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Peter was translating an old journal Rolf had given him which Rolf stated contained veiled references to the Templar. So far Peter had found veiled references to witches in the area and how they 'brought down the tone of the village square' and something about a scandal between some farmer's wife and an earl, but so far nothing about Templar. Peter did find it at least interesting that the journal sort of read like a Facebook. But more Latiny and with more religious leanings.
Somewhere around an account of how terrible it was that the cost of grain was going up, Peter looked out the window and he caught sight of a very pregnant Deirdre struggling through his gate with a very large motorcycle at her side. She didn't seem to be able to hold the gate open and push the bike through at the same time, so it appeared to him as if she were dealing with it by screaming at both inanimate objects and trying not to cry. Peter inched over on the sofa and he banged on the window with his fist. "DEIRDRE! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!" When she didn't look up, Peter blinked in confusion and wondered what he was doing.
"Damn alcohol numbing my brain." Peter jumped up, causing the journal to spill to the floor in front of him. He did a little awkward jump over it, landing badly so that his journey to his front door was an odd mixture of staggers and stumbles until he was able to regain his balance by half-falling against the wall.
"Argh!" Peter ripped the door open and he charged outside to help Deirdre. When he reached the driveway, which was really just a path made of up small stones, that was when he realised he was barefoot. "ACK! ACK! AUGH! OW!" Peter did a strange little pained jig across the gravel until he reached Deirdre. She was staring at him with her mouth hanging slightly open.
Peter panted for a few seconds and then he gave her a miserable look. Deirdre, who was red-faced and breathless herself from her effort with the bike, burst out laughing. "That was quite a feat, Peter Kemp!"
"You didn't see my incredible acrobatics inside," Peter said dryly. "What are you doing, Deirdre?" Barefooted and painful or no, he still stepped forward to help her.
"I got the bike caught!" Deirdre waited until Peter had a grip on it and then she squeezed past. Once inside the gate, Peter was able to extricate the bike from it's wrought iron cage, and he rolled it inside as well.
"You didn't ride this here, did you?" Peter asked, his face a mask of concern.
"What?! NO! What if I popped and had babies all over it!" Deirdre gave him a strange look, as if she had just said the most logical thing in the world.
Peter turned slightly green and he simply nodded so she didn't go on with that thought. Sometimes she did things like that. "Yes, quite. Did you...want to show it to me?"
"Sometimes you can be so daft." Deirdre took a deep breath and some of the bright and unnatural colour faded from her cheeks. "I brought it for you. It was Kait's dad's and I don't want it. And you know how you used to have that motorcycle? I know you like them."
"Clementine. May she rest in pieces." Peter had only had Clementine for about a month before he had been thrown off of it into the road. He had survived but Clementine had not.
"Yeah, whatever. Aren't your feet cold?" Deirdre pointed at his feet and then she looked up at him, her eyes narrowed.
"Huh? Oh! Yes! Inside. Is where we should be." Peter bit his lip and then he headed towards the house, rolling the bike beside him. He walked gingerly across the stones, and then parked the bike on the edge of the driveway before stepping onto the grass with a little relieved sigh. He was instantly hugged by a frantic Deirdre who buried her face in his chest despite being a bit too tall to do so easily. "Ooof! Hello, Sweetheart." Peter leaned down to kiss Deirdre's hair, but her head shot up and he narrowly missed having a nasal calamity against her skull.
"You smell like alcohol, you dumbarse!" Deirdre's voice was accusing and then she kicked him in the shins.
"Ow! Deirdre!" Peter looked hurt and when she backed away, he did a funny hop, dance to try to cover his injury with his hand.
"Demon!" Deirdre said, pointing at herself. It was her excuse for most things, and it worked because it was true. "And you shouldn't be drinking. You know what, get in the house right now!"
Peter would have chuckled about being ordered into his own house by someone Nineteen years his junior, but Deirdre meant business here. "Okay, okay!" He tromped up the steps and held the door open for her because even when in trouble, he was a gentleman. Once the door was closed, she whirled on him again, her finger out in front of her. It would have reminded him of a mother, had he had one past the age of eleven. Instead, it reminded him of his sister, Liz.
"Peter Kemp, why in the world would you smell like alcohol?!"
Peter closed his eyes and he sighed. "Deirdre..."
"And don't lie to me, because I just huffed and puffed and rolled you a present and...oh, that sounds suss... Anyway," Deridre flapped her hands around, as she often did when she was on a roll, "I brought you a bike. An old one. And it sucked! Bringing it here, not the bike. And if you lie I will kick you again!"
