Sept 1980: One Call Away: Kyra

[Phoebe Bones]

Bones house

Phoebe was as prepared for today as she was going to get.

After Fabian’s arrival in the early hours of the morning, she’d been preparing herself for the knocks that were now coming from her front door. She had been waiting for this conversation for years, wondering when Fabian would get his head of his ass and tell her best friend the truth. And while the circumstances that had lead them to this day were not the best - you can’t get yourself killed Fabian - at least everything was out in the open. Fabian’s feelings for Kyra, the fact he was a wizard, the fact he’d been altering her memories for six years…and the fact that Phoebe had known all about this, and not once said a word.

At least, not that she remembers.

The argument of letting Kyra know about magic was an old one, an all too familiar fight she’d found herself in with both Edgar and Fabian. Kyra was her best friend, the godmother of one of her children. She had done her best to find any loophole in the magical laws, and yet was shot down every time. But that didn’t mean she was innocent in this, not really. She could have fought harder, she could have refused to keep it a secret. There were plenty of drunken blunders on her end; her desperate desire to have Kyra included always coming out when she got a little too much to drink.

But right now? She was the enemy. And it was far too early for the bottle of wine she had open in the kitchen, two glasses in hand as she went to open the front door. Edgar and Fabian had the kids, and instructions to be gone until she told them it was safe to come back. Door open, she held out a glass to the sleep deprived blonde standing on the other side. “So, where do you want to start?”

[Kyra Thatcher]

"You tell me, Phoebe. Had a lot longer than me to rehearse your arguments. Why am I here?"

She took the offered glass and strode inside, making a beeline through the empty ground floor until she got to a kitchen stool. There she dropped herself and her bag, emotionally and physically exhausted, no patience left to speak of. Because last night Fabian Prewett had shown up out of nowhere looking like death, and they'd exchanged I-love-you's that had waited a decade to be said, and he'd admitted to being a wizard that had tampered with her memory whenever she was exposed to magic. Apparently this happened quite frequently, seeing as her best friend had three little kids who were literally magical and couldn't control their powers. She'd sent him away with no quarter, and he'd left her with repaired memories and a flock of conjured songbirds.

But no clues on which synapses to activate to access these memories. Because when had this happened? She couldn't just force herself back into memory of each time she'd visited this house and sift through until something jarring happened. Right? It was infuriating, and altogether left her feeling violated. Not only by him, but by the rest of the people she called family who weren't her blood. She needed answers, apologies, and guidance - and that was why, even though she'd hardly had a drop of sleep, she'd driven out to Waltham Forest soon after sunup. Kyra figured Fabian had come here hours before, seeing as he'd been distraught upon leaving her. And with Phoebe greeting her like this, she could only assume that she'd been right. It irked her that she knew his habits, and before she left she'd have to find out what spin he'd put on their exchange...

[Phoebe Bones]

You knew this wasn’t going to be easy.
        At least she took the wine.

Because yes, she’d had a bit of time to rehearse what she was going to say. Not much time, between Cami being up half the night, to Fabian’s arrival, and then getting all the children up and going before Kyra got here. Grayson had immediately picked up on the fact that something was wrong, so many questions coming from him as she got his sister’s ready to go. Why is Uncle Fabian here? Why are you upset? Why do we have to go? The never ending questions had at least made for a good distraction, her mind immediately returning to the situation after she had seen them off. The thing was that she didn’t have any idea where to even start.

Kyra was rightfully angry, but after so many years of keeping the secret Phoebe had adjusted. She didn’t agree with it, not for a second. But they weren’t her rules to change, and her voice meant very little when it came to Edgar and Fabian’s magical world. There wasn’t a person in the Ministry who cared about the opinion of a muggle paralegal, not even if her children and husband were magical. Sighing, Phoebe followed her best friend into the kitchen, leaning back against the counter as she surveyed Kiki over her wine glass. “Fabian dropped by early this morning,” she said as casually as possible, studying the blonde woman in her kitchen. There was no way this wasn’t going to turn into a fight, as much as Phoebe didn’t want it to. “Told Edgar and I about his visit to your place. He and Edgar are out with the kids.”

Setting her wine glass down gently, she crossed her arms before she continued, “I think you have every right to be mad. I was so furious with Edgar when he told me, and so overwhelmed. Because not only did he lie to me, but magic was real. And so suddenly in my face, when I’d spent years thinking it was just a theory we’d never prove to be true. I was angry and overwhelmed, and I just had to tell someone. So I told you everything I knew.”

