You're So Golden | Malia Snaps

His kissed warmed her through, offering her the comfort she desperately sought.

"Babies are resilient. I think they've all proven that enough times, so we focus on the things we can still fix. Well, maybe not...fix."

They were though, weren't they? All of them? Their children - and those within their circles - were all warriors to an extent. Brave and able to overcome things that would send grown men running. Morgan had lost her mother. Benji and Kathryn had been born into chaos. Rosalie had been a caged bird who demanded her release until she finally took it for herself.

"You support, you help make it a little easier, as you've always done. There's no one better for it; certainly, no one more efficient."

His words were no more flattering than they always were when he tried to reassure her. It was no secret that Maddox thought the world of her, just as Julia thought the world of him. But he didn't say things to flatter, and he didn't say things just to say them. She'd always known him to be purposeful - in words and actions - and his belief in her lit the tiniest flame of strength that she'd been striking for.

She hummed slightly, taking his words in quietly as Evander bounced back across the garden, chasing the newest thing that caught his attention. Someday, he'd be as their older ones, with a life, friends and world of his own. What would it look like? What trials would he face, and how would he approach them? How different would it all be for him, when he had Maddox as his father and Julia forever in his corner? Would that be enough to spare him in the way it hadn't spared their other children?

For now, let him be little, and let the world hold endless possibilities and adventure for him.

"What would I do without you, sunshine?" she murmured, her hand reaching up to squeeze the one that dangled around her shoulder. She liked to think somehow, someway, even if she'd never taken the job at Hogwarts, she and Maddox would have crossed paths and still found themselves here. She couldn't imagine trying to navigate this and pull for strength without him there to talk her through it.

She hoped she gave him the same sense of comfort, familiarity and home that he had always given her.

“I don’t think I’d manage half as well without you.”

"What would I do without you, sunshine?"

The question of the century.

"I don’t think I’d manage half as well without you.”

"Careful, love," he quipped, nudging against the wooden flooring with his foot to set them into a gentle swinging motion. His free hand reached over, scooping up her legs and draping them across him lap before settling atop her tights. "Few things are harder to get rid of than a man who thinks he's wanted hanging around." His fingers drummed lightly over the fabric that covered her legs. "Might have me thinking I'm something special, and we can't have that," he continued in his usual, languid drawl.

The comfort of the moment struck him, despite his every attempt to ignore it. The scene he found himself in was one so insidious...so deceptive in its calm that it nearly sent his fine hairs rising.

An afternoon watching Evander bound across the home he'd provided him, not a care in the world. Julia nestled into his side, filling his senses with the subtle scents of orange and vanilla while he listened to the gentle beats of her heart. The warm breeze that swept across the meadows, his flowers bending in reverence with each passing. It was cruel in its simplicity and in the way it made it all feel so...domestic.

Like this was how it was meant to be. Not her disappearing again back into her life. Not him patching her up and then watching her leave.

Did he have a choice?

Most days, it didn't feel like he did.

Maddox wasn't a naive boy. He saw the world for what it was and for all the ways it could rip apart a person. In many ways, he was jaded. Perhaps that was what made this feeling so potent and difficult to ignore. He did know the intricacies of life – he had been knocked down by them too often to count. Contrary to what many believed, he could also see the faint flecks of beauty. This, them, it was its own sort of beauty. Nothing extravagant but warm and inviting.

A challenge.

He'd always liked those.

"Julia?" he said, absentmindedly. He didn't hesitate because of fear or uncertainty, but the sudden reminder of why she'd come. Her heart ached for her loss and didn't require his imposition.

"Nevermind. Not in a hurry are you?" he pivoted. "I promised Mo and Evander we'd see the mooncalves later. Meadow's big enough; I reckon there's room for one more. Might help take your mind off things."

"Careful, love. Few things are harder to get rid of than a man who thinks he's wanted hanging around."

Her legs were draped over his lap before she could protest - not that she would - his fingertips tapping and brushing over the sheer hosiery that covered her thighs. Rather than the shivers it normally would have sent coursing through her, there was only warmth and a tenderness she could place but wasn't sure she wanted to give voice to.

There was something different about his words that made her squeeze his hand a little tighter. It struck a chord somewhere in her chest and left her mind humming with reverberant notes.

"Might have me thinking I'm something special, and we can't have that."

