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Elke pulled the phone away from her head to check the text. She thought, 'Finn?' and swiped sideways to pull up the text. What she read was horrifying. "Maman, I have to go," she said, and when her mother tried to keep her on the line Elke said insistently, "Maman! Goodbye!" and hung up the phone.

It was not a long bike ride to the Derouen residence, and she abandoned her bike on the sidewalk without even coming to a complete stop. It was not a graceful dismount, but it gave her a boost as she careened across the freshly-mown lawn to where Finn sat on the steps. She shoved past the cop that tried to bar her way and stopped, panting, before her friend. "Finn," she said, when she had caught her breath. "I'm so very sorry." She leaned in and wrapped her arms around his shoulder, without permission nor apology.

Mr. Derouen had been a very nice man, she knew. The nicest, probably. The few times she’d had dinner with Finn's family, she had always felt very welcome. It was awful that he was dead.

All of that sounded like cliches. Platitudes. She said none of them, just drew back and said, "What can I do?"

She was only standing for maybe ten seconds before she sat down next to Finn and tucked him into her arms again. They were bonier than they had been--but luckily, concealed by a giant knit cardigan. That was the fashion now, and that was convenient. "I know," she said, awkwardly, "I'm so sorry. I am sorry, Finn." She thought back to the deaths she'd lived through, tried to remember. She had been a senshi for so long...

"I'll call your mother for you," she said. "I think they only call if they need someone to identify the body..." She passed a hand over Finn's hair. If Avalon had specifically targeted Anthony Derouen, then it was possible Finn was not safe. It was possible that she was preparing, even now, to come back and corrupt or kill him. That the corrupted Knight had discovered her favorite target's civilian identity and being at home just wasn't safe for Finn any more.

Either way, this was not a conversation to hold in public.

She turned to a cop coming down the porch towards them. "Excuse me," she said, scooting closer to Finn to let the man pass. "Will you let me know when my friend can come with me?" The cop agreed and Elke's attention returned to Finn.

She didn't know how to answer his question, because the answer was: of course. Dying was the worst sort of pain she knew, a blazing corona of pain so intense she could not even describe it--and then, nothing. The nothing was the worst part. The nothing went on forever... Until you woke up... Perhaps it would be different for someone who would not be waking up again. Not until they were reincarnated, hopefully happier and safer. For one thing, they wouldn't remember the nothing.

"I..." Don't remember, she finished lamely in her head. She did not want to tell Finn his father had died in pain. "Yes," she said finally. "It hurts. But he won't remember. I promise he won't. The Cauldron brings all things to rightness." If Anthony's starseed wasn't currently having Chaos poured into it to turn him into a youma. She hoped not, but there was no way to tell. And if Finn hadn't thought of it, she wasn't going to bring it up.

"When they say it's okay, come over to mine," she said. "It's safe. I can't promise you much but I can promise space or company and food." She paused, traced a circle on his back between his shoulder blades. "And I can make phone calls. I'm good at them."

Elke tucked herself close to Finn, held up a hand to help block his view. She had done the same thing, a long time ago, for a different person on a different planet. This time it felt even more depressingly weird, and she thought again of how unfair it was that some people got many chances and others, like Anthony, got only one. "Stay put," she said, and she accosted a police officer until she got the answer Finn wanted with a combination of politeness, common sense, and my father is very important and this will not go well for you if my father has to get involved it is very late in Paris.

Then she levered her bike into the back off Finn's Jeep and asked if he wanted her to drive. It was auto, not stick like she was used to, but she thought handled it well enough. Rather than returning to her dorm, she checked her phone for the address her Maman had given her. It took some doing, but she parked them in the driveway of the townhouse her mother was renting for her visit. It looked... New.

The spare key was right where she thought it would be, and she pulled Finn after her into the house. "My Maman is coming to visit," she explained. "I thought this place seemed safer, and it has more space." In the kitchen, she stopped and pulled out her phone again. "If you tell me your mother's number, I will call her now," she offered.

