douxie is in his room, sitting cross-legged on his bed, eyes closed, listening to music. His fingers twitch, and Jim suspects he's trying to play whatever he's listening to.
Jim knocks on the door frame, then, when that elicits no response, walks inside and raps gently on Douxie's forehead. Gold and green eyes open and Douxie tugs his earbuds free. "You've got a guest," Jim tells him. "He's waiting outside."
Douxie's face wrinkles in confusion, but he follows Jim down the stairs.
Outside, Archie is prancing nervously from paw to paw, almost like an overexcited puppy, or a kid just waiting until he's able to open his Christmas presents.
Or like someone who's scared he's about to get life's biggest disappointment right in the kisser.
Douxie freezes on the porch, and he and Archie stay stock-still, staring at one another for what feels like forever.
Then Douxie's expression breaks, and he's running to the dragon, and Archie sobs and folds the teenager up against him with one great paw, his wings sheltering the young wizard from view.
Archie was solid black. By the time his wings unfold, there's a white mark like a "Q" on his chest, and Douxie is ugly-crying, wrecked and snotty like he hasn't been in months. Jim's heart twinges and he steps forward in worry, but then he realizes these are tears of relief. "I missed you," Douxie's crying against the dragon's hide. "I missed you, I missed you, and I didn't even know I was missing you--"
Jim's heart seizes up inside him, because he suddenly realizes that Douxie isn't theirs. He's Archie's, he's always been Archie's. And he's going to leave with Archie, go off to wherever Charlemagne's hidden lair is and finish growing up there.
Leaving Jim and Claire alone, in the house that feels like it was made to fit three.
He represses the urge to cry, to scrub tears from his eyes, because he should have known it was always going to end this way. He and Claire were only temporary caretakers, and this is what's best for Douxie, to grow up fully immersed in the world of magic again, not with just half a foot in the door the way Arcadia Oaks is.
It's best for him, so it's what will be. Jim will talk it over with Tim and Kendra, they'll figure out a plan for the legal end of things, the three of them, so that Douxie will be covered and okay if he ever wants to rejoin human society as an adult.
It will be okay.
It will be.
It will.
"Well," Jim says, his voice a little rough, "now that you're a familiar again, maybe you should shapeshift and come inside, Archie."
Douxie and Archie, a cat once more, end up cuddling on the sofa while Jim goes to the kitchen and tries to distract himself by making snacks. What do dragons even like to eat? He knows they're obligate carnivores, so he goes with that and makes some steak tartare to go on crackers, and then some salmon tartare as well, for the hell of it, after texting Claire about the situation.
He hopes Archie won't take Douxie away before she can get home and say goodbye. There might be legitimate time constraints going on for the dragon's visit, but surely Archie wouldn't be that cruel...?
Jim carries the tray of hors d'oeuvres into the living room to find Douxie telling Archie excitedly about the auditions for the school play, and how he'd won the second lead role, Eli Junior having inherited his father's acting talent and narrowly edging him out for the main. "Oh my," Archie says, looking at the snacks. "These look delicious. One does get tired of bloodberry pies after a while."
"Help yourself," Jim says, and Archie does. His eyes blow wide at the first taste, which is actually kind of funny and a little bit gratifying amid Jim's heartache. "Are you sure I can't take you home with us?" he asks.
Jim laughs. "Sorry. I have a life here."
"Home?" Douxie asks.
"Yes. With myself and Nari," Archie replies. "And Dad's been quite raring to see you again, you know, ever since we found out you were alive."
"But... this is home," Douxie says, his eyes big. "I thought you'd come to stay with me."
Archie stares at him, then swallows. "Doux, I can't stay here. Someone has to protect Nari."
"But I need to stay here, Arch," Douxie says. "This is my home. And I don't know enough--" He stops, swallows. "I can't remember things," he says, miserable. "I'm not a good wizard yet, I can barely use half my bracelet."