She hummed, feeling the emotions that plagued her when she arrived beginning to dissipate amongst the gentle rocks of the swing and the feeling of him tucked in so close to her. "But you are special," she said, choosing to keep her eyes on the little boy who bounded happily back across the garden again. He knew that, didn't he? Julia was a direct person - always had been - and she'd told him time and again over the years how much he meant to her.

Enough to resign and come back with.

Enough to defend in a marriage that sought to make Maddox an irrelevant part of her life.

Did he mean more to her though? Was he special in another way? She certainly didn't sleep with any of her other friends, or cuddle up to them like this. But even before they'd taken things across the line of physicality, their friendship had been unique and bonded by an understanding of one another that she'd rarely found in anyone else.

In only one someone else, if she really thought about it.

Julia wasn't a seventeen-year-old girl anymore, and the years and wisdom she had gained since that time had made her a different person. She knew that love wouldn't look and feel the same as it did back then, but there were familiar feelings - little moments that popped up here and there that felt...the same.

Did it scare her?

Strangely, no. Rather, they comforted her and filled her with a sense of belonging.

"Julia?"

She tilted her head to catch his pretty blue with her brown, her smile a soft answer and question all in one.

"Nevermind. Not in a hurry are you? I promised Mo and Evander we'd see the mooncalves later. Meadow's big enough; I reckon there's room for one more. Might help take your mind off things."

Nevermind? Nevermind what? "Not in a hurry," she answered with a slight shrug of her shoulder, but she wouldn't impose on him during family time with the kids. She knew how much Morgan loved her time with her father, and while Evander would only be happier to have more attention showered on him, Julia didn't want to intrude.

"But I shouldn't keep Kate waiting too long. Edith's got her, but all the same..." she trailed off a bit, letting herself relax into his side again. She didn't want to leave just yet, or peel herself from the comfort of the man who could always help her see the woods from the trees.

She closed her eyes as they swung quietly back and forth, letting the ease between them chase what lingered of her grief.

---

Thursday, August 4, 1921
Maddox's House
9:00 PM
After This

It had been a long week.

Julia was exhausted. Emotionally. Physically. Anyway that a human being could experience an utter lack of energy, the woman felt it. She'd managed to keep going, to find the motivation to get up on time each morning, despite the absolute lack of sleep every night, and maintain the routine her daughter desperately needed for normalcy.

A lot of it was sheer adrenaline, the rest of it, caffeine.

The first few nights were the hardest. She'd let her daughter into her bed as a special treat, not revealing that it was something Julia needed as much as she knew Kate did. After all that had transpired, the woman couldn't be away from her child - even through the night, and couldn't stand the idea of Kate sleeping alone in a dark bedroom.

She had tried to keep their days as normal as possible, pouring all of her attention into Kathryn. Resuming her daughter's studies, continuing her dance classes, walks in the garden to talk about the various flora and what they were used for in the old ways. Meals at all of Kate's regular times. And at night, they cuddled in bed while Julia read out loud until the little girl fell asleep.

She on the other hand, stayed up all night, holding her. Watching the door. Knowing that no one was coming to hurt her child again, but unable to sleep and let her guard down anyway. She'd listen to the sounds of Kate's soft breathing, and hold her a little tighter when the girl mumbled or whimpered in her sleep, reassuring her it was all just a dream and her mum was still there.

In all of this, Julia thought of Maddox.

He'd done something that she would have never asked him to do, or expect out of him. But he'd done it, without hesitation. Her best friend had not only protected her daughter, but he'd avenged her, ensuring the man would never hurt her, or any other child again. The monster that would have haunted them all, was dead.

He'd done it for Kathryn, as though she was his own.

After four days, Julia had decided she couldn't put off seeing him any further. She needed to talk to him, to make sure he was alright and to know how grateful she was...and...

Now that she was standing on his porch, fireflies dancing amongst the foliage around the house, she found she wasn't sure what to say. He knew she was coming - she'd sent an owl this time - but as he opened the door and their eyes caught, she felt a surge of something...different flow through her.

She knew what it was.

Julia didn't speak first. Instead, her hand found the back of his neck, and she pulled him to her, greeting him with a deep kiss.

The owl came as some surprise. Sunday had been a reckoning that upended the lives of everyone who'd had to bear witness. Kathryn would need time. Julia would need time, and he was prepared to give it.

A lot had happened in the past week; many heavy things he'd needed his own time to reconcile. The man couldn't remember the last time he'd been so enraged.

