queasitio {RHYS&VANKA}

(OOC: I like Latin.)

Lena had heard that there was a visitor waiting for her. Who it would be, she had no idea. Either way, she needed to see them, no matter what it cost her. She needed visitors what with all this isolation around her.

Corssing her legs in her chair, the dim lights giving the room a sort of a grubby feel, Lena firmly muttered, "Enter."

Rhys had tapped quietly on the door to the room. He could feel his heart pounding in his chest. It was worst than before their first date. Heck, it was worse than right after he had proposed and he was waiting for Lena to answer.

What if I can't convince her?

But he had to. He couldn't live, otherwise. He couldn't live without Lena in his life.

The redhead entered the room, blue gaze resting upon his first and only love. He had thought the first time he saw her that she was the most beautiful girl he had ever seen; he did did.

"H-hello, Le," Rhys said, stammering as he used to as a boy. He knew he should say something more, but words failed him. Instead, he gazed at her with such fondness - it was shadowed only by the regret he felt for having not been there for her all this time.

Lena raised an eyebrow as a man entered the room. Red hair, blue eyes... well, he did look like Rhys a couple of years older. He sounded like him. Heck, he even knew her name. Then again, it was easy for someone to just copy his mannerisms and pretend to be him.

"Sit down," she replied, gesturing to the chair. "Now, tell me. Who are you supposed to be?"

Rhys obediently took a seat on the edge of the indicated chair, but couldn't help but let out a laugh. "Sorry," he said, still smiling. "It's just... very you. It's... nice, actually." He gazed at her a long moment more, heart twisting in his chest. As painful as he knew this would be for himself, he knew it would even moreso for her. It was almost enough for him to just forget the idea altogether, if only to spare her more pain.

Almost.

"It's me, Lena," Rhys told her, tone a bit thick. "It's Rhys."

Lena snorted. "Rhys, huh?" she smirked. She then crossed her arms. "How do I know it's not just you under Polyjuice eh, Lestrange? For all I know, you dug out his body from the ground and took his hair and made it to Polyjuice."

Tilting her head to the side, she raised an eyebrow. "Tell me something that Rhys would know. Only Rhys."

Rhys wrinkled his nose in disgust. "That is gross," he declared, "aaand totally something Daggerbutt would make one of his minions do.

"Did you actually see me be buried?" the man inquired, leaning his elbows against his knees, raising a brow expectantly.

"Something only I would know? Well, your need to look after those you care about is certainly no secret, and though it's not common knowledge, others would know about your talent as an illusionist, as well.

"I know, however, that you have a scar on your right hip. Early third year," Rhys told the story. "We were walking down the steps to the entrance hall when I slipped. We were holding hands, so I inadvertently dragged you down with me. The friction from the stairs tore through your robes and you caught your hip on a sharp edge on one of the stairs.

"I was petrified to hold your hand for months after that," the man gave a light laugh, blue eyes focused steadily on hers. "You finally told me to suck it up and held my hand, anyway. But - you still have a scar from that, and I've always been ultra careful since because of it. I doubt you'd have shown it to more than Dommi and your family."

"Of course I saw you buried, if it was you at all!" snapped Lena. "I held his hand so tightly until Dommi told me to let him go and they had to wrestle me off him! You can't remember that, an you? 'Cause you're not Rhys, and Rhys is dead. Mistress O'Malley told me so, and she's a certified healer."

Listening to the words about her being the illusionist, the blonde snorted. "Ha! A lot of people know about that!" she snarled, standing up and walking towards this... man. "I'm sure you were one of those dark spies in the battle... oh yes, you had to be..."

Lena then laughed loudly and bitterly at the anecdote. "Lots of people saw me fall down with him," she announced. "You could have been one of them, impostor. And you could have taken careful observation of me for months and months." It was a long shot, especially for Lena, but it was possible.

Rhys gritted his teeth. "Dammit, Dom," he hissed under his breath. That... that woman!

He stood as well as she started towards him. Thank, Merlin, she hasn't grown taller, he thought wryly. In fact, he might even be an inch or two taller than he had been...*

"I'd hardly call six people 'a lot', Le. Now, practically everyone was talking about it by the end of the day, but the actual eyewitnesses were rather few," he stated. "And seriously, last I knew, you had several scars. How would someone spying on you necessarily know that that one came from that particular incident? Assuming you change in front of open windows where people could even see it."