"But we could be together," Archie protests, and Jim suddenly realizes it's not just his heart breaking in this room. It's all three of theirs.
Jim swallows. "Douxie." The boy looks at him. "Archie could teach you magic," he says. "And Claire and I would miss you. But you need to do what's best for you. If that's going with Archie, that's what you should do."
Douxie looks torn. He's only fourteen, and he's being asked to decide his whole future. "I--" he says, and his throat closes up.
Which is when Claire gets home.
She sits next to Jim, and all four of them try to find a solution that doesn't involve Douxie being torn apart one way or another.
They don't.
Finally Claire breathes out a long, shaky breath, and stands, going to the mantel. She takes down Douxie's staff, his sign of mastery, and brings it back over to them. "I was waiting to give this back to you until you'd mastered your bracelet," she tells their foster son. "But whether you stay here or go with Archie, I think I need to give this to you now." And she hands over the staff.
The minute it's in Douxie's hand, the gem flares blindingly bright, so much so that Jim has to close his eyes and shield them with his hands. It's like staring at the sun, but a thousand times worse because it's so close by. It's silent, though, so much so that he can clearly hear Douxie's ragged, almost panicked, breathing.
Then the crystal dims to almost nothingness, all at once, and he can look at the young wizard again.
Douxie's pale, paler than usual, even, and his eyes are wider than Jim's ever seen them. He looks terrified.
Douxie looks from his staff to his familiar to Jim and Claire. His fingers tremble.
And then his eyes roll back in his head and he passes out.
Jim is pretty sure that whatever timeline Archie had for this visit has been shot to hell. After Jim carried Douxie up to his room and deposited him on his bed, Archie had settled in next to the teenager, refusing to leave him for love or salmon tartare. Jim, being less than heartless, had brought up the rest of the hors d'oeuvres along with Douxie's staff, settling one by the dragon and the other by the wizard while he himself went downstairs, finally brought the groceries in from the car, and started working on dinner.
Claire helps him, quiet and miserable. "We got too attached," she murmurs. "All three of us. When you and I, at least, knew he belonged with his familiar, and we knew Archie needs to protect Nari...."
Jim tries to breathe through the pain. "It's good that Douxie's attached to us," he says eventually. Claire gives him a look. "Psychologically," Jim amends. "It means he's able to make connections, to grow past all the shit living on the streets did to him--"
"But it still hurts," Claire says, and Jim puts down his paring knife and turns, taking her in his arms, letting her cry into his shirt while he rocks back and forth. Eventually she sniffs. "I didn't think I'd grow to love him like this."
"Yeah. Me either," Jim admits, and now he gets it, really gets it, what parents say about their kids being like their hearts wandering around outside their chests.
"It'll be better for him," Claire says, wiping her eyes. She sounds like she's trying to convince herself. "He'll be better off with Archie, and Nari. He'll be safe there. No one can hurt him...."
"But I don't want to go," a soft voice says from the doorway, and it's Douxie, with Archie draped over his shoulder, his staff held in the opposite hand.
They end up ordering pizza, because Jim does not trust himself with a knife right now, and the tossed salad he and Claire had been working on will go perfectly well with cheesy fatty double pepperoni. Douxie keeps an iron grip on his staff, and Archie never breaks off physical contact with him as they move to the living room, jumping from Douxie's shoulder to his lap.
"I can't--" Douxie says, then shakes his head, rapping at its side. "It's all messed up in here. I remember Camelot, sort of, but it's like a dream or a story. I don't.... Archie," he addresses the cat-shaped dragon in his lap, "what were we doing in the 1800s?"
The dragon looks alarmed. "We were in the Caribbean for part of it, doing a spot of piracy. You don't remember that?"
"We were pirates?" A smile ghosts across Douxie's face. "Wicked." But he shakes his head again. "It's all going in and out of focus, and I can't...." He looks up. "Where's Merlin?" he asks plaintively. "He's the master of time, he could help me with this."