Two killings in half a year. While Thayer had been as deserving of his end, it was Cavendish that had sent his blood boiling and who had filled him with new fears for his children in a world that had never been perfect to begin with. That the man could do such a thing to someone so innocent wasn't beyond his comprehension. Maddox had spent years hunting poachers who'd done nothing but try to exploit the innocent creatures he'd been tasked with protecting. It was nothing new, yet the territory couldn't have been more unfamiliar.

The man had always been ready to defend those that couldn't defend themselves, to stand in the gap and right wrongs. It was one of the first things he suspected the hat had seen when it sat on his eager head at the tender age of eleven. He'd shed several habits since then, his interest in playing some small hero not one of them.

It had been a long time since he thought himself anyone's hero, his days of seeking glory long since faded. That didn't make it any easier to stomach the injustices; it merely changed his motive for correcting them.

Taking out Cavendish hadn't been a form of posturing any more than ending Thayer had been. The man wasn't looking for accolades or roaring praise. His only concern had been saving Elliot from an untimely end. With Kathryn...it would have been easy to call the aristocrat a monster and say that he was ridding the world of evil, but it went deeper than that.

Kathryn wasn't his, not in the strictest sense of the word, but the little girl had wormed her way in with all her silent stares and determined swats. In all the ways that mattered, she belonged, and she had been hurt. It wasn't an easy anger to set aside.

It was personal.

When Julia informed him that she was heading over, Maddox had been forced to push that simmering anger aside. He would've been poor company otherwise and was looking forward to seeing her. He needed her in ways he'd stopped trying to explain.

The door swung open seconds after her knock. For a fleeting moment, blue eyes melted into honey brown, but before he could ask how she was holding up, her lips found his.

Instinctively, his arm snaked around hers, pulling her flush against him. Maddox tugged her into the house, his lips never leaving hers. The sound of the door swinging shut was dull as the woman moved to flood the majority of his senses.

He wasn't sure what had provoked such a greeting, but he wasn't in a position to question it.

The sound of the door shutting softly behind her didn't register as Maddox's arms wrapped around her, pulling her with him into the house. They'd never been so forward - aside from the night at the pub - and didn't make it a habit of going straight into the physical during their visits.

But she needed him, in a way that she'd never needed him before. She couldn't explain it, but somewhere between the time he'd left Arundel and she'd arrived on his porch, something within Julia had ignited. It roared to life as his lips moved against hers, consuming every coherent thought she had and laying care to the wind.

She was tired. So tired, and all she wanted was the feel of his arms around her.

Her bag fell to the floor with a thump before she wrapped her other arm around his neck, letting herself melt into the moment where words weren't needed and his presence was all that grounded her.

She pulled away for a brief moment to catch her breath, bringing a hand to cup at the side of his face. "What you did for her," she breathed, wanting him to understand what she was feeling and how she needed to convey her gratitude, admiration and...

Her heart thudded wildly behind her chest, the pace outmatching anything she felt she could keep up with. It dizzied her, but not in a way that she felt the need to temper.

"I don't know what to say." So she didn't. Julia let herself fall into the rhythm they had found over the past six months, completely aware that this time felt different in its meaning and intensity. There were unspoken words behind her lips as she brought them to his again, all of them that she hoped he could infer before she was forced to give them life.

"What you did for her."

They were the first words spoken between them since her arrival, and it took a moment for them to register against the frenzied need that had suddenly gripped him from the moment their lips met. Her. Something he'd done. The pieces jumbled themselves before fitting into the correct place, bringing him to the realisation she was talking about Kathryn.

What he'd done was nothing remarkable, falling squarely in the category of a necessary evil.

Had he and James not intervened, Gerard would've enjoyed a comfortable life at the expense of the most vulnerable. None would have called him out on his dark deeds, choosing instead to languish in the glow of his "good business". Maddox didn't care for the man's galleons, only his problematic predilections and seeing an end to them.

There were no expectations. No fantasies of rising in anyone's esteem – not even Julia's. It was dirty work, and it was done.

"I don't know what to say."

She didn't need to.

Her kisses carried the weight of the feelings she laid before him. They mattered more to the man than the many sonnets she could sing or any glamourisation of his deeds. Her gratitude pressed into him, but there was something far louder that screamed. It was intense and demanding. The urgency that followed in her wake painted vivid pictures of the night Julia had come to claim, and as his mouth moved against hers, those images became his own.

Maddox didn't want to dwell on the events of the passing Sunday anymore than he already did. It was her touch that he craved. Before the night ended, he wanted to be wrapped in her embrace and as far away from the clearing as she could possibly take him.

In the state he found himself, he knew it was something only she could accomplish.