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Chapter Text

Castle Wulfenbach, Present…

Gil dreamed of Tarvek. 

Tarvek is bound, straining against his bonds. 

Tarvek is stripped bare, bloody.  His clinical mind sees that Tarvek no longer sweats from the pain.  Tarvek has lost too much fluid; the torturers have been at work on him for hours. 

A woman flips a lever.  There is a metallic ratcheting, then… the sharp, sickening crack of bone.  Tarvek gives an animal shriek of pain.  

He is crying, begging… fighting the hands that restrain him, enraged to the point of incoherence trying to reach Tarvek.      

A voice nearby speaks to the torturer, “Enough.”  

The woman returns the lever to its original place.  He hears a grind of chains and winches.  Tarvek’s screams dissolve into whimpers.  

Then, that cold, silken voice asks him a question.  He opens his mouth to speak, tasting bile on his tongue.  

Without warning, an intrusion at the edges of his mind blossoms into life.  He feels a brief spasm of horror, then his mind is sucked under.  He fights.  In vain.  

As he is overcome, he thinks:  ‘But, we fixed this!  Tarvek and Agatha, they fixed this…’  

The feeling is familiar and undeniable.  His father is taking over, and his own mind, his will is being suppressed.  He retains some awareness but no control.  This is not quite like the old overlay.  Then, he had no memory of what happened while his father was in command of his mind.  Now, he can see and hear everything.  

“No, I will not tell you.  I will never give you what you want,” his father says in his voice.  

“You will.  Oh, you will,” the voice soothes.  “You only require the proper persuasion.”  Although his body is not his own, his skin crawls to hear the harmonics in the words.  

“Again.”  

The torturer resumes her ministrations.  He watches the slow leak of blood as, this time, the woman carves deeply into Tarvek’s side.  The seconds slide by until Tarvek can no longer contain his anguish.  

Tarvek shrieks again…

~

Gil woke screaming, crying out for Tarvek.  He was tangled in the bedclothes; the sheets shackled his limbs.  Tearing free, he staggered retching to the bathing room.   

This time was better than so many before, because he managed to clutch a basin before vomiting.  When he finally crumpled, sick and weeping to the floor, his throat was raw.  

He didn’t know how much time passed.  

It seemed a long time before his legs were steady enough to hold him.  He cleaned the basin and himself before stumbling back to bed.  

He didn’t remember falling asleep. 

~

…smoke is everywhere, fires have broken out throughout the lab.  Outside the room, he can hear people running and screaming.  

Not Tarvek.  He is insensate, still strapped to the laboratory table.  

The guards and assistants are dead.  Their bodies litter the floor.  

His father is gone.  Only he is left in his head.  

The Other is gone, too.  Fled.  The torturer, knocked unconscious by falling machinery, lies on the floor half under the table still holding her victim.  

To his left, a console explodes into sparks.  

He lurches into motion, stumbling over the debris-strewn floor toward the table and staggering slightly because the airship is listing hard to port.

The woman on the floor stirs.  Without thinking, he picks up a knife from the floor… the woman’s own tool.  He stabs precisely through two cervical vertebrae.  There is a twitch and the sharp scent of urine. 

He turns his back on her and forces himself to look at Tarvek.  He puts a hand to the pulse in Tarvek’s neck.  It’s thin and slow.  His fingers come away covered in blood.  

He unbuckles the straps holding Tarvek to the table, supporting him carefully around the chest.  He is gentle with the obviously dislocated shoulder.  His medical training isn’t enough to prevent his stomach rolling as he glimpses the white glint of bone protruding from one leg.  

He thinks about stabilizing Tarvek’s injuries, but they can’t afford the time.  So, he cradles the half-dead man in his arms.  Slowly, legs unsteady with the yawing of the ship, he makes his way out of the lab and down a corridor.  

~

In his bed, Gil floated in between sleep and waking, remembering:  

At the time, it had taken him far too long to find his way through the corridors, avoiding the frantic, fleeing people.  Then, the ship was hit by a further, massive explosion and started to go down.  

He had only just managed to hide them in an abandoned work room.  He had dragged several sturdy tables into a make-shift barricade on three sides.  Then, Gil had wrapped himself around the injured Tarvek, stabilizing his head and neck, and waited for the ship to impact.  

The tables had held.  Four of his ribs had not.  They’d cracked under the force of the crash as he held Tarvek to him.  He hadn’t cared.  He’d dug them out and hoisted the unconscious man into his arms again, ignoring the stab of his broken bones… 

… in the end, it was the Jägers who’d found them.  He remembered being surprised that it wasn’t Agatha who had come for them.  The Generals had explained - Agatha was burning every ship in the fleet, searching for the Other, seeking revenge for men she thought were dead.  It was her Jägers who still had the sense to search the damaged, exploding vessels, looking for the only two people capable of leading their Mistress back to sanity.

Gil had refused to give up Tarvek into Higgs’ care.  He had walked off the ship, across the burning town scattered with fragments of the Other’s smoldering ships.  He’d walked the kilometers to Agatha’s encampment, ignoring enemy soldiers and townspeople, missiles and flying debris.  

The Jägers will handle it, he had thought. 

I have to show her he’s alive, we are alive.  Nothing else matters.  

He had walked up to Agatha where she stood surrounded by consoles and scurrying dingbots, hands flying across a control board as she manipulated an army of clanks.  Her amplified heterodyning could be heard for at least a kilometer.  The eerie not-music rippled around her in waves, distorting her form.  She was a vision of the Heterodynes of old:  radiant and deadly, so far gone in the Spark no one dared get close to her.    

He had walked through the haze surrounding her, placed the unconscious Tarvek at her feet, and then collapsed himself.

~

He lays night and day in the bed next to Tarvek’s, watching the physician-Sparks treat him, watching Agatha fight for Tarvek’s every breath.  He is sick and nauseous, too injured to leave his own bed.  He is gray with the pain of the healing engine strapped to his chest.  His breath comes in thin, wheezing gasps forcing him to fight for each molecule of oxygen that his body needs…   

…it is days later.  His ribs are sore, but fused again; the healing engine is gone.  He is under strict instructions to stay in the chair next to Tarvek’s bed.  Dr. Sun informs him that he can help by monitoring Prince Sturmvoraus’ readings.  Every time he tries to get up and do more, he finds himself waking up in his chair hours later.  Dr. Sun makes no pretense about sedating him to keep him still.  

In his old bed, beyond Tarvek, Agatha sleeps the sleep of the nearly-dead.  She had been awake for almost a week, first in a rage-fueled Spark state destroying everything in sight, then in a desperate fugue trying to save Tarvek.  She had finally exhausted herself, collapsing of her own accord.  No one had dared remove her ‘for her own good’ for fear the Prince would die as she slept.  

He looks at Tarvek’s too-pale face.  His shoulder is set, held secure by a brace.  So too is his broken leg.  His wrists and ankles are scabbed and scarring; his feet still bandaged.  His neck and chest bear a cross-hatching of cuts and gouges.  The bruises on his face are yellow-brown.  

Still, Tarvek does not wake.  

He wants to cry, but his chest aches too fiercely.  His muscles won’t comply.  So, the unshed tears are left to burn in his eyes.  

Eventually, he dozes off on the edge of Tarvek’s bed.  

When he wakes, Tarvek’s hand rests on his head, fingers tangled in his hair.  

For the first time he believes they might all survive.  

~

In his sleep, Gil’s tear-streaked face softened and he sighed.  

Chapter Text

Castle Heterodyne, Eight months ago…

Tarvek dreamed of his future.  

He sits on an ornately carved chair in the restored throne room in Sturmhalten Castle.  Somehow he knows this is his coronation day.  He can feel the weight of the crown, the Lightning Crown, on his head.

It is his due, he reflects smugly.  After all, he helped defeat the Other, and - of all his family - he succeeded in overthrowing the Wulfenbach usurper.  He has brought the promised peace and stability to Europa.  He deserves this.   

He stands with the Heterodyne – Agatha – by his side.  She is resplendent in purple and red.  His colors, his dream-self realizes.  ‘What happened to her city?’ he wonders idly.  It doesn’t matter, not really.  He is the Storm King, and she is his Heterodyne Queen.  

Nothing else matters.  

He won.

~

In his sleep, Tarvek twisted.  He grasped fitfully at the blankets, a chill seeping into his body.  

His sleeping self threw an arm over his eyes as though shielding himself from an unpleasant truth.

~

The coronation is a grand and glorious party as befits the occasion of his ascension.  He feels… happy.  Well, not precisely ‘happy.’  But, he enjoys the accolades showered upon him.  And, really, what more is there?  

Agatha’s laugh, cold and bright, comes from his side.  She is beautiful on his arm.  She must be enjoying herself, too.  She surveys her conversation partner with an expression he recognizes.  She will be up late in the laboratory tonight.  Perhaps she will even want him to join her in the experiment.  If not, at least he can be sure she will bathe away the blood before she comes to their bed.  She always does.

How he loves her…

~

Tarvek mumbled in the throes of his dream, “Agatha…”

He turned over, tangling himself in the bed clothes and pressed his face into the pillow. 

His tangled hair made a dark stain against the pale sheets.

~

A court herald announces the evening’s entertainment.  He is excited.  This is a special treat he has planned for his new court.  

His plan is to show off the usurper, Wulfenbach.  Brought before them to be humiliated in defeat.  And, it will remind all of them of what he has done… his power… how dangerous it is to cross blades with the Storm King.

Guards drag a chained and shackled figure into the throne room.  He doesn’t even look at the prisoner; he is not important.  The usurper is only a tool now.  Instead, he looks closely at the members of the court, scanning, judging their expressions… looking for the first signs of disloyalty.

He looks down only when the prisoner is thrown at his feet.  ‘Klaus Wulfenb - ‘ he begins.  

But no…  The face isn’t Klaus’.  

It’s Gil’s.  

Gil looks up at him bruised, bloody and pleading.  Confusion jolts him.  This isn’t right.  Dimly he senses the dream-world twisting around him.

He tries to object; this isn’t the usurper.  He opens his mouth to protest, but finds he can’t control his body, his words, his expression, his actions.  

He fights from within his body, but the trap is perfect.  There is no escape.  