"That's...not necessary," Peter took her gently by the arm and he led her to the sofa. It was probably best if she was sitting down, supernatural physiology or not. Six months pregnant was still six months pregnant.
"Deirdre, I uhm..."
"You're stupid?" Deirdre helped. She sat beside him, but she turned to face him, a look on her face which dared him to disagree with her.
"I...might be a little, yes," Peter admitted because he was honest to a fault.
"Well don't be stupid, Peter! You're supposed to make sure I don't do stupid things! I'm the one who lost a girlfriend and-"
"My best friend just died, Deirdre!" Peter shouted, much more forcefully than he would ever have meant to. "David's dead!"
Deirdre blinked in shock, her mouth open in a tiny 'O' of surprise. When she regained her stability, she narrowed her eyes again. "He's still here, Peter!"
"Yes, yes, my brother-in-law is in my wife's head, which is just great for me! I can't go to him anymore, because she's...always there! It is not exactly easy to watch Aly go through all these changes...she's an angel now, she's energetic, she wants to help run the hospital and I love her so much, Deirdre, but she makes me feel so tired She makes me feel old. And I can't talk to my best friend about it because he's the one who did it! And Thomas is gone, and Adrian is mourning, and so are Tamm and Alexei...Renee...I can't talk to Tasha. Oh god, my Tasha-"
"Peter." Deirdre snapped her fingers in front of Peter's face and he turned to look at her with a look of dumb surprise. "Wow you talk about yourself a lot when you drink."
"I know," Peter groaned. "It's because I never do otherwise. I'm sorry, Deirdre."
"No it's cool, actually." Deirdre smiled at him and she reached up to brush some of his inexplicable hair out of his eyes. "I never get to hear what's wrong with you. Not unless you're saying it because it factors in to some...demon trouble or your visions or...it's actually kind of nice. But you know what, Jack Daniels? You don't have to drink to tell me this stuff."
"It was Jameson actually," Peter mumbled.
"What?"
"It wasn't Jack Daniels. And I only had a little-"
"I don't care!" Deirdre threw up her hands and she swatted his shoulder. "You're an alcoholic and if you keep drinking, you're going to end up holed up in some house again, babbling on about how the world is ending or the Templar are coming or...whatever the crisis is this week."
"I don't think I ever babbled," Peter said lamely.
Deirdre gave him a Look. "I think David said you babbled. And then you tried to hang yourself. Go intelligence, go!"
"Yes, yes...I see your point." Peter groaned and he slid down a little on the sofa. "I'm just feeling..."
"Shitty? Yeah. Me too. Join the club. But you see, I can't drink because...babies. And you can't drink because you'll go insane. So let's not drink together. I can fix you a Bovril!"
Peter made a face and he laughed. "Only if you want to poison me. Deirdre? Where did you get the motorcycle again?"
"Kait's dad." Deirdre immediately leaned against his shoulder, alcohol smell or no. "Kaitie left me everything. I think I'm richer than you, Mafia Baby."
"Oh don't call me that! The mafia is Italian." Peter looked scandalised. The exploits of his family made him uncomfortable. And they were not his exploits anyway.
"German Mafia Baby." Deirdre poked him in the ribs. "I just...think it's time someone did something with all of Simeon's things. Kait never did. It was painful. But...you know..."
"Deirdre. I think it's very good. What you're doing."
There was the Peter Kemp, Deirdre knew and loved. She knew he had to be in there somewhere. Immediately she sat up straight again, facing him, her eyes earnest. "So it's not bad? Not holding on to things what were hers?"
"No. No, honey. Sometimes it's a good idea to keep some things, but...I saw what not letting go at all did to my mother. She was utterly unable to accept Margaret's death, and in the end she was convinced Margaret was still alive. It made it kind of awkward when I had friends over and she was asking when Gretchen would come home..."
"Eeeiii."
"A little, yes. Just...make sure you're not getting rid of everything so you don't have to deal too..."
"No." Deirdre shook her head. "It's not that. It was just time, like I said. All of her clothes...they're still in my closet. I'll keep some, but I'm donating the rest. They should benefit other people, you know? She would have liked that."
"Yes," Peter nodded. "She would have."
"I miss her. And David. And Alessa."
"I do too, Deirdre." Peter pulled her in for a hug, and Deirdre leaned in to him, gratefully.
"I can't lose you too, okay. Don't go crazy because it's lame." Deirdre's words were slightly muffled by his chest, but Peter heard. Deirdre could always make herself heard.
