A/N: Well, when in quarantine, gotta' keep yourself busy right? Hope all of you are safe and healthy!


"Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art... It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things which give value to survival." C.S. Lewis


Elaine grimaces as the flash nearly blinds her, amorphous dark spots floating in her vision long after the picture was taken. That'll turn out lovely, she thinks sarcastically. "Stop," Ai and Ziva laugh from where they lounge on the couch, partially visible through the connecting entryway between the kitchen and the sitting room.

Cross, ignoring the Druid's exasperated tone, clicked through the screen on the back of his camera. "But you look so pretty here!"

Rolling her eyes, Elaine turned her attention back to the freshly baked tarte tatin she had just removed from the hot oven. The edges of the pastry were a flaky, golden brown and the sweet scent of caramelized apples permeated throughout the house. "Aunty Hex!" The Pureblood bemoans, draped across the back of the couch with a gracefulness that mortals simply will never possess. "Is it done yet?"

"Almost, love." Elaine's right cheek dimples as she grins crookedly at the childish whine in the Kuran's voice. It reminded her of Yuki, back when she was a simple mortal girl whose only concerns were her prefect duties and improving her class grades. "It's very hot." Cross had taken up at the kitchen table, camera near his elbow while he sips his tea. Wiping her hands on the kitchen towel thrown over her shoulder, Elaine eyes Cross contemplatively. Her own bright hair was growing colder with thicker, coarse streaks of grey and the passage of time making itself ever more known in the lines around her mouth and eyes and the stiffening of her joints. Cross is unchanged, looking just as he had when Elaine first met him in her family's glittering ballroom.

"What?" Cross blinked owlishly. "Do I have something on my face?"

"No," Elaine's tone is thoughtful. "I was just thinking."

Cross chuckles. "That's never reassuring." He laughs harder at the expression Elaine levels at him. "Go on, tell me what's on your mind."

Pursing her lips, Elaine turns and reaches into one of the kitchen cabinets for a pile of plates. The fundamental element to fresh tarte tatin was to serve it after it had cooled enough that mouths wouldn't be burned but warm enough that a scoop of vanilla ice cream would melt perfectly over sugary apples slices. "Sometimes I worry about you."

"Why?" Cross exclaims. "I'm far safer than I have ever been!"

"I just feel as if you're lingering, patiently waiting to fulfill whatever self-imposed debt to Juri you feel beholden to. But there are other things that people are relying on you for. You're deserving of some things for simply your own sake, Kaien." There's more to life than regret. It had taken Elaine many years to learn that lesson, but in her heart it felt true.

Cross is silent for a long moment, and Elaine wonders if she'd traversed a deeply gouged, unspoken line. There was much excruciating pain in both of their lives, memories and emotions that were ineffable but acutely hurtful nonetheless. It had been many years since Juri or Haruka Kuran's names had been spoken aloud, by anyone, and even hearing her own voice shape around the sounds of the deceased Pureblood's name was strange to Elaine. But the Druid was no fool, and as she aged and knew the ways of human emotion, Cross' feelings were discernable.

"Oh?" He quietly asks into his mug.

"Yes," Elaine says casually, carefully navigating this moment. "I will not be able to advise Yuki forever. And someone must keep an eye on Hanabusa. While Ronan is an amazingly talented Druid and Ziva is steadfast and astute, elegant patience is not one of my children's' virtues."

"Ziva's got a good head on her shoulders." Cross deflects as the younger girl and Ai meander into the kitchen. The Druid's younger child cocks her head slightly at hearing her own name.

"Yes," Elaine smiles affectionately and brushes some loose hair from her daughter's face and tucks it behind her ear. "She's very much like her father. Problems are solved by irreparably maiming them."

Ai giggles into her hand, dark eyes bright while Ziva just shrugs and allows her mother to smooth the hair that had escaped the elastic band at the back of her head. "Everyone I maim deserves it." Both girls join Cross at the table, loudly begging for a piece of the French dessert. Hovering her open palm over the skillet, Elaine determines it's cooled enough for safe consumption and slices four servings and rests a scoopful of ice cream atop each piece. Ai hunches forward and inhales noisily at the plate placed in front of her.