His arm raises of its own accord, and now he can see the string attached to it.  In horror he suddenly knows there are strings attached to all his limbs.  Attached to Agatha’s.  

The dream-reality hits him.  He’s being controlled.  They’re both being manipulated.  

From the corner of his eye, he catches a glimpse of himself reflected in an ornate mirror.  Although he stands alone on the dais, the mirror shows him a sea of people, hair as red as his own… 

…holding his strings.

~

Tarvek woke suddenly with a muffled shout and fell, tangled in sheets, out of his bed.  Gil!  No!

His stomach heaved, and he forced himself not to vomit. 

Agatha… strings… covered in blood… 

Bile rose, hot and sharp, in his throat again.  With a conscious effort, Tarvek forced his diaphragm to slow, his lungs to take several deep, steadying breaths.  The stone flags of his room felt cool against his heated skin.  It was a dream.  

Find Gil.  Find Agatha.  

Tarvek fought to extricate himself from the bedding wound around limbs that had obviously been flailing about in his sleep. 

I won’t do this!  I won’t be a pawn anymore, I won’t be manipulated.  I refuse to be that person.  

Gil… in chains, face pleading.  

Suddenly and irrationally terrified, he shoved open the connecting door into Gil’s room.  Gil was fast asleep. 

Passed out in exhaustion, from the look of it.  

The big man lay sprawled across his bed, face obscured by pillows and wild brown hair.  Some sanity seemed to return to Tarvek’s mind at the sight of his friend, safe in bed.  How is he not cold? he wondered distantly, seeing Gil slept with nothing but a quilt covering his lower half. 

Throwing caution to the winds, Tarvek grabbed Gil by the shoulder and shook him violently awake.  He ignored the man’s shout and ducked Gil’s punch.  He caught the arm easily; it was by now a reflex built by long habit of waking Gil when they were at war.  “Gil, it’s me!” he said loudly, meeting his friend’s sleepy eyes.  

Gil was instantly awake and on his feet, “What is it!?  Did they…?”

“No, no.  It’s fine.  No one is attacking us.”  Gil’s face, his solid presence felt like an anchor. 

It was a dream.  Not true.  None of it will be true; not if I can prevent it.  

“I need to talk with you.  I need to talk with you both.”

“Gil?  Gil?!” Agatha came charging through the door from her own room across the hall, her latest weapon cradled in her hands.  She looked wildly about for the threat.  “Tarvek?  Gil?  What… Oh!”  She met his eyes briefly, then caught sight of Gil.  Without pause she whirled around to face the tapestried wall, gun nearly dropping from startled fingers.  

Gil looked momentarily confused.  Then something, perhaps a cool breeze from the open window, reminded him he hadn’t a stitch on.  “Hell and death,” he muttered and rummaged in a chest for clothes.  

“Tarvek, what the hell is going on?” he asked pulling on pants.  “Agatha, I’m sorry.  I was so tired last night…”  

She turned around, face still red, then hefted her weapon and came to sit on the edge of the bed next to Gil.  He watched as Gil tugged on the quilt and wrapped it around them both, holding Agatha in the circle of his arm.  Vaguely he wondered, when did I stop feeling jealous seeing them together like this?

Pulling his mind back to the present, Tarvek faced his friends, “I’m not going to do it.”  He met two pairs of eyes, one brown, one green.  Both Gil and Agatha looked blank.

“I refuse,” he went on resolutely.  “I’m not going to accept Andronicus’ legacy.  I won’t be the Storm King.”

“What?  Tarvek?” Gil began, confused.  “Where is this coming from?”  

Gil in chains…  

His smug, entitled feeling… a joy in new plots and schemes… 

Agatha face… delighting in others’ pain…

The strings… knowing he’s being controlled…

Visions crowded into his mind, and something in him broke loose.  “No!”  He yelled clutching at his temples.  “No.  I won’t be manipulated into this.”

“Tarvek,” Agatha sounded carefully calm.  “No one is manipulat -”

He cut her off, voice fierce, “I won’t be manipulated by my family or you or anyone else.  This is it.  I don’t care anymore.  I don’t want the Lightning Crown.”  

I don’t deserve it.  Gil is the better choice, by far.  It will turn me into someone…  

“Wait!” Gil managed somehow to whisper a shout. 

The Castle inhabitants are still sleeping; I forgot. 

“What the hell, Tarvek!?” his friend spat out the words.  “We’re not manipulating you into anything.  So, will you please tell us what’s going on!?”  

In his frustration, he began to storm up and down the length of the room from the still open door to the windows thrown wide to catch the night breeze.  “All these years I went along with my family’s plans, because I thought your father,” Tarvek threw Gil a brief look, “was a usurper.  He exploited the chaos after the first Other war.  He stole power from those to whom it rightfully belonged.  And, he forced cooperation at gunpoint.”  He took a huge breath.  “I thought by reestablishing the rule of the Storm King, I could right those wrongs.  I could return power to the fifty families and create a Europa that didn’t live in fear of the Baron.” 

“But,” he turned and fixed Gil with a penetrating stare, “that isn’t going to be a problem any more, is it?  Your father won’t be leading the Empire.  It’s going to be you.  Isn’t it?”

Gil twitched uncomfortably under his stare.  “A decision hasn’t been made…” he trailed off feebly.  Then, Gil seemed to be making up his mind about something.  “Probably.”  A pause.  “Yes.”

I knew it. 

“So that’s it,” he sighed and continued with an air of finality.  “My grand plan isn’t relevant any more.  There isn’t some evil usurper to defeat.”  Gil raised his brows.  

In answer, Tarvek pointed a finger at the other man,  “You won’t be the leader your father was.  You are as much a Spark and a military mind as Klaus.  But, you… you don’t have it in you to govern by fear.  Not really.  Not if there is any other way.”  He met Gil’s eyes again, searching them deeply for confirmation.  

Gil is a good person, better than his father.  He doesn’t have the same amoral, sadistic streak.  He’ll do well for Europa.

“And, the Empire is the legitimate government if for no other reason than that it has ruled for the last two decades and just defeated the greatest threat Europa has ever seen.”  Tarvek felt weary.  “What can I offer in place of that?  A legend?  A fairy tale?  Without substance, without structure?  Half of my family is dead, who knows how many of the rest I can trust.  I can’t build without a foundation.”  He sank tiredly into a chair in front of them, “And, I don’t want to.”

You’d be so much better than me.  Me?  I’d only turn into a… ‘smug, condescending snake’… just like you used to say.

Agatha and Gil were silent.  He watched them exchange looks, worry etched on both faces.

“So!” Tarvek’s resolve stiffened again, and he sat upright.  “That’s it, Gil.  I won’t do it.  I’m not fighting you.  And, I don’t want your Empire.  I refuse.”  

~

Gil scrutinized Tarvek’s face.  Bruised, exhausted, deep purple stains under blood-shot eyes.  Skin looks pale… paler.  He’s lost weight, too.  Well, we all have.  Short rations, too much fighting, too much running. 

“I believe you,” he said simply.  That’s what you need to hear isn’t it?

Tarvek slumped again in his seat and put his face in his hands.  “Good.  Thank you.”  

Agatha gave his hand a squeeze, then stood up and went to Tarvek.  She didn’t say anything, just stood next to him and stroked his hair.  Tarvek sighed shakily and leaned his head against her hip.  Gil found he could neither frown nor blush at the sight of his oldest friend being caressed by the woman he loved, while only in her underwear. 

It all seems so long ago, so irrelevant compared to the problems in front of us.  

“Is there any room for discussion here?” he asked.

“No.”  Tarvek’s voice was still muffled by his hands.

“Ok great.  Let’s negotiate.”  He replied, smoothly.  Tarvek’s head came up, and Gil went on swiftly, “You don’t want the crown.  Fine.  I understand.”

“The problem is that I can’t do this alone.  I can’t do what my father did.  As you pointed out, he brought Europa together because the Other was still a threat, and because he was willing to do whatever it took to win.  His tactics were brutal, but they worked.  For a while.  They won’t work now.”  He had to pause for breath.  Tarvek opened his mouth as though to speak, but he held up a finger, “Hear me out.”  His friend’s lips tightened.  

“The leader Europa needs now is a diplomat, a negotiator… not a tyrant.  It needs you… someone like you,” he amended hastily at the look on Tarvek’s face.  “Yes, the Empire has the infrastructure, the resources – or it will again, in time.  But, I can’t pull the continent together using my father’s old approach.  The Other is gone, and this is the time for unity not threats.”

He stopped and waited, but uncharacteristically Tarvek was silent.  He just sat, looking defeated as Agatha combed her fingers through his hair.

“You don’t want the crown.  Like I said - fine.  I understand.  But, I still need you.  I don’t think I can hold the Empire together without someone I can trust to help me.  And, no one knows the political levers for all Europa better than you.  Our devious weasel, remember?”  He tried for a little humor to lighten the mood.  The joke failed miserably.  

“I don’t want to be that person, Gil,” Tarvek sounded lost.  

And, there was nothing he could say…

~

The three of them were silent for several long moments.  Finally, Agatha spoke into the stillness, “None of us wants to be like our families, Tarvek.  Maybe yours is the worst.  Maybe mine is.  Klaus is certainly no picnic.  We all want to be different from our families, be better people.  We are those better people when we’re all together.”  

I want to be the person I am with you.  And Gil.  I don’t want to be alone, to be that kind of Heterodyne.  No friends, only minions.  My family afraid of me or just as unbalanced.  

She moved slightly, so she could look into both of their faces.  Theirs were fixed on her.  Agatha felt a tension, a connection, humming between the three of them… a new and important understanding about to break through.    

“You two shouldn’t fight.  I agree.  There can’t be any fighting between us anymore,” she went on, voice very hard.  “Arguments and disagreements, I’m sure those will happen,” she amended.  “But, we don’t fight each other.  We don’t.”  

Both men nodded soberly at her words. 

We’ve seen enough war for several lifetimes, she thought bitterly.  

“But, Gil is right, Tarvek.  He can’t do this without you.  I can’t help him with the political aspect.  I have some ideas of how I can help, how I want to help.  But, I’m no trained ruler.  I can manage my own city, but I can’t manage a continent.  Gil has had the training, but it isn’t enough.  He won’t have the support.  He’ll try to hold the Empire together, but it will fracture.  Then, he’ll have to choose between letting it fall apart or turning into his father.”  She grimaced.  “You can make the difference.  You’re the piece we need.”