"Alright. I won't be lame. Actually, I might be lame from where you kicked me."
Deirdre giggled against his shirt. "Wuss." She could say it because, in reality when Peter wasn't suffering a relapse of his alcoholism, he was probably the least wussy person she knew. In a weird way that was kind of still wussy...
"Ah, if you must. Deirdre, thank you for my bi-" Peter's body jerked and went rigid. He fell against Deirdre, who sat up immediately.
"PETER!?"
Peter didn't answer, but he did start to shake against her in a truly awful way. Deirdre screamed and jumped off the sofa, which caused Peter to roll onto the floor with a hollow thud, face down. "Oh, dammit, Peter! Not now! I HAVE A PACK OF CHILDREN INSIDE ME!" Deirdre grabbed a pillow and she tried to roll Peter over, but there was a chance he could hit her in the process and she wasn't risking her twins. "THIS IS IRRESPONSIBLE!" Deirdre screamed. Peter just continued to convulse for another twenty seconds and then his body went still.
Deirdre managed to roll him over then and she placed his head on the pillow. Peter took a deep breath in order to take oxygen into his overtaxed lungs. "Deirdre," he breathed, when he looked up at her. She put a hand to his face and she gave him a sad look. He had hit pretty hard and his lip was bleeding. He was going to have a black eye too. All at once she felt guilty. She had seen him have a vision before, and she still panicked every time.
"Peter...that wasn't another useless vision, was it?"
"No." Peter moaned and he put a hand to his throbbing face. He would have thought having a vision while slightly anesthetised would have caused his somewhat vague visions to be even more vague, but instead the message he had received today had come in loud and clear. "Not useless."
"What is it?" Deirdre reached out to take his hand and Peter gripped it with all the strength he had left, which wasn't much.
"Rosa. She's in trouble."
"Right now?!" Deirdre practically whined. Saving people was so inconvenient.
"No. Soon. Help me up, I need to warn her."
Deirdre did as she was told, even if it was an extremely awkward process. "Peter, what is going to happen to her? Is someone going to hurt Rosa."
"No one is killing anyone," Peter growled, feeling like himself again despite the weakness he always experienced after a vision.
"But something is coming for her? What is it?"
Peter shook his head. "I don't know. But whatever it is, it's not getting her." And Peter made a beeline for his phone. Deirdre followed, intent on making sure he didn't bleed to death while he took care of everyone else. Things were back to normal, whatever in the world that meant.
Somewhere around an account of how terrible it was that the cost of grain was going up, Peter looked out the window and he caught sight of a very pregnant Deirdre struggling through his gate with a very large motorcycle at her side. She didn't seem to be able to hold the gate open and push the bike through at the same time, so it appeared to him as if she were dealing with it by screaming at both inanimate objects and trying not to cry. Peter inched over on the sofa and he banged on the window with his fist. "DEIRDRE! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!" When she didn't look up, Peter blinked in confusion and wondered what he was doing.
"Damn alcohol numbing my brain." Peter jumped up, causing the journal to spill to the floor in front of him. He did a little awkward jump over it, landing badly so that his journey to his front door was an odd mixture of staggers and stumbles until he was able to regain his balance by half-falling against the wall.
"Argh!" Peter ripped the door open and he charged outside to help Deirdre. When he reached the driveway, which was really just a path made of up small stones, that was when he realised he was barefoot. "ACK! ACK! AUGH! OW!" Peter did a strange little pained jig across the gravel until he reached Deirdre. She was staring at him with her mouth hanging slightly open.
Peter panted for a few seconds and then he gave her a miserable look. Deirdre, who was red-faced and breathless herself from her effort with the bike, burst out laughing. "That was quite a feat, Peter Kemp!"
"You didn't see my incredible acrobatics inside," Peter said dryly. "What are you doing, Deirdre?" Barefooted and painful or no, he still stepped forward to help her.
"I got the bike caught!" Deirdre waited until Peter had a grip on it and then she squeezed past. Once inside the gate, Peter was able to extricate the bike from it's wrought iron cage, and he rolled it inside as well.
"You didn't ride this here, did you?" Peter asked, his face a mask of concern.
"What?! NO! What if I popped and had babies all over it!" Deirdre gave him a strange look, as if she had just said the most logical thing in the world.
Peter turned slightly green and he simply nodded so she didn't go on with that thought. Sometimes she did things like that. "Yes, quite. Did you...want to show it to me?"