Archie and Claire have identical looks of horror on their faces. "What do you remember about him, Douxie?" Claire asks carefully.
"He was... we built the tomb, right?" Douxie double-checks with Archie, who nods. "And then... I don't remember."
Claire swallows.
"He's dead, Douxie," Archie says softly. "He was killed by Arthur, and the Arcane Order."
Absolute shock writes itself over Douxie's face. "No," he protests. "No, Arthur's dead, he's been dead for centuries." A shrill little panicked laugh. "How could he kill Merlin? Merlin can't be dead," he says plaintively. "Merlin can't die!"
"I'm so sorry, Douxie," Claire says, leaning forward to cup the side of his face in her hand.
Douxie looks broken. "He can't be dead," he says. "I can't lose--" And he breaks down crying again, but this time it's not from relief. The opposite, in fact.
Jim's jaw sets, and he shifts to sit by Douxie, pulling the boy into himself. Douxie's cried on him dozens of times by now in the process of breaking himself apart and putting himself back together stronger. Jim knows how to do this, knows what his boy needs.
Archie doesn't object, just watches anxiously.
Maybe Douxie isn't Archie's anymore. Maybe he's theirs, Jim's and Claire's and Archie's all together at the same time.
Archie doesn't leave that night. He waits until Douxie is asleep, clutching his staff like a toddler might hold onto a blanket or stuffed toy, then comes down to where Jim and Claire are waiting for him.
Archie adjusts his glasses, then, finally, speaks first. "He can't come with me," he says. "He's in no fit emotional state to deal with fending off the Arcane Order."
Jim nods. "Agreed." And he can't guarantee that the dragon's familiar will be safe here, but... it's Arcadia Oaks. Douxie's got as high a chance of slipping under the radar here as he does anywhere.
"What happened to him, do you know?"
Jim closes his eyes, takes a breath, and begins the long, painful process of telling the dragon just what his familiar had endured before they'd found him.
Archie is shocked, and nearly weeping by the end of it. "That's... you humans are so barbaric," he accuses, and Jim can't disagree. "And I am in no way equipped to deal with that sort of trauma."
Jim nods, then hesitantly lays out his best solution. Douxie still needs to heal, perhaps especially now that his previous life is coming back to him and tangling up with his current one. And he needs socialization, and the stability having a human identity, documented in paper and computer, will be able to offer him. "Four years," Jim bargains with the dragon. "Let us have him for four years, until he's done with high school." Then Douxie can go off into the wide world of magical adventures, hopefully mentally stable enough and magically skilled enough to protect himself.
Archie is clearly following Jim's train of thought. "Yes," he agrees, nodding. "I think that would be best. Though I would hope," he adds plaintively, "that I might be allowed to visit, from time to time."
Claire laughs and scratches Archie under his chin. "You're welcome to visit as often as you'd like," she tells him.
Archie leaves in the morning, after having a talk with Douxie which Jim refuses to spy on. If they wanted him to hear, they would have had it in the living room.
Three weeks later, Claire discovers she's pregnant.
Jim is initially over the moon, ecstatic. They hadn't been trying, but they hadn't not been trying either, for years, pretty much just reasoning that it would happen when it happened, and if it hadn't happened by the time they were getting really serious about it, they'd make appointments and figure out what they were doing wrong.
Except then he looks around, and realizes Douxie's disappeared.
"Shit," Jim swears, alerting Claire to the dilemma.
"I'll check the yard," she tells him. Douxie has a favorite spot half hidden behind the orange tree.
"I'll check the house," Jim agrees, and kisses her on the cheek. Claire smiles at him and disappears out the door.
Douxie's not in the basement, so Jim heads upstairs to check his room next. Most people wouldn't be able to spot him, but Jim knows the telltale shape of Douxie hiding in his nook on the other side of the bed. He goes and sits down next to him, finding Douxie's got Claire's old acoustic guitar on his lap. But the strings are silent. "What's up?" Jim asks.