"It smells so good, Aunty!" She sighs happily.

"Thanks, Mom." Ziva had already shoveled a forkful into her mouth and struggles to speak around her chewing. "S'good,"

"You're welcome," It is a strange thing, the human psyche, in how it ignites or connects seemingly random points into a coherent narrative. Elaine silently watches as Ai elegantly spoons a piece into her mouth, the stylishly coiffed hair and lacy garments never mussed or stained – even when she was a small child. Dabbing daintily at her lips with a napkin, the Pureblood comments on the uncaring manners of her friend. Ziva is much like her father – blunt and independent and unequivocal – and Elaine adores her. In response to her friend's teasing, the young huntress sticks out her tongue – half chewed food and all – without abashment. Cross, plate pushed to the side, is snapping candid photos. The camera does nothing to hide the wide grin pulling at his lips.

Years ago, the Druid felt alone and hopeless. Bloodied and ill, Rido Kuran's bite marks still trickling blood and magical fever burning up her veins – Elaine would have been content to just die. Much of her young life had been fearful, flinching from shadows because she had known full well what lurked within them. Never would she believed that her life would come to this, a safe home for her own children with a spouse who loved her, friends and family happily welcome under its roof.

"Please don't give up, Ambrosia-sama."

Juri and Haruka Kuran would never know how indebted Elaine was to those words.


Yagari turns to her one day and asks, "When are you going to give it up?"

"Not today," Elaine replies. It is not the right time, she will know when it is. "I ascended far younger than any Old One ever should. I will not put that same burden on Ronan."

"He can handle it," Yagari retorts, begrudgingly accepting the no-win situation. If the hunter had his way neither his wife nor son would be required to carry such a weight. But Elaine taught the boy to be wise and just with his powers, and Yagai taught him to be smart. It was every parent's hardest realization that all you can do is teach your children the best you're able, and hope they will do well with it. Unlike both of his parents, Ronan was charismatic and gregarious, people just liked the boy. Influential vampires, magi, and mortals couldn't help but be drawn to him – counsel and advisement would come naturally to him. And if some unfortunate soul did mistreat him, his protective younger sister would not hesitate to show them the error of their ways. And if anything was left after Ziva's rampage, Antonio would clean up the rest.

"I know," Elaine agrees with a soft smile. "But I want to let him be unchained for as long as I am able." She would give her children a better world, a better life, than hers. It was an oath, sacred and sworn, in the face of a horde of death and destruction.

Yagari snorts and shakes his head. "You and Cross are so annoyingly optimistic." There's more grey streaks in his wild hair than in her memory, but he's still painfully handsome. Grinning, she fists a hand into the lapel of his shirt and tugs him toward her upturned face for a kiss.

"I'm a realist," She defends after a breath.

"And I'm traumatized." Zero's voice turns both mortals' heads. The ex-human is leaning against the doorjamb, folded into a crisp black coat that flutters at his ankles and hair damp from the beginnings of a storm outside.

"You'll live," Yagari rolls his eyes but ruffles the other wet hair's in a parental gesture that reminds Elaine of a past life. Zero scowls but surrenders to the treatment, and the Druid chuckles at the emotional stubbornness of both men – neither ever admitting they enjoyed this type of handling from the other. "And you better not be here to summon me for an 'emergency'. The old lady over there is pissed enough how much time I spend at the Association as it is…"

"I'm here for the 'old lady', actually."

Elaine scowled. "I don't like how that's catching on." Yagari smirked and flicked her nose. Zero observes the casual touches wordlessly, reflecting that his younger self had never understood such things. However, now, with maturity and the long endless expanse of time before him he felt that he had grasped the emotional desires he'd once shunned as useless and a weakness. The Druid and hunter, at ease like this, reminded him of Aido and Wakaba. Or any of the Old Ones and their spouses – it went beyond just affection or attachment, there was true partnership.

"Zero," Elaine reached out one finger and tapped the ex-human on the forehead. "You'll strain something if you think too hard."