"Sometimes you can be so daft." Deirdre took a deep breath and some of the bright and unnatural colour faded from her cheeks. "I brought it for you. It was Kait's dad's and I don't want it. And you know how you used to have that motorcycle? I know you like them."
"Clementine. May she rest in pieces." Peter had only had Clementine for about a month before he had been thrown off of it into the road. He had survived but Clementine had not.
"Yeah, whatever. Aren't your feet cold?" Deirdre pointed at his feet and then she looked up at him, her eyes narrowed.
"Huh? Oh! Yes! Inside. Is where we should be." Peter bit his lip and then he headed towards the house, rolling the bike beside him. He walked gingerly across the stones, and then parked the bike on the edge of the driveway before stepping onto the grass with a little relieved sigh. He was instantly hugged by a frantic Deirdre who buried her face in his chest despite being a bit too tall to do so easily. "Ooof! Hello, Sweetheart." Peter leaned down to kiss Deirdre's hair, but her head shot up and he narrowly missed having a nasal calamity against her skull.
"You smell like alcohol, you dumbarse!" Deirdre's voice was accusing and then she kicked him in the shins.
"Ow! Deirdre!" Peter looked hurt and when she backed away, he did a funny hop, dance to try to cover his injury with his hand.
"Demon!" Deirdre said, pointing at herself. It was her excuse for most things, and it worked because it was true. "And you shouldn't be drinking. You know what, get in the house right now!"
Peter would have chuckled about being ordered into his own house by someone Nineteen years his junior, but Deirdre meant business here. "Okay, okay!" He tromped up the steps and held the door open for her because even when in trouble, he was a gentleman. Once the door was closed, she whirled on him again, her finger out in front of her. It would have reminded him of a mother, had he had one past the age of eleven. Instead, it reminded him of his sister, Liz.
"Peter Kemp, why in the world would you smell like alcohol?!"
Peter closed his eyes and he sighed. "Deirdre..."
"And don't lie to me, because I just huffed and puffed and rolled you a present and...oh, that sounds suss... Anyway," Deridre flapped her hands around, as she often did when she was on a roll, "I brought you a bike. An old one. And it sucked! Bringing it here, not the bike. And if you lie I will kick you again!"
"That's...not necessary," Peter took her gently by the arm and he led her to the sofa. It was probably best if she was sitting down, supernatural physiology or not. Six months pregnant was still six months pregnant.
"Deirdre, I uhm..."
"You're stupid?" Deirdre helped. She sat beside him, but she turned to face him, a look on her face which dared him to disagree with her.
"I...might be a little, yes," Peter admitted because he was honest to a fault.
"Well don't be stupid, Peter! You're supposed to make sure I don't do stupid things! I'm the one who lost a girlfriend and-"
"My best friend just died, Deirdre!" Peter shouted, much more forcefully than he would ever have meant to. "David's dead!"
Deirdre blinked in shock, her mouth open in a tiny 'O' of surprise. When she regained her stability, she narrowed her eyes again. "He's still here, Peter!"
"Yes, yes, my brother-in-law is in my wife's head, which is just great for me! I can't go to him anymore, because she's...always there! It is not exactly easy to watch Aly go through all these changes...she's an angel now, she's energetic, she wants to help run the hospital and I love her so much, Deirdre, but she makes me feel so tired She makes me feel old. And I can't talk to my best friend about it because he's the one who did it! And Thomas is gone, and Adrian is mourning, and so are Tamm and Alexei...Renee...I can't talk to Tasha. Oh god, my Tasha-"
"Peter." Deirdre snapped her fingers in front of Peter's face and he turned to look at her with a look of dumb surprise. "Wow you talk about yourself a lot when you drink."
"I know," Peter groaned. "It's because I never do otherwise. I'm sorry, Deirdre."
"No it's cool, actually." Deirdre smiled at him and she reached up to brush some of his inexplicable hair out of his eyes. "I never get to hear what's wrong with you. Not unless you're saying it because it factors in to some...demon trouble or your visions or...it's actually kind of nice. But you know what, Jack Daniels? You don't have to drink to tell me this stuff."
"It was Jameson actually," Peter mumbled.
"What?"
"It wasn't Jack Daniels. And I only had a little-"
"I don't care!" Deirdre threw up her hands and she swatted his shoulder. "You're an alcoholic and if you keep drinking, you're going to end up holed up in some house again, babbling on about how the world is ending or the Templar are coming or...whatever the crisis is this week."
"I don't think I ever babbled," Peter said lamely.
Deirdre gave him a Look. "I think David said you babbled. And then you tried to hang yourself. Go intelligence, go!"