~

“Please, Tarvek,” Gil said quietly.  “Don’t abandon me.”

“I didn’t say I wouldn’t help!” Tarvek protested, looking stricken. 

I didn’t say I was leaving.  I couldn’t leave either of you.

“To help you need authority,” Gil told him sympathetically.  “I shouldn’t have to tell you that.  You are the heir to the Storm King.  The lightning crown is the authority you have, the title you’ve earned.  So, take it.”

“Gil, I said I…” he began, but Gil cut him off.  

“Take the crown.  But, don’t rebuild Andronicus’ empire,” his friend continued steadily.  “Sturmhalten, your family’s lands - all of them - those must be yours, obviously.  Hell, we can draft the paperwork tomorrow!  I’m giving Agatha Mechanicsburg back as fast as I can.  It’s either that or she’ll come and take it away,” Gil gave Agatha a wry, sidelong glance.

She made a tiny, involuntary snort of amusement.  Big, bad Heterodyne indeed…  

“What are you proposing then?” he asked, eyes narrowing.

“An alliance, as you know damn well, Sturmvoraus!” Gil snapped.  “Between the Empire and the Storm King.  Separate.  Partners.”  Gil stared at him, intent, almost angry.  

He was silent, staring back.  Minutes passed.

“Tarvek?” Agatha prompted, finally.

He stood and walked resolutely toward Gil.  The man got quickly to his feet, clearly unsure what Tarvek intended.  He searched Gil’s face, trying to find evidence of dishonesty, evidence that he was being manipulated.  But, Gil’s face was honest and open. 

No.  He’s not trying to deceive me.  

Tarvek wanted to trust this, to trust Gil and Agatha. 

I do.  It’s just… I came to say I wouldn’t take the lightning crown.  But, Gil is desperate.  Desperate… and correct.  He will fail without me. 

He held out his hand, and Gil took it body still alert.  “Partners,” he said quietly.  

Gil shook his hand once.  “Partners,” his friend nodded, unable to disguise the relief in his face.  Gil gave his palm an extra, reassuring squeeze.

They stood, hands clasped for another moment.  Something had changed between them. 

Something that has the power to last beyond this war.  Tarvek felt an energy… no, not strings… binding them together.  

Agatha moved over and put an arm around each man’s waist.  “All partners together,” she echoed the words in his head, trying to hug them both at once.  As they folded her into their embrace, Gil smiled at Tarvek over her head.  

Chapter Text

Castle Heterodyne, Now… 

Agatha dreamed of flames.  Fires engulfed kilometers of the surrounding countryside - towns…  people…  airships…  enemies.

~

She is enraged; consumed by violence.  

Gil and Tarvek are dead.  

She knows this.  This is why her heart is empty, no more than a dead husk.  She has nothing left but destruction.  Death is all that remains to her.  

She embraces the hissing voice of her Spark… ‘Kill them.  Destroy them all.’  Somehow it doesn’t concern her that it is twisted, turning dark… darker.  Without a reason to stop, she gives in seeking retribution on those who took them from her.

She knows nothing will bring Gil and Tarvek back; they cannot come back.  There are no remains; nothing to bring back.  Some part of her is relieved that she is spared considering whether she would bring them back… against their will.

Underneath the rage, fear grips her.  She will have nothing left without them; her heart is too damaged to hold love for anything, anyone else now.

Her heart whispers, ‘What will I do without them?’  

‘Embrace the pain,’ her Spark replies, twining sinuously through her mind, leaving black trails on her thoughts.

Her fingers dance over the control panels around her.  She presses a button.  Another clank comes online, missiles targeting an airship.  The flip of a switch, and a flare goes up.  Her Jägers will know what to do.  An explosion tears the ground half a kilometer ahead.  Another airship down.

‘Good.’  But, her Spark hungers for more.

Her smile recalls the Heterodynes of old… and, she welcomes them into her heart.

Her heterodyning is the music of death… hers.  

‘Yes,’ her Spark feels the victory is near.  ‘No!’ a part of her pleads.  

But, her Spark swells to fill the emptiness inside.  

And, she welcomes Death into her heart.

~

Agatha fisted the sheets, whimpering without waking.  In her sleep she thrashed, bedclothes falling to the floor.  After long moments she curled into a shivering ball, clutched her pillow and snuffled into it.  The nightmare began again.

~

The thud shakes the platform where she stands.  Her dream-self remembers her reaction:  if she’d had the capacity, she might have been angry at the disruption.  As it was, she blazed with Spark-rage and in her fury there was no room for petty concerns.  

Something makes her turn.  It feels like tug on her innermost self… her soul?… the part that lies weeping and defeated.    

Or, perhaps it is Violetta, screaming Tarvek’s name.

There they are:  Tarvek is laid out like a corpse; Gil looks little better, collapsed over Tarvek’s legs.  Violetta crouches at her cousin’s head, fingers pressing into his neck and wrist.  

She is suddenly cold and breathless.  Her Spark’s hold is rigid.  She wants to ask, but she can’t put words to the question.  ‘Dead?’  So, she simply stares at the bodies she never expected to find.

Then…

“He’s alive.  Tarvek is alive…  Barely.”  Violetta’s fingers slide around Gil’s wrist.  A pause.  “Gil, too.”  

Her Spark’s control shatters.  Disbelief and fear meld with a piercing pain so sharp she doubles over.  

In front of her, Violetta screams for the medics and the hospital airship.

~

In her sleep, Agatha twisted and turned.  Her hands clutched at the air.  “Tarvek… no…” she groaned, a guttural noise deep in her chest.  Her fingers twitched, as though trying to find him and grab hold.  “Breathe… please… you have to…” 

She fell temporarily silent.  Then, “Gil…” she whimpered.  “… thought I’d lost…”  Tears streamed from the corners of her eyes and soaked her pillow.  She did not wake. 

~

She is on the hospital airship.  Tarvek lays on a gurney to her right, Gil on another to her left.  She can see where the medical tables are strapped to the walls of the airship to restrain their movement during the flight.  Physicians and nurses work over the two men…  

Gil is stable.  Badly injured, but stable.  She can hear the steady beep of a monitor reading out his heart beats.  ‘Too slow, but steady.’  She clings to each sound as the machine beats out a rhythm:  lub-dub  ‘a-live’  lub-dub  ‘a-live,  a-live.’

A nurse works carefully around Tarvek’s grotesque injuries in order to fit a monitor to his body.  She tries not to look at the caked blood, livid bruises, the visibly dislocated shoulder… the even more obviously broken leg.  The monitor gives its first feeble beep.  Then another.  Pause.  

Three, brief beats in quick succession.  Then, nothing…  Nothing…  

“Beep!”  

Nothing…  She holds her breath, waiting to breathe with him again.  Nothing…  Nothing…  

Abruptly, she is gasping for air and reaching for Tarvek, heedless of the doctor she knocks aside.  “Tarvek!”  

Violetta is already holding the Revivifying Cardiac Stimulator, by the time she lunges for it.  Violetta yells for everyone to get out of the way.  She sees a physician open his mouth to argue… then she watches, disembodied, as her fist connects with his skull.

Violetta leans over her cousin, and she hears her friend hiss, “Don’t you die on me!” as together they place icy metal paddles against Tarvek’s chest.  

‘Again,’ she finishes, mentally.  ‘Don’t die on us, again.’  From deep inside, a scream tries to tear its way out of her throat.

“Agatha!  The switch.  On my mark!”  

Wordlessly, she places her hand over the device controls.  ‘Please, Tarvek.  Stay with us.  Stay with me.’

“Mark!”  

She flips the lever, hears the electrical “Zap!” and smells a sizzle of flesh.  In its place beside them, the monitor gives a feeble “beep.”  Eyes riveted on Tarvek’s chest, she sees him draw the tiniest of breaths.

“Beep!”  “Beep!”    

The stillness breaks, and then physicians surround them again.  Busy hands conceal Tarvek’s mangled form and low, earnest voices hum in her ears.

“My Lady, please move aside and let us work.”  She meets a young doctor’s eyes.  

“Let me help.”  

“We don’t know what they used on him.  He should be tested for toxins,” Violetta’s voice comes from across Tarvek’s gurney.  

“Fine.”  The young woman decides.  “Do it.  Tell me when you have results.”

The dream starts to fade away…  

~

Agatha woke with a muffled shout, drenched in sweat.  Her jaw ached from trying not to scream; she labored to breathe steadily in the dark.  For a moment she was still back on the airship.  Then, her eyes registered the thin, golden glow of light from the torchmen down in the city. 

Her bedroom, not a hospital room.  The Castle, not the Great Hospital airship.

Fires flickered suddenly to life in her fireplace and wall sconces.  Gentle, soft flames illuminated more of her room.  She woke, often screaming, from nightmares nearly three days in four.  No one came to comfort her; she didn’t want them to. 

We all need our sleep.  And, we all have nightmares.  There is nothing to do for it, but get on with life.  

Yet, she still couldn’t bring herself to move.  Tears streamed quietly down her face. 

Tarvek… Gil… 

The dreams, the memories were so vivid. 

Because they’re real.  Because we lived them. 

She couldn’t scrub the memory of Tarvek’s bloodless face in the hospital bed from her retinas.  Agatha’s panic started to rise, the kind of panic that had once left kilometers of Europa in flames. 

No!  I can’t give in to this.  I won’t. 

She heard herself give a small, choking sob.  

From everywhere around her, soft music began to play.  It was only just within hearing, melodious and soothing, something like the lullabies she could dimly remember from her childhood. 

The Castle is worried.   It’s sweet really. 

She gave a shaky and slightly hysterical giggle. 

Who in the world would believe that Castle Heterodyne could be sweet?  I wouldn’t believe it myself if I hadn’t experienced it.  

Trembling, she reached out for a handkerchief from the bedside table. 

Tarvek and Gil are fine.  I have to believe that.  Miss them?  Fine.  Worry about them?  Okay.  But, no panicking.  