"You're a bad influence on her." Zero gave his master an unamused glance. Yagari shrugged, taking the statement as a compliment. Elaine gestured for Zero to follow her to her personal study further in the house. It was a small room but functional, which was all that the Druid required of the space. Zero had seen her office at the academy many times, it was far more spacious and elegant in its furnishings. Here the desk was an old pinewood with drawers that squeaked when opened, the ex-human recognized it from one of the common study rooms when he was still a student. Papers and notebooks and pens took up most of the space on the desk's surface, along with the Druid's laptop. Books were stacked in piles along the walls, balancing against one another. Outside the single window behind her, the sky was a bruising swirl of grey and black as spits of rain pelted down. Elaine flicked on the table lamp precariously set at the corner of her desk.

"Something is bothering you." Elaine says with a tilt of her head. Zero had long ago accepted that the Druid never bothered to ask when it came to these sorts of things. Years ago, when he'd drawn attention to this particular eccentricity, she'd pinned him with the same motherly look in her heterochromatic eyes when Ziva and Ronan would lie about who'd eaten the last sweet. "Because," She had replied. "You wouldn't answer honestly."

"Not really," He answers her not-a-question. The air smells of aged paper and cracked leather, a scholar's dwelling. It reminded him of Aido's bookishly chaotic laboratory office, and Zero wondered whether Aido was predisposed to those mannerisms or if he had merely taken on one of his favorite sensei's traits.

Inhaling slowly, Elaine tents her fingers in front of her face after she settles into her chair. "Zero Kiriyu, in all of these years, have you ever been capable of deceiving me?"

The corners of his lip quirk. "No," Sighing, he leans back in his own chair across from her. That was a discomfort that had taken nearly two decades to ease, Zero had never been comfortable revealing his troubles to anyone.

"I'm assuming it relates to Yuki." Elaine smiles indulgently, a knowing look in her heterochromic eyes. "No other creature has the power over your heart and thoughts that she does."

The particular turn of phrase cracks Zero open, ribcage peeled back to the vulnerable, beating heart behind those bones. Even now, resolve firm, the exquisite pain of his sun's brightness – of feeling – was daunting. Elaine sees something in Zero's expression waver, a turbulent, stormy ripple across the calm of water's surface. With a knowing, quiet sigh she opens her bottom desk drawer. The high pitched squeak is drowned out by a resounding thunder clap as the Druid rummages, knocking aside an extra box of facial tissues before grabbing the neck of a glass bottle.

Zero is no longer surprised by the amount of alcohol the Druid has managed to tuck away in every space she occupies.

At his vaguely piqued expression, Elaine arches an eyebrow as the bottom of the whiskey bottle plonks softly against the wood of her desk. "Forget your vows of piousness for an evening, Mother Zero. This is one of the instances were a drink is not only appropriate, but required." Sifting around the same drawer, Elaine produces two plain glasses that she hastily cleans with a tissue and pours two fingers worth of whiskey into each one. The Druid pushes one toward the ex-human and taps her fingernails against the other in front of her.

Zero obligingly takes a sip – she had bothered to offer it, after all – letting the liquid burn a hole in his mouth. There is something masochistically pleasing about the sting it leaves in the back of his throat. Elaine leans back in her office chair, grimacing as her spine pops audibly at the shift of position. "Zero, not that I am absolutely ecstatic that you've chosen myself as your confidante, my abilities do not literally manifest as mind reading. So you will have to speak."

Zero scowls and strips out of his coat while still in his seat. "You are so annoying."

Elaine smiles like the Kiriyu had praised her with the highest compliment. "And you are my most troublesome son." Taking a swig of her own glass, she tucks some loose hair behind her ear. "I do worry about you two."

"Seems to be an ever growingly popular notion." Zero mutters into his own glass. Wakaba, his Master, Cross… hell, even Ai was starting to offer up her own concerned opinion. The air seems to shift, growing tighter like a net being reeled in, and Zero looks up to meet the Druid's mismatched gaze. Her eyes are half lidded but not with the heaviness of premonition, but the wisdom of living.

"Sooner rather than later, I will be gone." She begins calmly. "As will Yagari and my children and their children. Even Cross will one day be taken by the sure, steady hands of time. But not you and Yuki, you both will remain long after the rest of us have returned to dust. I love you both immensely, and it pains me to think of you adrift and apart when that comes to pass."