Rhys scratched his head, thinking. Which was hard, since Lena was relatively close to him know and he could smell her distinct scent. Merlin, how could a person miss a bloody scent so much? His eyes fell shut momentarily.

"You still smell the same," he murmured, though, he hadn't meant to. Dragging his eyes back open, he gaze at her once more.

"Did you ever complete your 'unLena' list?" the man asked, seemingly out of the blue, though it was in direct reference to a conversation they had had as first years. "You know, that list of so-called 'stupid' things. Now, yelling at random people, you became quite proficient at. Failing all your classes - never was in your nature and I know for a fact that you never did, so that's out. I know you've been drunk," Rhys smirked at the memory of one time in particular. "So, I guess that leaves dying your hair brown and getting a tattoo."


*Guys can sometimes grow into their early twenties

Lena sighed. "You know that every since we've picked a fight with the Lestrange dogs," she replied skeptically. "Quite a lot of people have been spying on me. I'm sure you - whoever you are - know that."

Lena laughed like a maniac at the impostor. "H-How can you k-know what I s-s-smell like?" she breathed, trying to talk in all of her laughter; it was practically choking her of life. "Unless you g-go in-in my b-bedr-room at night! Oh Merlin, you-you are a-a-a... stalker!"

Lena sighed loudly. This guy can't give up, can he? "I did have my unLena list," she replied firmly. "But I gave up on it ages ago. Sixteen years, actually. So I never dyed my hair brown and I will never get a tattoo." She scowled at the man. She couldn't do anything else.

The stalker comment stung a bit, truth be told, but Rhys would not be deterred. Not now, not ever. He would spend the next sixteen years convincing her, if he had to.

"Fair enough," said Rhys, "but how did I know you know you had an 'unLena list'? Unless you shared it with everyone else? I know for a fact it was private conversation at the time."

He became lost in just gazing at her. "I remember the first time I saw you," he murmured, tone almost reverent. For the moment, he wasn't really trying to convince her, he was simply reminiscing. "That day in the library when I first met you. Remember, I said 'if you were my betrothed, I'd gladly throw my childhood away.'

"I got embarrassed, of course," he gave a rueful laugh. "I was always blurting out things. So I said I was joking. And then, you said, 'I would, too. And I wasn't joking.'

"Le, you'll never know how high I felt at that moment - how exuberant. You were the most beautiful girl I had ever seen. You still are."

Lena laughed bitterly, "You, boy, are giving me excuses to doubt myself." Standing quite close to him, Lena pulled out her dagger. It was special, encrusted with many shining sapphires all cut and placed the same way, handmade by the best blacksmith she could afford with her inheritance. "Stop doing that. Doubting me is a sentence liable to death."

The blonde ex-Uchitel listened to what else this man had to say. "There were loads of people around when Rhys and I first met," she replied firmly. "Valerie, Keru, Aalyrial, Adrian... you could be one of them."

Her voice fell a little at the last words she had spoken. She had actually started to believe this guy - whoever he was supposed to be - could be Rhys. It could only be because it was a by-product of sixteen years of hoping and dreaming and drinking Edmunds brew every single day of the week, of the month, of the year. Of course, she wasn't going to let this man know that. She couldn't let him win. She couldn't.

"Don't look at me, filthy impostor!" she snapped. "You're not worthy of it."

The man glanced at the dagger, then back at her. "Pretty," he remarked, making it intentionally uncertain just which he was referring to.

"There were," Rhys agreed. "There weren't a lot of people the first time I kissed you, though.

"It was after our second date - the same night you told me about your 'unLena' list. You also shared with me how you could make illusions for the first time. It was beautiful, a winter wonderland.

"We were playing twenty questions, and I asked you if you'd ever kissed anyone before," Rhys smiled at the memory. "I don't think I ever stammered so badly in my life. You looked so shocked, even told me about that boy who once tried. I tried to ask if you wanted to, then I just... gave up, and kissed you anyway.

"Remember what you said?" Rhys asked softly, taking a half-step closer to her. "Just one word: 'Wow.'" His blue eyes were pleading. Please, those expressive orbs endeavored to say, please - it really is me.