[Kyra Thatcher]

Kyra watched as her friend - Can I can call you that when you've allowed them to do this to me? - settled in the kitchen with her, righteous anger hot as blue flames in her eyes. Phoebe was quick to affirm Fabian's late night call, careful in both word and tone, as careful as she would be in trying to defuse a bomb. Good luck with that. At least they had the house to themselves, save perhaps Sadie, the dog that was better versed in the truth of their lives than Kyra was. The blonde drank the sharp white wine in silence, eyes boring into Pheebs', as she felt more coming from the other. She scoffed in of course as Phoebe spoke of her right to her evident feelings, her bitterness and anger at the situation hardly dulled yet by the drink. She tried to not let her features soften when Phoebe admitted telling her all about the secret world when she’d first found out, but she was curious and, while she was by no means less upset, Kiki couldn’t stop the voice in her head.

She told you. She was pissed at Ed and she told you the whole thing…

    So she says.

"I don’t even know what to believe anymore," Kyra spat to mask her fear. "Say I take you at your word, okay? As I’ve always done. Because that’s what we do, you and me. What we’re supposed to do. I can’t - I can’t prove that those conversations happened, even if I can pull them up now. He put them back the way they happened, so he said, but…" She held up her arms helplessly, letting out a bitter laugh. "Now that I know he's been in my head, that he has that power, that any of them do - what - how am I supposed to make sense of anything when I can't even trust my mind? When I can't trust you?" The betrayal she felt at the hands of Phoebe and Fabian in particular was acute, and as she stared at the woman who had claimed to be her best friend for the entirety of her life, it was nearly impossible to keep from crying, screaming, breaking…

"Have they ever done this to you? Could you trust Edgar to tell you if he had?" she challenged abruptly, the questions impossible to get to the bottom of. It was terrifying, in short, the situation she found herself in so many years late. The world of magic was a wonderful surprise, don't get her wrong. And the war, the war was something she could understand, given the nature of humanity, the repetitiveness of history. But to wake up and not know what memories were true and which were false, who had willfully lied to her in the past and who had tampered with her mind…How am I supposed to get past this? To keep living with this knowledge? The weight of it was crippling, and in the moment, she needed someone to blame.

"What I don’t understand more than anything is how you could let him do this to me," Kyra said, voice low and wavering. "I know you must not have agreed with it. But it happened. And happened again. And again, Gaia knows how many times. I don’t - I don’t trust much, things I read or people I know, but I’ve always trusted you. You know that. How - how could you let me go back to him? How could you let him near me? How could you let me love him when you know what he does to me when I get in too far?"

[Phoebe Bones]

Fabian had mentioned that he had restored any memories altered, and Phoebe had hoped her admission of telling Kyra from the beginning would have gotten her best friend thinking. But, it was likely all Kyra had done since their mutual friend’s house call last night was think, and her mind was clearly getting the best of her. While Fabian had done something wrong - she’d tried to tell them years ago this would happen - she doubted that her longtime friend had restored incorrect memories. Fabian was a good man, even with his faults. There had been a long conversation after she’d decided to give Edgar a second chance about this very topic, she’d requested every possible file she could think of from Edgar regarding their law about keeping this kind of secret. She’d read cases when the statue had been broken - dramatic events involving dragons and a very real Nessie. One more muggle knowing about magic hardly seemed like a big deal compared to the fact sometimes rogue dragons attacked peaceful sunbathers. Kyra knowing was a breach - but how was it any different from her knowing? Just because Fabian, up until recently, had his head so far up his ass he didn’t want to commit to Kyra? But all of that had to wait, because getting Kyra calm was her first step. “You aren’t going to want to hear this, but

This whole magic thing? That’s one of them. I’m not disagreeing that Fabian messing with your memories is a huge breach of trust Kyra, but he’s not a total wanker,” she said slowly, watching her best friend carefully. “If he says he restored your memories, he did. You and I just have to trust that he did, because I don’t know Kiki, I don’t. But I’m here to help you, in anyway I can. I’m the enemy right now - fine. But just try me, tell me what you remember about that day and I’ll tell you if it matches what I remember.” Because if anything significant was different in the memories about magic they shared, she’d kill Fabian herself. She’d seen a side of Fabian last night though that was honest, and true, and him not properly restoring memories didn’t fit that picture.