“I miss them.  I worry about them.”  Her voice sounded harsh in her own ears, harsh from the suppressed tears.  She hadn’t seen either man in a month.

And, I haven’t had a report from them in a week.  

From all around her, the Castle made a sort of soothing, rumbling noise.  

Her home didn’t understand her distress, couldn’t understand it.  It’s solution to her nightmares was simple.  First, eliminate anyone who had hurt her.  Second, kidnap and imprison her loved ones in the Castle so they would be safe.  It’s not that the strategy didn’t have appeal; it did.  But, it wouldn’t actually stop her nightmares, and she cared about more than just her own happiness.  Finally, after having its advice ignored time and again, her Castle had stopped mentioning it.  But, it hadn’t stopped trying to help when she woke in the night. 

Sweet…

Still, Gil and Tarvek - all her missing friends and loved ones, really - were where they needed to be, working to create a safer Europa.  She was where she needed to be, too.  In her city, helping her people.  “We’re all so busy, and it’s hard to stay in touch.  It’s worse when I haven’t heard from them in a while.”  She sighed and blew her nose loudly.  “I wish we could send messages faster between the three of us.”

|Mistress?|  The Castle asked.  

“Oh, I was just thinking that maybe it would help if Gil, Tarvek and I had a faster, a more reliable method of communicating.  Letters seem to take forever, there’s never enough time to put down everything, and reports are so… impersonal…” she drifted off, thinking hard.

|Help with the nightmares?| It asked her.  

“Not only the dreams,” she replied.  “But, yes.”

When she had first returned home to Mechanicsburg, she had slept soundly.  Exhaustion, relief, safety, she remembered.  It was only after a couple weeks had passed, that the dreams – the nightmares – started.  She never had normal dreams anymore, the silly kind, the odd kind or the good kind.  It was only ever night terrors.  Waking up in the pitch darkness, too frightened to move.  Sometimes sweating, often screaming, disoriented, terrified.  

At first her friends and the Castle had tried to help.  Zeetha and Violetta had even tried sleeping with her, thinking it would be a comfort not to wake up alone.  But, she saw her friends losing sleep. 

And, sometimes their nightmares woke me up, too. 

It was worse when the Castle tried to wake her from a nightmare.  It’s booming voice had made her think they were under attack again.  She’d fired a death ray at her non-existent enemies the first time.  Never again.  It wasn’t worth damaging her house just to spare herself a few minutes of terrifying dreams.  

We just need better ways to communicate.  Something faster than current diplomatic couriers.  Faster - like military runners.  Faster - yes, like Jäger fast.  Her mind whirred at the thought.  Something private.  Right now, unless we’re willing to resort to codes, we have to assume all our messages can be read - even if only by our own people.  

Something more personal than the hastily scrawled letters I get from Gil. 

The thought wasn’t precisely fair to Gil.  And, she treasured every scrappy note that came from him.  They lay tucked together with Tarvek’s letters in a box beside her bed.  

Something that will let me see Tarvek’s face… 

Her memory had presented her so many images of Tarvek broken and near death that she could hardly remember what his face looked like grinning, alight over some scheme or piece of technology.

And then a thought struck her.  The holographic projector she had made with Tarvek in Sturmhalten.  Better yet, the dingbots she had reworked into miniature versions to send a message to Gil. 

Ooh! 

Schematics began to draw themselves in her mind’s eye.  

It’s the right idea… but I think I can improve it!

~

The Castle remembered its Heterodyne when she first arrived.  It barely knew her then, barely resonated to her.  

Now, oddly, it grieved with her.  How can she grieve for people who are not dead?  It can feel her worry, her heartache.  

It felt her devotion for her city and its people.  It felt her fondness for itself, her Castle.  It felt her affection for her friends.  It felt the way her heart twisted in fear for two men she loves.

It still wasn’t sure that its current Heterodyne knows of this power:  The Castle resonated with its Heterodyne.  It detected and magnified the emotions of the Heterodyne.  Its whole being, every wire, every circuit in its make up, all Mechanicsburg thrummed with the reflected experience of the Heterodyne.  It bled into every building, every resident… though only some of the residents, the oldest humans, the Jägers, the monsters knew the sensation for what it was.

The Castle had long known the feeling of a happy Heterodyne.  The delight in conquest.  Dining on the fear of their enemies.  Glutted on destruction.  Lusting for blood.

It remembered the feeling of her father.  Rejection.  Fear.  Bravery.  Spark.  Disgust.  … Absence.  

This Heterodyne was different.  It remembered her fierce joy, her focus, her rage, her defiance…

…then a sudden void. 

… her return, and

… her sadness.

It had rarely known an unhappy Heterodyne.  Briefly frustrated, melancholy, violent… yes.  

Its Heterodyne should not be unhappy.  But, this Heterodyne was.  In a way.  

It could sense a kind of happiness - more pride and satisfaction - in its Mistress as she labored in town, worked alongside her people, treated those Jägers who still fought with the Empire’s troops.  But, its Heterodyne was also weighed down with sorrow, an odd sort of grief - not only for those who were gone, but those who were alive but not present.  It was manageable during the day.  Then, the Heterodyne was often distracted.  The trouble came at night as nightmares claimed the Heterodyne’s sleeping mind.   

It was confusing.  The Castle had never known a Heterodyne suffer nightmares.  Whenever Heterodynes of the past had committed atrocities, this was taken as a matter of course.  They were the Heterodyne after all.  It wasn’t like a Heterodyne to suffer remorse.  

But, this was the last of the family.  The last Heterodyne.  

She was all the Castle had.

Chapter Text

Agatha slipped out of bed, redesigns for her holographic projector forming easily in her mind.  Without really paying attention, she found trousers and jammed her legs into them.  She buttoned on the first blouse that met her fingers.  Automatically, she reached for her favorite vest - the one with the tools, mainly of her own design, that she refused to be without - and drew it on.  Her feet found her boots, then carried her out into the corridor.

“Castle?”

|Yes, Mistress?|  

“My small clank laboratory, please?”  It was something of a cheat, but she wanted to get her ideas on paper as quickly as possible.  And, although this trick turned her stomach as often as not, it was easy for the Castle.  Plus, her Castle always loved getting to have a little fun.  

|The Laboratory of Miniature Abominations it is, Mistress|

Agatha could hear the Castle’s doppler’ing voice as the floor under her feet dropped suddenly away.  She was swiftly but gently whisked down and deposited in her laboratory several floors below and on the opposite side of the Castle.  

Suppressing the feeling that her stomach and intestinal canal had been turned upside down and inside out, she snagged a scrap of paper from the giant roll suspended above her drafting board.  The designs blooming in her mind poured out of her, down her arm, and through her pencil onto the page in front of her.  Without noticing, her throat began to produce a soft, atonal hum.  

From all around her, there came a sound as of wind whistling quietly through cracks in a wall as the Castle sighed its relief.  

~

The world slowly righted as Agatha slipped away, absorbed in her work.  Her hands flew over parts and notes.  She worked in a sea of dingbots, so attuned to their creator that they seemed like extensions of her own body, following unspoken orders with astonishing understanding.  At some point in the work, her fugue twisted. Without being aware of the transition, she slid into a world between waking dream and fugue.  Her hands labored over the tiny clank, but the disassembly was simple and so her mind drifted.  

She works over the arm of an injured Jäger.  His limb is missing at mid-forearm, removed by a blade and somehow lost in the mess of the battlefield.  “You’re almost healed enough for me to fit you for a prosthetic,” she reassures him.  The smile he gives her is filled with too much admiration and far too many fangs.  ‘They trust me,’ she thinks.  The fact frightens her.  

Her mind drifted again and her fingers deftly began to fit the carapace back onto her modified dingbot.  

She is back in the medical tent.  A different Jäger, a different wound.  The same fears, ‘How will we all get out of this alive?’  She knows they won’t.  A wave of panic is building in her chest.  She can see the Jäger’s face crease with worry.  

“De are right dere, Mistress.  Hyu ken see dem.  Jusht look.”

Automatically she turns, as the Jäger gently tugs her around.  Gil.  He works alongside the medics in an adjoining tent; the flap that separates the makeshift medical wards is tied back.  He is bent over an injured human soldier.  From the way his fingers move, she thinks he must be attaching a healing engine.  ‘He’s safe.  Safe.  Safe.  Safe.  Safe…’

One part of her panic subsides, but another wave builds in its place.  ‘Tarvek? Tarvek!’ her mind clamors.  For a moment she feels dizzy, then a strong arm is around her waist.  The Jäger holds her upright.  

“He iz right dere, see?  Doink de papervork, reading de reports.”

Her gaze latches onto the Jäger’s pointing finger, following it out of the tent, across a muddy path and to the figure sitting at a field desk under a pavilion.  She can see Tarvek’s red hair.  He holds a steaming camp mug in one hand and listens to an aide who is handing him a report.  ‘Safe.  Safe.  Safe.  Safe…’ her mind intones.  And, she looks hard hoping that Tarvek’s image will be seared onto her retinas.  The wave of panic fades.  It’s never truly gone, but it’s manageable like this.  

Her distress is the reason the tents are left open to the air and each other.  She has to be able to see them, know they’re there, alive, safe.  If she can’t, panic overtakes her.  It would seem silly, except…  Her dream-self and real-self can both smell the smoke, see kilometers of Europa set ablaze by exploding airships.  

Not silly after all.

She turns back to her Jäger, “Thank you.”  His gaze is too full of understanding.  She ducks her head so she doesn’t have to meet his eyes. “Let’s get back to this wound,” she says and reaches for a bandage.

One modified dingbot sat finished on the bench in front of her.  Another was open under her fingers.  She reached for the miniature laser array in its tiny housing and a screwdriver.  “Shhh,” she told the little clank.  “This won’t hurt.”  Maybe she imagined it, but the dingbot seemed to hum happily under her fingertips.

Her dream-self drifts in between memories…

She wakes screaming and frantic, calling for Gil and Tarvek.  Hard arms wrap around her convulsing body and a calloused hand clamps over her mouth, stifling her screams.  

Later, she would be glad; their people need quiet and sleep.    

Later, she would realize it was Zeetha, but in the moment she can’t think past her blind panic, beyond her desperate need to know both men are safe.  It has only been weeks since they were captured, tortured and eventually found.