He never knows these days if he's dealing with fourteen-year-old Douxie, or nine-hundred-and-thirty-three-year-old Douxie. But the difference really isn't as great as some people might think, so it's not a surprise either way when his foster son says, "Guess I should have gone with Arch, then."
"What are you talking about?"
Douxie gives a half shrug. "I mean, you're getting a kid of your own. You'll probably want this room for a nursery," he says, looking around at the walls he's decorated with a few band posters. His fingerprint is all over the room: school books stacked on the desk, staff leaning in the corner of the room, magic crystals and gadgets heaped under the window, soaking up the sunlight. There's even a mobile in the corner, wizard hats and witch's broomsticks, that had made Douxie laugh when he found it in a store leading up to Halloween. "I should... get in touch with Arch. Go with him to Charlemagne's lair." His fingers tighten on the guitar, and he must think it's less obvious than it is that leaving is the last thing he wants.
Jim picks his words carefully. "I would have thought you'd be happy about having a little sister, or brother."
Douxie's eyes go wide.
"I mean, Claire doted on Enrique when she was about your age," Jim says, "and I loved watching the triplets when they were little. But I get that babies aren't everyone's thing."
"I thought...." Douxie swallows. "You stopped talking about adopting me," he whispers. "After I got some of my memories back. I thought you thought I was too old now, or something."
Jim leans against him, reaches over to pull Douxie's head so it rests against his. "We stopped talking about it because we wanted you to get your head on straight before we moved forward," he says quietly. "Not because we want you any less, Doux."
And there's the waterworks, practically on cue. Douxie scrubs his eyes with his sleeve and sniffs. "I do," he says in a strangled voice. "I mean, you're Jim, and you're also Jim, and sometimes that's confusing, and Claire's my student but she's also my teacher and my mam and it gets all mixed up, but...."
"But we're family," Jim says softly for him, and Douxie nods. "All right. We'll start the paperwork in the morning, then. And do you want a name change to go with it? Hisirdoux Casperan Lake, officially?" he asks.
Douxie nods, and leans against him, guitar abandoned, holding on tight.
The wheels of government turn slowly, but sometimes grind exceedingly fine. Claire is almost excessively pregnant by the time the three of them get to stand before a judge and be ruled officially, legally, family. The judge, in fact, eyes her warily and suggests to the bailiff that perhaps Mrs. Lake might be offered a chair. Claire, no glutton for punishment, takes it. But her expression is as beaming as Jim's and Douxie's when all is said and done and they walk out of the courthouse.
Two days later, she goes into labor.
It's a long process, and Jim learns that his wife has a wider vocabulary than he knew, but at the end of it Claire is beaming again, with an unhappy red-faced little baby wailing in her arms.
"Poor kid." Claire kisses the striped stocking hat on top of the baby's head. "Your first day on Earth, and it's already your worst."
Jim holds his daughter's hand, marveling at just how tiny and perfect her fingers are. They're wrinkled, which he guesses makes sense. She's just been in a bath for nine months, after all.
Nana Barbara and Gampa Walt come in, with Douxie lingering behind. He stays in the corner, out of the way, even after the first two grandparents leave and the next two come in, Abuela Ophelia and Abuelo Javier as excited as their fellow grandparents. After a while, though, Claire starts to yawn and her parents apologize and leave, content with having held their granddaughter.
"Douxie," Claire says, tired but happy, "you haven't held your sister yet."
Douxie detaches himself from the corner and comes closer, taking the baby. "Do you even know what her name is?" he asks, waving a finger above the baby's face. Her eyes aren't developed enough yet to track the motion, but her pupils dilate.
Claire laughs. "You pick," she tells him.
"Me? But I'm--"
"You're her big brother," Jim tells him. "Who better?" They'd decided on a boy's name, but they'd never been able to find a girl's name they both liked.