"Yes, yes...I see your point." Peter groaned and he slid down a little on the sofa. "I'm just feeling..."
"Shitty? Yeah. Me too. Join the club. But you see, I can't drink because...babies. And you can't drink because you'll go insane. So let's not drink together. I can fix you a Bovril!"
Peter made a face and he laughed. "Only if you want to poison me. Deirdre? Where did you get the motorcycle again?"
"Kait's dad." Deirdre immediately leaned against his shoulder, alcohol smell or no. "Kaitie left me everything. I think I'm richer than you, Mafia Baby."
"Oh don't call me that! The mafia is Italian." Peter looked scandalised. The exploits of his family made him uncomfortable. And they were not his exploits anyway.
"German Mafia Baby." Deirdre poked him in the ribs. "I just...think it's time someone did something with all of Simeon's things. Kait never did. It was painful. But...you know..."
"Deirdre. I think it's very good. What you're doing."
There was the Peter Kemp, Deirdre knew and loved. She knew he had to be in there somewhere. Immediately she sat up straight again, facing him, her eyes earnest. "So it's not bad? Not holding on to things what were hers?"
"No. No, honey. Sometimes it's a good idea to keep some things, but...I saw what not letting go at all did to my mother. She was utterly unable to accept Margaret's death, and in the end she was convinced Margaret was still alive. It made it kind of awkward when I had friends over and she was asking when Gretchen would come home..."
"Eeeiii."
"A little, yes. Just...make sure you're not getting rid of everything so you don't have to deal too..."
"No." Deirdre shook her head. "It's not that. It was just time, like I said. All of her clothes...they're still in my closet. I'll keep some, but I'm donating the rest. They should benefit other people, you know? She would have liked that."
"Yes," Peter nodded. "She would have."
"I miss her. And David. And Alessa."
"I do too, Deirdre." Peter pulled her in for a hug, and Deirdre leaned in to him, gratefully.
"I can't lose you too, okay. Don't go crazy because it's lame." Deirdre's words were slightly muffled by his chest, but Peter heard. Deirdre could always make herself heard.
"Alright. I won't be lame. Actually, I might be lame from where you kicked me."
Deirdre giggled against his shirt. "Wuss." She could say it because, in reality when Peter wasn't suffering a relapse of his alcoholism, he was probably the least wussy person she knew. In a weird way that was kind of still wussy...
"Ah, if you must. Deirdre, thank you for my bi-" Peter's body jerked and went rigid. He fell against Deirdre, who sat up immediately.
"PETER!?"
Peter didn't answer, but he did start to shake against her in a truly awful way. Deirdre screamed and jumped off the sofa, which caused Peter to roll onto the floor with a hollow thud, face down. "Oh, dammit, Peter! Not now! I HAVE A PACK OF CHILDREN INSIDE ME!" Deirdre grabbed a pillow and she tried to roll Peter over, but there was a chance he could hit her in the process and she wasn't risking her twins. "THIS IS IRRESPONSIBLE!" Deirdre screamed. Peter just continued to convulse for another twenty seconds and then his body went still.
Deirdre managed to roll him over then and she placed his head on the pillow. Peter took a deep breath in order to take oxygen into his overtaxed lungs. "Deirdre," he breathed, when he looked up at her. She put a hand to his face and she gave him a sad look. He had hit pretty hard and his lip was bleeding. He was going to have a black eye too. All at once she felt guilty. She had seen him have a vision before, and she still panicked every time.
"Peter...that wasn't another useless vision, was it?"
"No." Peter moaned and he put a hand to his throbbing face. He would have thought having a vision while slightly anesthetised would have caused his somewhat vague visions to be even more vague, but instead the message he had received today had come in loud and clear. "Not useless."
"What is it?" Deirdre reached out to take his hand and Peter gripped it with all the strength he had left, which wasn't much.
"Rosa. She's in trouble."
"Right now?!" Deirdre practically whined. Saving people was so inconvenient.
"No. Soon. Help me up, I need to warn her."
Deirdre did as she was told, even if it was an extremely awkward process. "Peter, what is going to happen to her? Is someone going to hurt Rosa."
"No one is killing anyone," Peter growled, feeling like himself again despite the weakness he always experienced after a vision.
"But something is coming for her? What is it?"
Peter shook his head. "I don't know. But whatever it is, it's not getting her." And Peter made a beeline for his phone. Deirdre followed, intent on making sure he didn't bleed to death while he took care of everyone else. Things were back to normal, whatever in the world that meant.
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