She is deranged, out of control.  The arms around her can hardly hold her in place.  She claws at them, tearing her throat with muffled cries, tears streaming down her cheeks.  

Gil runs into her tent.  Her dream-self dimly feels him catch up her flailing hand and place it over his throat.  He hums, starting an old song, something he probably learned from the soldiers under his command.  It’s her cue.  She catches a note and hums back, letting herself start to heterodyne.  The interference begins to penetrate her panic.  

Tarvek staggers through the tent’s partition, leaning heavily on Higgs.  She wants to rush to him, needs to rush to him.  Gather him into her arms.  Hold him.  Know he is safe.  But she still can’t move; Zeetha grips her firmly.  She can’t be permitted to touch him.  He is still so frail; she might easily damage him in her urgency.  But, he comes to join her on the cot, wrapping himself around her, crooning to her.  As she calms, Gil replaces Zeetha on her other side.      

She watches Zeetha slump into Higgs’ arms, as he arranges them both on a bench.  They wear too many bandages, even Higgs.  Zeetha rests her head on his shoulder; he takes her hand in his.  She watches Higgs stroke gently over the back of her friend’s hand as her own eyelids droop.  

She remembered waking the next morning.  She had been tucked against Gil’s side, his arm around her waist and her head pillowed on his shoulder.  Gil held Tarvek gently in the circle of his other arm.  Tarvek’s hand had lain over her wrist where they both rested on Gil’s chest.  

~

The midday sun was streaming through the tall laboratory windows by the time Agatha screwed the final piece of clank casing onto the redesigned holo-bot.  She had made only two, one each for Gil and Tarvek.  The upgraded mechanisms were finicky work, and she didn’t want to wait any longer to send them with a message.  A few technical challenges remained, but these were good enough.  Plus, Gil and Tarvek would probably have their own ideas for further improvements.  They could make changes to the holo-bots, record their own messages and send them back.  She would have to make more very soon, though, so Gil and Tarvek could communicate with each other, too.  But for now, this would have to do.  

Agatha stretched, easing the kinks out of her back.  She made a mental note to upgrade the work chair in this laboratory.  If she was going to build such detailed mechanisms frequently in the future, she would need better support.  Adjusting her goggles to sit atop her head and out of the way, she gestured the two small clanks to their position on the bench.  “Ready to record?” she asked, smiling at her inventions.  Both clanks raised tiny arms in salute.  She stood back so she would be in full view of both device’s recording fields, and gave them a nod.  Green lights inset into the carapace around their one central eye flared to life, and she began, “Gil!  Tarvek! …”

Chapter Text

Half an hour later, Agatha emerged from the Castle’s massive front doors, the holo-bots clinging to her shoulders and closely followed by a steam trolley bearing her Jäger medical supplies and several prosthetic limbs.  She made a habit of going down into the city nearly every day to treat her family’s long-time companions.  She wanted them and her people to see she was committed to correcting the neglect of the previous generation.  

Although the war was over, many of her Jägers still fought alongside the Empire’s troops or the Storm King-to-be's knights.  Jägers made an odd peace-keeping force after centuries of wreaking havoc all across Europa at the Heterodyne’s side.  But, as the old Baron had seen, they were the right tool for some jobs.  True, he had often used them for intimidation.  After all, Jägers were freakishly strong and eternally good natured provided they got to terrorize somebody.  With Agatha’s blessing, Gil and Tarvek just pointed them at Europa’s enemies rather than law-abiding citizens.  

Agatha had summoned her Generals for a conference shortly after her return to Mechanicsburg to finally take up her role as the Lady Heterodyne.  She’d asked them to consider shoring up Gil’s and Tarvek’s forces as they fought to defend those parts of Europa still under threat by the last of the Other’s supporters and to help enforce the laws that would become the new Pax Europa.  

After dismissing the Generals’ surprise that a Heterodyne was asking for anything instead of simply issuing orders or taking their due, she had carefully explained that she planned to aid in stabilizing Europa, not spend her time running rampant across the mountains and plains looting and burning.  At this, several Generals had looked deeply disappointed.

“There will still be plenty of fighting, blowing things up, and generally terrorizing people,” she hastened to reassure them.  “Just… uh, fighting the criminals, blowing up their castles and laboratories, and terrorizing their minions… that sort of thing…” she’d trailed away rather lamely.

General Gkika had looked at her in a far too understanding way, “And hyu vant hyu boyz to haff an easier time of it, yas?”  

She had blushed, but kept her voice steady as she’d replied, “Yes.  We are safe enough.  The Castle is capable of defending Mechanicsburg.  But, for the rest?  Even together we don’t have enough troops to safeguard the Empire and Tarvek's holdings.  You Jägers are formidable fighting force.”  Her Generals had preened at the compliment.  “I know you just came home after so long away, but you’re more useful out there.”  

As she watched the Jäger Generals exchange uncertain looks, she’d remembered the promise to herself, made even before the Other was defeated.  A promise to be part of the solution, not a new scourge.  A promise to add something - and not just bodies and burned out towns - to Europa.  

“I can’t help Gil and Tarvek with the politics.  Not really.  And, I don’t want to.  I’m grateful to have Van doing the day to day administrating of Mechanicsburg.  But, this is one place I can help.  We can help,” she’d continued fiercely.  “It’s not the only way we can make a difference,” she admitted.  “And, I have some ideas about that.  But right now Gil, Tarvek and their people are out there risking their necks to make this new peace work while we sit here safe in our city.  A city I… we have thanks to their help and support.  So, I want…”  

Mamma’s hand on her arm had cut her off.  “Ve know vot dey mean to hyu und ve know vot ve owes dem.  Dey are goot boyz who haff fought mit us, defended our Heterodyne, even saved our brodders.  Ve vill do ask hyu ask.”

“Mistress pleez, vould it not be easier jusht to conquer, brink Europa under de rule of de Heterodyne?  Den it vould be easy to make de peace,” Zog had argued sensibly, while several of his fellows nodded earnestly, smiling and showing all their fangs.

For one awful moment, Agatha could smelled the reek of charring wood and flesh.  She’d wanted to be sick.  Deliberately, she’d breathed in the scents of tea, tobacco and cheesy snail pastries before nodding. 

This is who my Jägers are. 

And so she had replied with a tiny smile, “If this plan doesn’t work, then we can try it the old Heterodyne way.”

~

Mechanicsburg shimmered under the hot summer sun.  Heat sank into Agatha’s bones, warmth coming from above and reflected off the black stone under her feet.  The long, winding path down from the Castle to the city center afforded her a stunning view of her ancestral home.  

Mechanicsburg was a hive of activity.  She felt a swelling sense of pride in her people.  The city had suffered decades of neglect and damage, but thanks to the efforts of its citizens, it teemed with new life.  Everywhere she looked there were repair and construction crews.  The streets were thronged with residents and tourists alike.  In fact, the city population was larger than ever before as more and more refugees displaced by the war came to Mechanicsburg looking for opportunities, prosperity and the Heterodyne’s protection.  

Europans begging for the Heterodyne’s mercy…that’s what everyone expects.  Seeking a home and protection with my family is… a new one…

Not all refugees could reasonably be accommodated in the city, constrained as it was by walls, river and mountains.  With Van’s competent direction, she was expanding her influence to distressed towns throughout the eastern Carpathians.  Both refugees and Mechanicsburgers worked to rebuild towns in the region making them safe places for displaced people to build new homes and lives.  

A veritable army of clanks of her own design served as mobile resources for these growing communities, moving in temporarily to build, dig, transport, lift, haul, power… and anything else she could think of, before carrying on to the next town.  They were aided by small groups of constructs who had come out of hiding and found a home with the Heterodyne. 

Desperate times and desperate people suddenly means folks are willing to accept help from those they previously despised.  But, it was good to see constructs like her adoptive parents were, out in the open and being - if not accepted, then quietly tolerated.  

These thoughts carried Agatha down into the bustling city center and along the main thoroughfare, past the newly constructed orphanage that occupied a corner spot in a busy square.  This was another grim reality of the war.  Not just displaced people, but far too many families that had lost members.  Saddest of all were the children, now alone, thanks to years of war.  

She had no idea what had brought so many of them to Mechanicsburg.  But, they had crept into the city in twos and threes.  Sometimes they came with siblings.  Sometimes they came in small gangs, having banded together against a world that seemed bent on taking everything from them.  Children were easy to overlook in a busy place already full of ragamuffins, always getting into trouble.  They had found small jobs and a few meals with the city’s residents for a time.  

What changed their lives was the Jägers.  To a monster, Jägers loved children.  Most did not have families of their own, so they doted on the city’s children.  

A rather shy, shuffling group of her Jägers had approached her one day as she stood up to her elbows in blood, working on the injured of their number to ask if they might keep the children who trickled into the city.  

“Keep them?” she’d asked, face unreadable.  “Keep them… how?”

“Keep dem in de city, Mistress.  De haff no families, so ve… all de brodders... Ve haff been teachink dem und feedink dem.”

It was all too easy to imagine yet another horde of youngsters, wielding swords with one hand and bug sandvitches in the other, rampaging across her city. 

“Ze don’t haff anybody, Mistress.  So ve plays vit dem.”  Her eyes had gone wide at this.  

“De football,” another Jäger had clarified.  “Und, not effen mit skulls!” he went on, keen to set the record straight.

“Ve listen und tell dem schtories und tuck dem in at night,” another Jäger-brother went on.  “De kinder is like family now.”

Agatha’s heart had gone soft at this, melted away into a puddle of cream.  Without thinking she’d placed a bloody hand on the spokes-Jäger’s arm.  “If the children want to stay, I’ll see to it that they have everything they need.  I’ll talk with Van and the town council.  Today if possible.”  She had paused then, searching the eyes of each monster in front of her.  “The children are lucky to have all of you.  I can’t think of anyone better to be their Uncles, their family.”  

~

Her reverie was disturbed by a small hand tugging at her sleeve.  She looked down to see a flushed face under straw-colored hair.  

“Ilya,” she grinned down at the child and bent one knee so she could meet him on a level.  “What mischief are you getting into?”