Lena glared at this man once more, rolling her eyes. She so badly wanted to kill him now with his remarks... then again, with the slim chance it could be Rhys, she couldn't take any chances. "Shut up," she spat, walking away from him as she listened to his next piece of evidence.

"You could have been stalking us from behind the bushes or the flowers," she replied, her voice rasping as if tears were about to flow down her cheeks. She could even feel her lips quivering as she looked into those big blue of eyes of his. Of course Lena had broken down before, but never during an interrogation. She had strict rules on closing her mind off to emotions. Maybe this time, it was too personal to do that. Much too personal.

"I mean... at that night..." she began, a tear rolling down her cheek, "all we could think about was each other. He very nearly drowned in the ice pool... you would have known that if you were watching us... I-I didn't want to lose him, never had, never will... I-I-I..."

Swallowing loudly, Lena shook her head and wiped away her tears. "There really is only one way to prove to me that you're Rhys Anwell Edmunds, born June 30th in Wales." She bit her lips. "You're going to have to..." she gulped. "Kiss me."

"Oh, for -" Rhys sputtered. "Dammit, Le! Who would stalk a couple of first years?"

It had been at the lake Rhys had nearly 'drowned', and even then, he had simply slipped, pulling Lena down into the cold water with him. The girl had panicked; she couldn't help but think of her sister. Rhys didn't have the heart to correct her, though.

"You just don't want to be convinced, do you?" he asked, tone a bit hurt. "How the hell am I supposed to prove who I am if you have an answer for everything?" He knew she could be like this, of course. He just wished she wasn't quite so tenacious about it.

The redhead gazed at her. At least, she had lowered the dagger - he didn't really fancy being stabbed.

"Alright, then," Rhys responded. Closing the space between them, he gently pulled her body to his and then pressed his lips firmly, but tenderly, against her own.

As this man had started to speak his next words, Lena had finally lost her will to stay sane anymore. She then broke down in tears right in front of this person, as bad as that is supposed to be. Sixteen years of being alone. Sixteen years of having to live with the fact that her love was not there to comfort her during the bad days... it drove all sense of humanity out of her, in a way. Thinking of the way she had raised Ivanka, Lena thought that she had raised her to be a machine all this time, not a person.

Wiping the rest of her tears away, Lena braced herself for the gentle press of this man's lips to her. When it finally came, a familiar fiery sensation came over her, one she hasn't felt in sixteen very long years. The fiery flame she had always felt during a kiss with a certain redhead. Hell, sometimes she felt it while just thinking or looking at him. It even gave her comfort at times. She pulled away immediately, blinking at this man who she had finally identified as someone she had wanted to see for years and years and was not dead.

"Oh fuck," she whispered, looking deeply into Rhys's eyes. "It's you."

Lena shook her head and stood up from the chair, running towards the other side of the room towards that magnificent chair. She turned around once she had reached it. "I'm sorry!" she yelled, starting to cry again. "I am so fucking sorry I didn't believe you. Fuck, I barely even deserve you, even after all these years... you are so bloody determined, so damned kind, so fucking beautiful that it makes my heart stop. Me? I've been teaching my daughter how to act like a fucking monster, while becoming more of one myself! Why am I so, so fucking stupid? I love you, yet I can't even believe you! Do I look like I deserve you?"

Banging her forehead on the wall, she started sobbing.

(OOC: Yay for Lena and over swearing?)

Rhys stood, momentarily dazed when she abruptly pulled away. It had felt so good to hold her again, to kiss her. Even if it had only been a few days for himself, it was that many days too long.

Allowing her a moment to rant - mostly against herself, to Rhys' dismay - the man walked over to her, putting his hand between the wall and her forehead.

"Hey," Rhys murmured softly. He moved his hand so it was caressing her cheek, using his free hand to turn her by the shoulder.

"Enough of that, now. Look at me." The man waited until she complied. "I don't blame you. I'd rather you be cautious - truly I do. I'm glad of it, I just..." A lump formed in his throat and his own eyes brimming. "Merlin, Le, I wish I had been here for you. I would have been, if I could - I swear by all that's sacred in this world that I would've. But I was in a coma, see..."

He pulled her to him again, holding her tightly. "That's why I'm late, Le," he said, crying himself, now. "I'm so sorry - I must've tripped, somewhere."


(OOC: ... there's such a thing as over-swearing?)