Outside the window at the Druid's back, a pair of jays huddle together on a sturdy branch of a tree. The two birds are sheltered in their nest of twigs and leaves and bits of string, tucked in a large notch in the bark of the upper trunk. "We've had an agreement," He explains in halting sentences. "To meet at a bench at the academy in the evenings. It's the only safe way to see each other without the interference of all the politics."

Elaine nods for him to continue, sipping at her glass.

"I think it's all Yuki will permit herself to have." Zero muses, staring at the liquid in his glass, gently swirling the amber liquid. "Because this, all of it, is just her being in standby."

"Because of Kaname." Elaine's lips quirk crookedly, but her heterochromic eyes are cold. "It is inescapable. It's such a strange sensation. I can… feel him in every new weapon forged in those flames."

"I always think about how Kuran left the woman he loved with a senseless burden." Zero grinds out, face turned down. In an uncharacteristic action, he drains his drink. Elaine arches an eyebrow and wordlessly pours into both of their glasses. "I can't lose her, not her." Zero admits quietly, and Elaine is struck by the raw vulnerability in his tone. "I've lost enough. I'm not strong enough to do it again."

"Such is the nature of sacrifice," Elaine muses, gaze cloudy not in prophecy but memory – manic laughter of an older Kuran, intoxicated on power – blood on stone floors, spattered across a magical array, the sound of a bleeding body dropping onto the ground – the sting of salty air against a fresh cut on her palm, the sandy texture of grit and blood between her teeth, the smell of ozone and burning and the predatory smile of a blonde, wanton head. "It is only worthy if it is painful."

"Do you have regrets, Hex?"

Elaine's laugh is harsh, a sardonic bark as she stares into her glass. "Too many,"

"I have only one." Zero muses, draining the remainder of his drink and leaning his forearms against his knees, head bent forward and hands clasped together. The tendons of his wrist stand out starkly against his pale skin. "The day I discovered Yuki was a Pureblood, why didn't I try to make her stay? How would it have gone if I had taken her arm and asked her not to go?"

"This life is too short for regrets and what ifs, even for vampires." Elaine counsels gently. "Be patient with her, Zero. Yuki will realize that as well, one day. But there will always be a part of her that will belong to Kaname, can you love that part of her too?"

"Yes," Zero says after a long moment. Despite his recklessness, the Kiriyu was never brash in his actions and decisions.

"Accept your regrets, learn from them, and then let them go. After all, you love her, is that not enough?"


"This is quite the surprise." Takuma exclaims, marking the page of the manga he's currently reading before setting it atop the pile on the floor by his chaise lounge. When he wasn't assisting Yuki manage council agendas and meetings, he contented himself to guard Kaname's ice coffin with only his comics for companionship. Aside from the council meetings, his most dedicated visitors were Gaheris and his husband and children. However this did not mean Takuma rejected the company of visitors when offered, especially those he was quite fond of and had little opportunity to associate with.

"Hanabusa mentioned your recent visit and I realized it had been quite a while since I had seen or spoken with you." Elaine explained, gently settling her purchases on the unembellished table. Reassured nothing inside the pink bakery box had shifted, the Druid brushed a stray piece of hair out of her eyes, tucking the errant curl behind her ear rather than pinning it within the coiffed bun at the nape of her neck. Her appearance had always been elegant and posh, but with age it had grown more conservative than what Takuma remembered from his time as a student.

"Miss me, sensei?" Takuma smiles crookedly.

"Quite," She returns his look with a dimpled one. Of all her former students, thoughts of Takuma perhaps pained her the most. During his time at the academy, he had been cheerful and kind, which many vampires still frowned upon. But to Elaine it was a rare and cherished thing – there was little kindness to be found in the struggles between hunters, vampires, and magi. Fate could be cruel, and gods fickle, because when the dust settled after the first attack on the academy and her power had corroded Rido's bite from her veins, the young Ichijo had disappeared.

His grandfather's betrayal and Shirabuki's enthrallment had broken something in Takuma that he had yet to mend. "I detest seeing you punish yourself like this." Elaine blurts out, unable to contain the heavy thoughts to her own heart.