“Miss Rinja said that if you’re only just coming to see the Onkels now, you must not have had breakfast.  She sent me out with these,” he proffered a sausage roll and mug of tea, only partly full, in hands that were… mostly clean.  

Agatha smiled at him and took the offered food.  “Thank you, that’s very thoughtful of both of you.”  She turned to wave to the woman in the cafe door across the street.  Rinja returned the gesture, flapping a tea towel at her mistress in mock disapproval.  

“And, how are your Uncles and your sister,” she asked, returning her attention to the boy.  He bounced with a surfeit of energy, like so many children of his age.  

“They’re good!” he piped.  “Onkel Henri came back this week and brought me this!” he proudly displayed a tooth dangling from a cord around his neck.  “He said it came from one of the Ice Lords’ monsters.  He fought the monster, and it almost had him, but then he,” the child mimed a disquieting wrenching movement.  “And, Uncle Henri took this as a prize and brought it back for me,” Ilya finished breathlessly, swelling with pride by association.  

She fished for something nice to say about a seven year-old retelling the violent end of a monster.  Who knows where that fang actually came from, she reminded herself.  Heinrich wouldn’t be the first Jäger who refused to let the truth get in the way of a good story.  She grinned as Ilya rushed on.  

“And, Sara is learning baking with Frau Zucker.  She baked that,” he pointed to the roll Agatha was holding.  At the reminder she bit in and hummed with pleasure.  

Ilya was one of the luckier children.  He had been brought to Mechanicsburg by his older sister.  Sara steadfastly refused to speak about where their home had been or what family they had lost.  The girl met all questions with a militant glare, but she had thrown herself and her younger brother into life in the city.  They had been sleeping in an abandoned shed in the seedier part of town, when Heinrich had brought them to Agatha’s attention.  They were part of the first group of children to take up residence in the orphanage, running errands for the construction workers, helping the new Matron clean and furnish the rooms, and sitting for lessons with a retired schoolmaster in the square as their new home grew up beside them.

Ilya’s voice drew Agatha back out of her reminiscences.  “I’m big enough now help Herr Zucker make the bakery deliveries.  That’s why I was with Miss Rinja.  I’m supposed to go back to the Kinderheim now for lessons,” he pulled a face.  

“But, I’d rather come with you.”  Before she could find a place to set down her mug and roll, the boy was climbed onto her steam trolley, which wobbled dangerously, and settled gleefully amongst the artificial limbs.  “Can, I come with you to see the Onkels?  Can I?  Can I?  Pleeeeeeese??”  

She looked down into his eager face, and couldn’t find the heart to say ‘no.’  To her own surprise, she planted a kiss on the boy’s wild hair, “Okay.  But just this once!” she tried to excuse herself.  

Followed by the lumbering, chuffing trolley now struggling under the added twenty plus kilograms, Agatha crossed over to the Sausage Factory.  Rinja came out to meet them and accept the return of her mug.  “I’m taking this scamp with me to Mamma’s.  I’m fitting some of the Jägers with prosthetics today, and Ilya’s small hands will be useful while I make the adjustments.  I’m late actually.  And, you were right about breakfast.  Thanks,” she gave the woman a grateful smile.  “Would you let the Kinderheim know he’s with me?  I’ll see him safely back when we’re done.”

“Of course, my Lady.  And, you be sure to take care of yourself.  I know your work is important, but the Heterodyne is no use to us if she falls ill.  None of us wants to tell your young gentlemen that we didn’t take care of you, Lady.  We all remember the last time the young Baron got grumpy,” she spoke the word as though destroying an entire battalion of battle clanks with a lightning stick was the sort of thing any reasonable person might do if irritated.  “And, I’m sure the Prince is no better.”

Rinja was a woman of iron and Heterodyne or no, she would speak her mind.  By the time the woman finished her lecture, Agatha was crimson.  “A missed breakfast or two isn’t the end of the world, Rinja.  But, thank you all the same.”  From over the woman’s shoulder she could see Van in his booth, trying and failing to look absorbed in his paperwork.  A grin tugged the corners of his mouth.

“And no comments from you, Herr von Mekkhan,” she tried to sound stern.  

“No, my Lady,” Van said with a tiny, seated bow.  “Of course not, my Lady.”

Rinja drew a second sausage roll out of the bakery case and thrust it into Agatha’s hands.  “One for the road,” she said, and the woman’s mulish expression brooked no argument.  

“Thank you, again” Agatha replied, choosing not to fight a battle she couldn’t win. 

Plus, the rolls are good.  And, I am hungry. 

Gathering the tattered shreds of her dignity, she turned back to Ilya and her trolley.  “Let’s be off!  We have along afternoon ahead of us.”  Agatha strode off down the street, the boy’s whoop of joy ringing out behind her.

Chapter Text

Agatha and Ilya made slow progress through the busy, cobbled streets to Mamma’s bar.  Mechanicsburgers stopped to greet her and tourists stood stock still in the street causing minor traffic jams as they gaped at the Lady Heterodyne.  

As they neared Mamma’s, they paused to inspect the progress on the new Jäger hospital being constructed a few doors down from the disreputable, but historic bar.  

While she’d settled into her new life as the Lady of Mechanicsburg, Agatha had been swiftly and steadily overwhelmed by the work her city and her people needed.  So much had been left undone for years.  So much had been damaged or destroyed.  It had taken several months before Agatha, her seneschal and the town council had settled into a routine with one another.  Opening the Heterodyne’s coffers and giving Van more explicit decision-making power had helped bring the city under control and stem the flood of problems, challenges, puzzles and emergencies that had swamped her first months as ruler.  

But, there were some things only she could do.  And, one of those was treat her Jägers.  

She still wasn’t quite sure why the Jägermonsters refused to let anyone but a Heterodyne treat their injuries.  It seemed to be the result of equal parts caution about sharing the details of their unique, altered biology and plain old superstition.  Agatha didn’t object to this, in fact she preferred to limit other Sparks’ ability to study Jäger physiology.  But, with a back-log of old, badly healed injuries some dating as far back as the disappearance of the Heterodyne Boys as well as wounds taken during the Other War, and new ones that resulted from their efforts to support the soon-to-be Pax Europa, Agatha found herself overwhelmed with patients.    

Initially, she had considered financing a new wing of the Great Hospital specifically for injured Jägers.  But, the Generals had pointed out that the Jägers would be uncomfortable so close to curious and Sparky physicians.  And, Dr. Sun had carefully explained that the Great Hospital was already strained with cases and could not accommodate dedicated space for a new population of monstrous patients.    

Then, she’d thought about setting aside space in the Castle for a Jäger infirmary.  After all, in the past, Jägers had been treated either in the field by their Heterodyne or at the Castle.  But, that would mean taking her Jägers away from their brothers and friends as they recuperated.  Most Jägers enjoyed the Castle’s company.  After all, they had grown up together and cultivated the same joyful bloodymindedness.  But, it just wasn’t the same as being surrounded by the bustle and noise of Mamma’s and the cheerful distraction of their brother’s antics.  It was all further complicated by the fact that children from the Kinderheim came to Mamma’s to visit their Uncles. [And, in a few embarrassing cases accidentally received an education.]

But, Mamma’s was never designed to be hospital.  It had only served as one out of necessity.  So, in the end they’d decided the best thing to do was to build a facility as close to Mamma’s as they could.  Luckily a vacant space had come available just a few doors down after the original edifice had been sacrificed for use as a ballistic missile during the battle for the city.  [It was either that or the Society of Enthusiastically Applied Chemistry had blown up their guild hall.  Either way no remnant could be found and no one ever came to claim the property.]

The structure was growing now and would be able to house an impressive number of patients.  If there ever came a time when so much hospital space was not required, it could serve as further barracks.  Agatha had been dubious about that idea, but the Generals had assured her that while ‘squashy humans’ might require quiet and repose while convalescing, Jägers recovered best amongst the noise of their brothers.  

“Hit reminds dem to get better fast so de are not missink all de fun!”  And, it did make a sort of sense.  Jäger-sense anyway.  

~

Agatha led her clank to the rickety wooden stairs leading down to the basement of Mamma’s bar.  Obedient as ever, the machine rolled up its wheels and extended four sturdy legs which it used to trundle down the steps, Ilya giggling at each lurch and drop.  She entered unnoticed in the chaos of the cellar bar.  Careful to avoid getting in the way of the commotion, she navigated through the crowded main room.

“Hyu is late, Mistress.”  Mamma Gkika swept magisterially through the throng toward her to give her a hug.  It was gentle and only squeezed the breath from her lungs briefly.

“I was working on a project,” she explained.  “Actually, I want to talk about it with you after I’m done for the day.”

“Me?  Hyu vants to tok vit me?  About de engineerink und Sparky-schutff?” Mamma’s eyebrows raised and her face took on the violet hue Agatha associated with confusion.  

“Not exactly.  I’ll explain everything later,” she said reassuringly.  “So, what patients do we have today?”

“Dere is only vun new patient, my Lady,” Mamma said.  “He jusht came bek from helping Master Gil.  Notink too bad.  But, he vas cut across de eye, und Master Gil vas not heppy mit the vound.  Zo, he sent him bek in case hyu vould vant to fix de eye.”  Agatha nodded her understanding. 

These holo-bots are going to come in useful right away if I have to make something as detailed as a Jäger eye. 

All her dingbots technically had eyes, but those were clanks.  She’d made a helmet to crudely allow for a variety of visual stimuli to enter the brain in Paris.  But, a proper artificial eye, fully integrated with the biological one and with the brain would be new territory.  Oooh, fascinating…  

Mamma must have caught the look of interest on her face.  “Hy am not sure it vill be necessary.  Do not get hyu hopes up, Lady.”  

Certainly Agatha didn’t like to see her Jägers injured, though there were far fewer missing limbs now that Gil and Tarvek assigned sweep squads to scour battle sites for body parts separated from their owners.  But, the unfortunate maiming did afford her the best engineering puzzles… 

“So, hyu ken gets to de Spark-vork almost right avay.” 

“Great,” Agatha smiled back.  “I brought a helper with me today for just that purpose,” she pointed to where Ilya was still being swept up into one furred hug after the next by the Jäger-Onkels.  “He wanted out of lessons, and I could do with a pair of small hands for…”

“…de fiddly vork.  Ja,” Mamma nodded knowingly.  “Vitch of my boyz do hyu vant first?”