"Jim wants to name her Petunia," Claire complains. "She's not flour."
"It's better than Jamie," Jim replies. "The last thing this family needs is for the poor kid to be saddled with a third after her name." His eyes are fast on his son and his daughter.
Douxie sits down in a chair by the bed, still holding the infant. "I've no idea what to name a baby."
"Well," Jim says, "what's the prettiest name you know?"
Douxie thinks a minute, then suggests mischievously, "Archie."
Jim and Claire both stare at him for a second, then break out in giggles. Douxie grins.
"What about...." He trails off. "What about Theophania?" he suggests softly. "It's old, she can be called Tiffany in school." Gold and green eyes glance up. "It's a proper witch's name."
Jim and Claire's eyes both widen. "She's...? You're sure?" Claire asks.
"Mm-hmm. With you as parents, how could she not be?" Douxie asks. He dangles his finger over his sister's face for a moment longer, then slips it under one of her hands. Her fingers curl around his. "I'm going to teach you everything I know," he promises, kissing her cap, then stands and hands her back to Claire. "My baby sister's going to be brilliant," he says.
The hospital doesn't have rules about troll visitation so much as it has physical limitations, so baby Theophania doesn't get to meet the rest of her family for a few more days, until they take her home. Because there's no way Aaarrrgghh would fit through the hospital room door, and there's no way Blinky would come meet his granddaughter without his partner.
"Hmph. Small and squirmy like all you humans." Nomura runs a finger down baby Theo's cheek.
"Nonsense!" Blinky snaps, as delighted a grandparent as any of Theo's others. "She is absolutely perfect for her age and developmental levels." He then leans over to Jim and inquires, "How long until I may start loaning her books, Master Jim?"
Jim laughs and picks up his daughter from the baby sling chair where she's waving her mittened fists around like they're spaceships trying (badly) to land. "About five to ten years, Blinky. Until then, you have to read them to her."
"Marvelous!" Blinky declares, clearly already making plans.
"Another rugrat," says NotEnrique. "Like this crazy fam don't got enough of them already." But his eyes linger on the little girl as Aaarrrgghh accepts her from Jim and begins, so gently, to rock her.
Four people in a two-bedroom house is a squeeze. Jim and Claire's bedroom is slightly larger than Douxie's, so fitting in a bassinet and a changing table with drawers was doable, but just barely. When Theophania gets bigger, though, they're going to need a better solution.
"Maybe we should buy a bigger house," Jim says at the dining table one Sunday morning. Claire's nursing the baby, completely over her initial hesitation at breastfeeding in front of her teenage son.
"But this is our home," Douxie protests. "I mean, it's got the tunnel to the gyre, and it's close to everyone important. I don't want to move."
"There's not much that's bigger in this area," Claire agrees, switching Theo from one nip to the other.
"But we're outgrowing it," Jim says, and huffs. He doesn't want to sell their little home, but at the same time he can see the looming need for it. "And whenever Theo needs her own room, I don't want to just shove her into your space," he tells Douxie. "You need your own room too."
Douxie bites his bottom lip, then says, "I could move into the basement."
"What? No!" Jim protests.
Douxie sighs, and it's clear that he's been thinking about it. "Walt and Roger have their room set up in your mam's basement," he points out to Jim, the secret to how a five-person family manages to still fit in the two-bedroom house Jim grew up in, "and it's pretty nice. We could dob together something like that for me."
"Douxie," Claire says.
"I'm not saying right now," Douxie says, stroking a finger over Theo's downy hair. She pauses her suckling momentarily, looking up to see who's touching her. "But she's going to need to be right next door to you more than I am, soon."
Jim and Claire exchange a glance. Douxie's nightmares came back in force after he started getting his last-life memories back. And while it's true they've tapered off since, tapered off isn't the same as none.
"We'll think about it," Jim says. "We've got time."