Takuma still smiles, but it is somber and hard. "Did I ever tell you that my favorite literature you ever assigned the Night class is East of Eden?"

"No…"

Takuma, standing across the seemingly endless expanse of the table, gently eases open the flaps of the bakery box and folds back the top. Inside were perfectly circular macaroons, a soft pastel rainbow of colors. "I reread it often, I could probably recite whole passages in my sleep if asked. The one that always strikes me, every time, is when Lee is speaking to Adam and Cal about his research on the story of Cain and Abel. His conclusion from the original Hebrew text that God never ordered Cain to overcome his sin, but counseled that he may overcome."

Elaine listens in silence, emotion rising in her throat. Takuma straightens the small dessert plates on either side of the bakery box and carefully reaches inside for the delicate sweets. "Timshel, 'thou mayest', that word haunted me for the months I was with Sara. My actions were mine alone, no matter that she was Pureblood and I a creature designed to be weak against her. I had proven myself Kaname's friend once before, turning against my own grandfather. But I failed, I did not overcome my sin. Now, though, I may. This is not punishment, sensei, this is atonement."


"I can't take those two." Aurelius sighs, misted breath caught in the scarf wrapped around his neck. The Hex siblings trudged along the freshly shoveled paths of the academy grounds, soft puffy flakes still falling like stars against the dark swath of night sky. The lights from the intricately Victorian lamp posts along the path are just bright enough that his eyes flash gold at certain angles. "They're going to make me cry."

"Even now, after all they've been through, Yuki and Zero are still those two kids who bumble around one another." Elaine agrees with a chuckle. She waves politely at the Kuran and Kiriyu, each sitting at the opposite end of a stone bench. They're sheltered from the snow fall by the small copse of trees that normally provide refreshing shade. Yuki returns the gesture but Zero merely scowls at her, his message of get-out-of-here clearly received. Elaine and Aurelius do not stop to speak to them, continuing on until they round a bend in the path and disappear from the vampiress and ex human's view.

"Emrys would've liked them." Aurelius says suddenly with a slight tremble in his voice. Her uncle's memory was bittersweet, still causing a tightening in her chest and hitched her breath. So did Dmitri's, so did Olympias'.

"He would have adored Yuki." She agreed. "Zero would have worn even his patience thin." She and her brother had almost this exact conversation many times over the years, reflecting on how their beloved uncle would never meet their children, spouses, or friends. So much loss, so much grief, but it was merely temporary. One day, they would see Emrys and Dmitri and Olympias again – beyond the veil of this world. "Remember how he had that way of raising his eyebrows and tilting his head, making you feel as if you'd disappointed the entirety of the human race?"

Aurelius laughs. "Oh yes, I'm still scarred."

The snowfall kept even the Night class students from wandering the grounds, so the siblings were alone as they slowly made their way from the central grounds of the campus to the outskirts toward the faculty residential buildings. While the family had left the apartment when Ronan was very small, Cross had gifted them a plot of land on academy grounds so that Elaine did not have to travel too far for her duties as an instructor. Yagari had grumbled about 'never escaping this damn school' but relented after his wife's unamused expressions grew more severe.

"I think Dmitri would have liked to teach here." For the last two decades Aurelius had painstakingly created a curriculum for young magi, learning alongside their non-magical and vampire peers. Elaine was a core faculty instructor, along with Anna given her proximity, but the other Old Ones and even some of the Keltoi would hold special lectures for the students – vampire and magi alike. Elaine felt that slowly the mistrust and disdain between the vampires and magi was beginning to wither away. Well, Yagari did accuse her of being optimistic.

"Only on a guest basis, he'd never live outside of a big forest." Her brother agrees. "Hanabusa and Takuma would've been his favorites."

Further in the distance, the town twinkled like the Milky Way, the houses lit up as families gathered around inside and warm from the snow. The air was tranquil as the snow fell prettily like a picture. The stars, however, were still bright in the sky even with the thick clouds. Tilting her head back, Elaine stared at the night sky, feeling warmth seep from the core of her bones and suffuse slowly outward despite the cold.

Despite everything that had come before, this was a good life.