“Hmm,” Agatha considered.  “New patient first.  Then, whomever is free.”  

“Goot,” Mamma nodded and led the way into the back room currently set aside for patients.  What were once small *ahem* bedrooms had been almost completely converted into a moderately sized medical laboratory.  A huge healing tank dominated one wall, a second was arrayed with a series of laboratory tables separated by work benches and displays, a third was lined with cabinets of supplies.  An impressive chemistry bench took up the remaining space.

A Jäger in a splendid military overcoat which could not entirely disguise his dejected slump sat on one of the lab tables, twirling his hat between clawed fingers.  He jumped as soon as Agatha entered, “Mistress!”

~

“Hy leaves hyu to it, den,” Mamma said.  “Ilya ken tell me ven hyu is ready for de next vun.”  Agatha nodded absently, not really listening.  She drew on her lab coat and gloves and went to inspect the Jäger’s face.  

“I don’t think we’ve been introduced.  I’m the Lady Heterodyne.  What’s your name?”  She caught his reply, Casimir or ‘Casi if she preferred,’ but let the rest of his explanation wash over her.  He had been sliced right across one side of his face which now bore a scar, pink against his forest green skin from forehead to cheek.  It seemed the Jäger’s prominent brow bone had spared his eye part of the blow. 

But, only part of it.  

“Does it hurt?” she asked, donning goggles and flipping a high magnification lens into place.  She gently moved the eyelid further up to get a closer look at the eye itself. 

It must have been nasty when it first happened.  The blade clearly slipped through thin skin into the orb itself. 

“Whoever treated this did a very good job.”

“De Baron vas very fiddly mit mine eye,” Casi conceded.  “Hy said I vas fine.  It vas jusht a nick, a tiny ting.  Und, hy do have anodder eye!  But, he vouldn’t listen.  Hy know ve is not supposed to let anyvun but de Heterodyne vork on huz.  But, de Baron jusht shouted a lot,” he rubbed nervous hands over his trousers, squirming a little under her hands.  “Und, he made me sit schtill until he got it bandaged.”  

Another time she would have been entertained by the vision of Gil ranting at the monster to submit to medical examination.  But, she was distracted by what she saw.  “This has healed, but you can’t possibly see well given how the cornea is deformed.”  It hardly mattered when scarred skin puckered.  But, even small changes in the curvature of the eye affected the optics significantly.  

“No, Mistress,” the monster admitted.  “It vorks a leetle, but not as goot as before.”  

“No, I expect not.  Relax.  I need to…” the words drifted off.  She hardly registered Ilya scrambling up on the table, inspecting Casi’s scarred face and demanding to hear the story.  

Jägers healed quickly, especially provided someone took pains to set their bone, skin and ‘squashy bits’ back in the right places.  [It was so inconvenient when one healed from a belly wound with half a liver still outside the body.]  This was the trouble with Jäger healing she’d discovered.  “Fast” didn’t mean the same thing as “good” or “like new.”  Casi’s eye was a case in point.  It was technically healed, but that didn’t mean the eye would function well.

Behind her, the Jäger’s and the boy’s voices made a comforting contrast of rumbling and piping as she started to work. 

… Measure the error of eye curvature… mmm… I’m going to need a few things from the Castle…

“Castle?”  

|Yes, Mistress?|

“Can you have someone bring me some things from my labs?”  She rattled off a list of tools, lenses, lights, and grinding equipment.

The Castle chuckled evilly, and within fifteen minutes a harassed minion had been delivered bodily to the door of Mamma’s, shuddering and clutching a large crate of supplies.  She thanked the man absently and directed him to the bar for something to steady his nerves.

Agatha settled into a rhythm, softly heterodyning as she ground several glass pieces and assembled the finished lens and prisms along with a mirror and light into a metal casing.  She screwed the finished ophthalmometer onto a small wheeled table then rolled it over to her display system and tinkered further. 

If R equals two d times I over O, then… 

She hummed for a while longer as she integrated the new machine with the display.

“There!  It’s done!” She guided the entire contraption over to her patient.  Casi broke off what was probably a highly embellished tale, if the light in Ilya’s face was any guide, to gave the machine dubious look.  “This will measure the extent of the damage to your eye.  Here, put your good eye up to this part.  I want to take a control image.”  She drew Casi’s head forward into the right spot, twiddled the machine’s dials, and watched the display closely.  “Great.  Now the other eye…”

“I want to see!  What does it show?”  Ilya leaned precariously over Casi’s lap to stare avidly at the display screen.  Agatha was amused by the eagerness on his face.  

“See this?” she pointed to the half of the screen displaying the intact eye.  “It’s showing us a representation of the normal eye’s surface by bouncing light off it like a mirror.  See how all these rings are equally spaced?”  

The boy nodded, “But, the other side doesn’t look like that at all.  Is that because it got hurt?”

Agatha looked at the other image showing the corneal injury as distorted rings.  “That’s right.”  She frowned.  “Ugh, I might be able to repair this.  But, it would be careful surgery… I might be able to create goggles that hold the correct negative pressure over your eye to draw the cornea back into it’s original shape.  That would mean keeping the eyelid up, so that would mean… an aqueous solution, formulated like tears… Jäger tears??  And, then if I could make a healing bath just to fit over that eye, we might be able to reduce… or even eliminate the scarring…”  

She turned back the monster and boy.  The former looked bemused and the latter was busy tugging the Jäger’s face this way and that to try to study the damage more closely.  

“It would be complicated, and I can’t promise how much vision you’d recover.  Honestly, it might just be better to remove the eye altogether and replace it with an improvement.” 

Yeeesss…plans danced merrily in her brain.  

[At this point in a session with her patients, she usually had to remind herself of the long ago conversation she’d had with Gil about bedside manner.  However, today it slipped her mind.]  

“See, if we just replaced your eye then I could include so many additional features.  Night vision for one.  I could expand the range of detectable wavelengths so you could see in infrared and x-ray!  Really, I’m not sure why you’d want to keep the old eye anyway, even if it could be fixed.  Not if we can make it SO MUCH BETTER!!”  Casi watched in fascination as the Mistress’s smile widened and her eyes gleamed.  “Tsh…” she tutted dismissively.  “How about it?  I’ll just take this old thing out and we can get right on to the UPGRADE?!” Agatha brandished a pair of forceps in front of Casi’s good eye.  

~

Casi reached out swiftly and gripped her wrist.  “Hy em sorry Mistress,” he began nervously.  Her smile was Mad and broad and seemed in danger of splitting her head open.  It vould be rude to refuse de Heterodyne’s hoffer to ‘upgrade,’ vouldn’t it?    “It is verra nize of hyu, but… ah… “ Casi stumbled, cringing over the words.  “Hy tink hy vud be happier mit the old one if hyu ken fix it.”

The Mistress pouted briefly.  “You’re sure?  It could be ever so much better if you’d just let me…” she wheedled, waggling the forceps encouragingly.  

Casi swallowed and released her hand.  He wasn’t squeamish, but he was used to his eye.  It was like an old friend.  It had seen him through a lot of fun times, and he wasn’t ready to let it go just yet.  “Ah, mebee hyu tries to fix de old vun first, und if it doesn’t vork den ve can do… ah…” he waved at the forceps.  

His Lady sighed in obvious disappointment, but gave in.  “Okay, I’ll have to get a few things ready…”

… The next few hours were a blur.  And, not just because Casi swiftly had only eye to see out of.  Really, it might have been better if he’d not had even that much, because his visual field was full of a happily humming Heterodyne wielding very sharp tools near… ugh, on… his face.  The surgery hadn’t really hurt.  It was much better than field medicine or some of the Heterodynes he’d known.  This Mistress had brought out a tiny bottle of something she’d called anesthetic, which sounded to him like one of the better brands of schnapps.  It had burned at first, then numbed his eye.  Still, it would be a few dozen years before he forgot the sight of a scalpel coming straight for his eyeball.  

Now, he was laying on a table with strict orders not to move… Not zat hy could becaws of all dese strappings… for fear of dislodging the sensitive device that whirred away softly on his face.  In an effort to distract himself from the feeling that a Haemopis Vurm was sucking at his eyeball, he listened to the Mistress as she worked.

~

Agatha’s second patient was a sight for her sore eyes.  She’d thrown herself at Dimo when he walked in, hardly registering Mamma’s conspiratorial grin. 

She must have been hiding him away as a surprise.  

Dimo had been on detached service for months, and Agatha missed him.  She had also itched to upgrade his arm.  But, Dimo had insisted the old one worked well enough, and they both knew the new General was too useful in the field.  

He was here now though, one furry, one metal arm squeezing her tight.  After a long moment, he held her at arm’s length.  Dimo didn’t look any the worse for the time on campaign; the same scraggly hair and beard, the same eyes - golden from edge to edge - and “A new hat!?  Dimo!  You have a new hat!?”  

Dimo laughed taking in her astonishment, “Hy vill tell hyu all about it ven hyu is done.  Iz a goot schtory, und I vants to tell it right.”  He glanced over her shoulder to where Ilya stood, hanging back a little unsure.  “Who iz your helper?”

Agatha waved the boy over, “This is Ilya.  He and his sister came to Mechanicsburg a while ago; they live at the Kinderheim.”  She and Dimo exchanged a knowing look as the Jäger bent one knee to greet the boy.

“If hyu is living at de Kinderheim, den I tink dot makes me hyu Onkel Dimo.”  Ilya walked out from behind Agatha to look closely at the Jäger.

“Hi!  You’re one of the Generals, aren’t you; will you tell me the story of your hat; and what happened to your arm; I’ve never seen one like that!” Ilya said all it so quickly that his words ran together.  

“Hov courze!” Dimo chuckled and swept the boy up to sit on his metal-covered shoulder.  

Agatha growled, and Dimo gave her a puzzled look.  

“No, no, no!”  She glared at the two of them.  “Arm now.  Stories later.  I’ve been waiting months to try this on you.  You’re going to wear it and test it NOW!”  

Dimo sat down sharply on an examination table at the words.  His eyes and Ilya’s were wide at the overwhelming, Sparky harmonics in her voice.  “Hokay, hokay.  Hy tell de schtory later,” he said hastily.