Vanka had bad days, and today was definitely one of them. Ellie and her had walked around town again and was disappointed at what they didn't have. No cinema, no shopping mall, no nothing. She couldn't wait to get out of here, but of course, she can't. Lena would need her sanity. But she couldn't handle the pressure any more.

Walking towards the door of the Interrogation Room, Vanka thought about moving out of the house to move in with Ellie and Dommi. It's not like she was gonna be gone forever, since she would still visit Le on most days.

Unfortunately for Vanka, the walls of the Interrogation Room muffled everything she said.

"Lena!" she screamed. "I need to talk to you!"

(OOC: I dunno. xD)

Lena looked up at Rhys. She then looked away from him. "I-I don't understand," she sighed. "Dommi said... she said you were dead... so I believed her... you, you have no idea what I had to go through without you... I had to raise a kid, Rhys!" She then looked back up at him. "I wish... we could get the years back. That all of this war was a dream." Rhys was already holding her tightly, so she closed the gap with a hug.

Feeling the door vibrate, Lena knocked her fist on the wall three times. It was a sign for the people that she trusted that they could come in.

"She was trying to protect you," Rhys told her, "to protect us both." He gently tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.

"I know. I'm sorry, Le. I'm here, now." The man pressed a kiss to her forehead. It was something he had done since third year. Just a simple gesture that said so much.

"Your daughter," Rhys began. "Is..." He trailed off as Lena knocked on the wall, presumable to tell someone to enter. The man held her tighter; he wasn't ready to let go, yet.

Vanka entered the room. She shrieked. Someone was holding her mum tightly, and she seemed like she was crying. Was it someone telling her that after all these years, her family were dead? Out of instinct, Vanka drew her knife from her belt.

"Who are you?" she snarled, pointing her dagger straight at that man's throat. "Let go of Mum right now or I'll throw this dagger at you!" She then turned to her mum. "You okay?"

Rhys looked calmly at the girl. "Sheesh. Such violence," he said lightly, a faint smirk pulling at his mouth. So very like Lena... He pressed a kiss to the side of Lena's head and obediently stepped back, but not without pausing to gently brush the tears from her cheeks.

Using the back of his hand, he scrubbed the tears from his own face, blue eyes turning to study the girl.

She looks so much like Lena, he thought, an odd ache settling in his chest. Could it be..?

"You must be Ivanka," Rhys said softly, offering his hand. "My name is Rhys. Rhys Edmunds."

"Don't you 'Such violence' me!" she shrieked. She then lowered her dagger. "You're not my dad, aren't you? Mum says he has been gone nearly sixteen years... and yes, I am Ivanka."

She then raised her eyebrow. "Who are you supposed to be?"

Rhys put forth the effort to keep a straight face. After growing up with Lena, shows of temper didn't intimidate him as they once would have.

It wasn't so hard to keep a straight face as the girl continued speaking. "I..." He looked at Lena, feeling utterly lost. Rhys honestly didn't know if he was Ivanka's father or not. According to Dommi, Lena had never found anyone else, even after all this time. Still, he couldn't be certain; not in the least.

"Dammit, Dom," he muttered again under his breath. She was supposed to talk to the girl! "I am your mom's fiance. We were together all the way back during our first year of school. You should have met me before, but most unfortunately, I've been in a coma for sixteen years.

"And I'm, uh," Rhys added awkwardly, "legally dead." A hand came up to scratch his head. That one would take some getting used to.

Lena sighed, knowing that Vanka would act this way. There was a reason she had never told Vanka about Rhys. She knew the younger one would go on a rampage, and that was not good. She decided to hug Rhys because she was just so damn paranoid now.

"Please, Vanka," she whispered, her voice trembling. "I-I'm so sorry... I know I should have told you, with what you went through... forgive me. I-I had no idea this would happen..."

Lena then smiled, though she still looked a lot sadder than she should be. "Besides, we can act like a proper family now, right?"

Rhys hugged Lena back, rubbing her arm soothingly.

He buried his face in her hair, partly to breathe in her scent, but mostly to hide the manic grin that had spread across his features. He was a father! Granted, he had rather expected to be there for the whole process, but Rhys was willing to take what he could get. Enough had been stolen from him, already, after all. But not this. Not this...

Rhys pulled back a bit, giving Lena a warm smile as he gently stroked her cheek. "That's right," he agreed.