Mrs. Derouen took minutes of quiet convincing, insistence that Finn was fine and he was there he was just very very upset, and here, could Elke give her the lead detective's number? She was very sorry to interrupt their vacation and run like this, but Finn was extremely upset and she didn't feel right leaving him alone. She understood their upset too of course. And she was very, very sorry.

She put her phone down and turned to the fridge. It was stocked--of course it was, Maman would be there tomorrow evening. She'd been getting ready to go to the airport when Elke had hung up on her. "No," she said. "You are fine. You have had a big shock, and I am glad to be able to help you, Finn." They were friends. This was a function of friends. She pulled open a cabinet and combed through it, wondering how thorough this housekeeper was. Very, apparently.

Elke had to climb onto the counter to get to the hot-water kettle and the oatmeal, and she did it without hesitation. "I would like you to eat something and if you do, I will go into my maman's wine collection and get you drunk. Maman will understand."

She had experienced many things in her lifetimes, but corruption was not one of them; she gingerly settled herself on the stove side of the breakfast bar and turned on a burner, put the filled kettle on top. "Soup, or pasta, or oatmeal," she said, because getting something warm into a shocked person was important. Ally had taught her that. "Or we could go lay down. I am sure Maman has had the TV hooked up."

Elke had been banking on the oatmeal, and she searched out some bowls before emptying packets of dry mix into them. "She is upset," said Elke, "she understands how you feel and is not mad at you. She's booking a flight home, and will be back tomorrow." They wouldn't release the body for a while longer than that, as Elke understood murder investigations, but. She thought it would be more comforting to hear that than anything else.

She wasn't sure how to tell Finn he was wrong. That thinking would make the death of her Court (both times) and the deaths of Hero, and Jude, and Aly, and Abeline, her fault. And they were, but... His role in his father's death was much smaller. "What do you want to do," she asked, digging around for cocoa and only finding tea; when the kettle whistled, she filled the bowls of oatmeal and then the two mugs. She passed Finn his, and joined him on the other side of the counter. "You know who has done it. Avalon is not Tate, not anymore. She remembers nothing about you. It would be a kindness to her memory to kill the person walking around in her body. As revenge."

Finn did not need to know how Elke thirsted for the blood of Charonite and Linarite and Hematite and Nealite on her hands. She wanted to taste it. To never, ever clean it off. But Hematite above all, because he had been there. He was a monster more than any of the others. She'd been only thirteen...

"If she's not Tate anymore, then Tate is not recoverable," she said. "And either way, this is her fault, not yours."

"It's okay," said Elke. "You don't have to decide now. But it's something to think about." She watched him push his oatmeal around the bowl, and thought about asking him when he'd last eaten. But it didn't seem like that would help. She didn't want to nag him; she wanted to make sure he was okay...

So she swung her feet under the counter and leaned over on his shoulder. "When I woke up and realized that Hero and Jude and Grayson were dead, I wanted to die," she said, linking her fingers together around his bicep. "When Cancer wouldn't wake up, I wanted to die. I thought it was my fault." She paused, and decided-- if she was ever going to lie, now was the best time. "It wasn't and this isn't your fault, either."

Elke nudged his bowl of oatmeal closer to him. "Stay over," she said. "The cops will be busy with your house for a while longer. And the cleaners have to go once they're done."

“It’s safer here,” said Elke. She didn’t say, you’re worrying me or I want you here so I can make sure you’re alright or a senshi and a knight is better than a knight alone. “Besides, Maman wanted me to house-sit, and I don’t like being alone.” That was a transparent lie, but she had her own phone out and was typing an email as she spoke--to her mother, explaining that a friend needed a place to crash and her dorm was just not that permissive of boys overnighting. “You’d be doing me a favor,” she told him, and when he relented and agreed to stay she smiled at him, genuine though not happy.

She turned his phone over and then her own. “What do you want to do,” she asked. “We can sleep or we can go watch the TV for a while.” Not the news, though. His father’s death would likely be on before too long. He was a respected member of the community and his circumstances of death were entirely strange. No way it wouldn’t make at least the local news. “It’s up to you,” she said, draining the mug of tea.