The challenge that followed caught Phoebe off guard, and she took a moment to sip at her own glass of wine. If Edgar or Fabian had ever altered her memories, would she know? She’d be lying if she said she’d never questioned it, wondering if the first time Edgar had told her about magic had really been the first time. But she was trusting Edgar with her life, and the life of her children. If she didn’t know everything she couldn’t possibly be a good mother to her kids, a good partner in life to Ed. “Edgar isn’t Fabian,” she answered slowly, giving a sigh. “I don’t know if he would have altered my memories if I’d chosen to walk away, but I don’t think he would have. And your memories weren’t supposed to get erased, or altered. And I honestly don’t know how many times Fabian’s been in your head, he’s never done it in front of me.”

But Kyra’s next words were breaking her heart, and she had to fight her own tears, the words cutting deep. Phoebe didn’t have an answer, it wasn’t something she’d thought about. Setting her glass back down, she closed the distance to reach across the kitchen island for Kyra’s hand. “I’m so sorry Kyra, I am,” she whispered, trying to find any words to justify why she’d never interfered. “You love him, and he loves you. I’ve always been able to see that. And that’s not a good reason for me letting you two go back and forth all these years, I know that. But I also know what it’s like to be in love with an idiot.” She offered up a smile, hoping that she was helping instead of making things worse. “But Edgar is my idiot, and I can tell you that getting to be a part of this world of magic has been worth all of the things we’ve dealt with over the years.”

[Kyra Thatcher]

Phoebe was right. Kyra didn't want to hear it. Since last night it felt like fully armed intergalactic wars of unimaginable proportions were raging inside her mind, each side fighting and fighting for their own self-proclaimed worthy cause, interfering with battles held by armies they had no present stake with, redirecting them into long-forgotten quarrels...

Magic was real, and she just wanted to be happy about that. That something she'd believed in was true, that there was more to the world than she'd been able to see, and that there was so much to learn and discover with fresh eyes. But she couldn't be - that joy had been cheated from her experience by its reveal. 

Lies. So many lies, a lifetime of lies, from those she had thought were as good as family. She didn't know what was worse - that they'd all held debates about her without her input, that they'd humored her theories about the world when they knew what was right all along, that even the children were in on the deal.

Trust? That the man who loved her had taken sacred things from her, and while they'd been returned, she was now more confused than ever. She almost wished he hadn't restored her memories, because reconciling the conflicting recollections was not something she understood how to do. The mind itself was plastic, malleable; it could protect itself, fill in gaps in time to ease the worries of its host. Consciously filtering through and confronting things that didn't make sense seemed too big a challenge, even though Kyra knew she'd demanded it...

Was Phoebe right? Was blind trust to be their best, if only, shot at a saving grace? 

The young woman swallowed her feelings and swallowed the wine as Phoebe declared herself the enemy, and she did what she could to compose herself. She hadn't come here to fight the whole time, although there were things that needed to be said; she'd come because she was lost, and however angry she was with the lot of them, Phoebe included, her best friend was the only one she could think of who would be fully honest with her now. Well, Fabian and Edgar too, but that would just be fighting. "You're not the enemy," Kyra said with an exhausted sigh. "Fabian said - he said the first time I was told about magic was the summer before you got married. Edgar told you, and then you told me, so..." She let her eyes close as she thought back to that summer, to significant moments the two had shared then. There was the day she found out Edgar wanted to be a soldier, and Phoebe was deciding whether to leave him or to stay... But as she focused in on that day, the things she knew to be true of it weren't what she saw.

"Eddie made a rose bush grow in your kitchen," she said, not understanding the words coming out of her mouth but knowing they were right, "and he told you he wanted to go fight in a magical war. You told me all about it at Johnny's bar, and - a glowing ball of light? Something about a glowing ball of light. And a wand - you were disappointed in it for some reason, and it wasn't a euphemism."

She knew it wasn't fair to compare the wizards, she knew that their situations were different, but she couldn't help it. Everything was feeling so unfair, and she didn't want Phoebe to hurt like she was hurting - but the words were out, and Phoebe's response was hardly reassuring. Not even Phoebe knew exactly what had been altered? Knowing that she'd have to see Fabian for a full record - assuming he'd kept track - was a fresh form of infuriating. She bit her tongue and drank, and perhaps the suppression of that ire caused a fuse to be lit elsewhere. As soon as the words were out, Kyra knew they were too much, but at the same time - if she'd had any inkling that Edgar was crossing the line with Phoebe, she would have said something. She accepted the offered hand and held it tight, unable to meet the other's eye as tears welled within her own. "I don't know if it's worth feeling like this," she choked out. "If he really does love me too, how - how could he do this?"