“Good.  Later.  I’m glad you’re finally here.  I’ve had your new arm ready for weeks.”  Agatha retrieved a long box from one of the storage cabinets and brought it over for his inspection.  Dimo unlatched the case, and his jaw dropped.  The new arm made his current prosthetic look amateurish. 

Well, I didn’t have the best of materials or a lot of time when I built the old one.

She contemplated the scars decorating the stump of Dimo’s arm.  True, her Jägers healed quickly.  The trouble came when bits got cut off and were either melted, incinerated or lost in the chaos of battle.  This meant that Agatha’s medical knowledge was growing by leaps and bounds, and she was swiftly becoming an expert prosthetics builder.  Best of all, the Jägers were often enthusiastic participants in her experiments to “improve” their new limbs with Spark-tech.  

[As a result, she had successfully engineered replacements fully equipped with electro-shock devices, energy weapons, concealed toasting forks and emergency hat repair kits for the Jäger on campaign  Because, no self-respecting Jäger would go into battle if not well-hatted.] 

Dimo looked rather awestruck.  “It looks vonderful,” he said reverently.  He stroked the sleek green and copper hand with a trembling finger.  “How doze it schtay on?” he inquired, thumbing the harness that held his current arm onto the stump of the old.  

“We are going to integrate the new arm with the remaining tissue.  I have a new plan for connecting the arm’s core to the existing bone.  And, I’ve improved the neuromuscular connections both for descending motor control and ascending sensory input.”  

“Hit vill not come off?” Dimo asked.  “Not like dis vun?”

“No.  It is going to not just replace your flesh arm, it will be an improvement,” she explained, eyes alight.  

He lifted the arm from its case and inspected it from all side.  “Hokay!  Let’s do dis!”

~

It hadn’t taken long to get started, and now Dimo was lying on a surgical table as the Mistress removed his old arm and little Ilya ran around the table happily tightening all the straps that would prevent his moving during the replacement.  

He felt a pang of regret as the old arm was set unceremoniously aside.  After all, it had been with him a long time.  But, the new arm Miss Agatha had made was a wonder.  Vat is a leetle pain if it means havink a Schparky masterpiece at my fingers?  

“This is going to hurt, ah… probably a lot as the new connections are established.  You should expect to need a couple of days to get used to the new arm and its capabilities.  Now, let’s get started!”  

It did hurt.  A lot.  Very much.  Extremely.  Excruciatingly.

First, there was a sharp pain and then a deep ache as his remaining bone was fused to the structural core of the arm.  Then, there came a feeling as of ripping, tearing flesh as his muscles were bonded to the artificial musculature in the prosthetic.  Next, was the feeling that his nerves had been turned to lightning, setting fire to the inside of his arm as Agatha encouraged them to integrate with the electrical system powering the limb and Ilya called out biometrics from the display panel as she worked.  

The worst by far was the battery of sensory tests.  His old replacement limb had only limited sensory capability.  His brain hadn’t received anything more than the most basic input for years.  Now, Ilya stood next to him applying soft touches, pressure and vibration, pain, and finally hot and cold stimuli to his new arm.  He could do nothing but choke back noises as the sensations turned his brain into a pile of melted goo.  Dimo was quite certain any normal human would have long since fainted away from the pain.  

But, the Lady had only spared him a comforting pat and “I know, I know,” happily heterodyning away as she made adjustments and guided Ilya through the testing process.  She obviously thought he could handle it, zo hy vill.  

~

Dimo’s new arm was amazing, working even better than Agatha had dared hope.  He was obviously in pain, but that didn’t matter.  The pain was temporary, and her Jägers were wonderfully strong.  Still, she patted him absently, acknowledging his discomfort with a word of encouragement.

Bringing Ilya had been a spur-of-the-moment decision, but the little scamp turned out to be a highly useful helper, first distracting Casi while she’d built new the tools she needed to manage a novel injury, then helping to make the careful adjustments needed to the device she hoped would help re-shape the damaged eye.  She usually used her dingbots for tasks like this, but his small fingers had been perfectly steady on the pressure engine’s dials as she’d guided him.

Now the boy was finishing testing the new arm’s sensory systems.  He grinned at the sweating, grimacing Dimo as he carefully applied a rod cooled in liquid nitrogen to each metal fingertip.  She nodded as the Jäger twitched them away one by one.  Then, Agatha helped Ilya trade his insulated glove for a heat-retardant one and repeat the test with a tiny torch.  Dimo winced and moved his fingers slightly faster than before.  

“Good, your reaction time is improving!” she approved, happily.  “You should expect it to take several days for your system to grow accustomed to the new arm.  Remember, your metal arm can’t be injured in the same way as your flesh one.  But, I built in the pain sensations to help prevent damage to the technology.”

“Ho.  Tank hyu,” Dimo’s voice was distinctly strained.  “Dot is very impawtant.”

Outside the laboratory, they heard a whistle blast and the sounds of the nightly bar fight starting.  “Hy am sorry to miss dot,” the Jäger General said wistfully.  

“It’s probably for the best,” she soothed.  “I haven’t shown you the new weapons your arm is equipped with.  I could end up with half the bar’s worth of your brothers in here for treatment if that ray gun discharged accidentally because you couldn’t control the aim.”  She grinned at his look of surprise.  “And you wondered why I’ve wanted to fit you for this arm!  It will make a lovely new toy.”  

Heterodyne and Jäger exchanged smiles.

“When I get bigger, can I have an arm like his?”  They both looked into Ilya’s eager face.  

“How bout hyu comes and helps me vork on my aim, ja?” Dimo suggested and the boy cheered.  

Chapter Text

Agatha’s final tests on Dimo’s arm took time.  By the end, she could feel a prickling of fatigue behind her eyes.  

Time and past to be done for the day.  I still want to talk to Mamma about the holo-bots, too.  

She wasn’t the only tired one, either.  Ilya had eventually succumbed to jaw-splitting yawns and blinking eyes, almost falling asleep on his feet.  Now he lay sprawled over a neighboring examination table with a lab coat as a blanket and using Dimo’s old prosthetic for a pillow.  The boy had managed to stay awake long enough to see Dimo blow apart a variety of targets - gleefully provided by the Castle - in the hastily refitted alleyway outside of Mamma’s.  

Agatha made one final check to the pressure engine working to reshape Casi’s damaged eye.  “You’ll have to remain lying down for a while yet, but I think this may be stable by late tomorrow.  In the mean time, rest.  I’m sure Mamma will come in and check on you later.”

“Hy vill come und sit vit you later, if hyu vants,” Dimo offered from where he stood, holding a sleeping Ilya.

“Oh, vait.  Hy almost forgot.”  Casi waved his hand with difficulty, strapped down at the forearm as it was, to get Agatha’s attention.  “Hyu—”  He stopped abruptly and cleared his throat  “De Baron und De Prince sent dis vit me.  In my pocket.”  He gestured ineffectually at the pocket of his overcoat where it lay draped on a chair next to his table.  

“Gil and Tarvek sent what?”  She fished around for a moment before holding a rather smudged and crumpled piece of paper up before his good eye.  “For hyu,” the Jäger clarified, unnecessarily.

Momentarily bemused, she examined the paper.  

A letter!  

Holding her breath, Agatha unfolded it with shaking fingers.  Lines jumped out at her:

     We are finishing up here in Olsztyn…

     Gil wants to say that he…  I wish you had been here to see…

     We ended up having to re-route all the power from the generators to the…  I told Gil that would make it explode, but he…

     Anyway, it all worked out in the end…  Even though we never found the…

     Don’t be upset with Gil…  I think he felt guilty…  it was aimed at him…

     We miss you…

The letter was written in Tarvek’s tidy hand, but at the bottom Gil had scrawled his name next to Tarvek’s signature.  For a moment, she thought her heart would burst.

“Thank you, … for bringing—”  Not trusting her voice, Agatha squeezed the monster’s clawed hand to convey the depth of her emotion and left before the tears could start to flow.

~

A short while later, Agatha sat at one end of the long bar and stared at the line of taps without really seeing them.  

This is ridiculous, she scolded herself.  I should be happy to hear from them.

She was happy.  After a fashion.  

Just this morning she had wanted to hear from Gil and Tarvek, either of them, both of them… more than anything.  Missing them was a constancy, an ever-present weight on her heart.  But, her nightmares always made the feelings of fear and loneliness worse.  Waking in the darkness, she had been desperate to see them, know they were safe and feel that sense of connection.  

Blindly her fingers worried the edges of the letter.  Now here it was.  Evidence that Gil and Tarvek were alive and well.  And, thinking of her.  She should be thrilled.  So, why did she feel like crying?  

Agatha unfolded the paper and smoothed it out on the bar top.  Her eyes jumped from one line to the next as though looking for something, she didn’t know what.  It hurt to read about Gil and Tarvek together, having adventures… well, more like finding themselves in danger… without her.  

We’re starting to grow apart, she realized with a sinking feeling.  

Gil was running from one end of the Empire to the next, trying to rebuild a government fractured nearly to the point of no repair.  Tarvek had officially returned to Sturmhalten a few months ago to prepare for a coronation all while trying to help Gil hold the easternmost swath of Europa together.  

And, I’m here.  Rebuilding a damaged and neglected city and developing tech for Gil - and Tarvek - just as fast as I can. 

We all have things to do.  Too much to do, really.  So, why isn’t it enough?  Why isn’t it enough just to rebuild my city, found a polytechnique like I keep thinking about doing, and live out the rest of my life in a Spark’s heaven?  

After all, she had a sentient Castle, a town full of minions and centuries of her family’s raiding treasure to fund the Spark-work of her dreams.  She had her friends.  She was The Heterodyne, a force to be reckoned with.  

Why isn’t that enough? she wondered, listlessly tucking the letter back into a pocket of her vest.  Agatha removed her glasses, let her head sink in her hands and tried to think.  In another mood she might have been amused by the symbols, initials and anatomically incorrect graffiti that decorated the bar top.  Instead the scarred wood blurred in front of her eyes.

The problem— the problem with me and Tarvek and Gil is that…  

It’s complicated.  We’re— well, we’re not exactly… friends.  We fought a war.  Won it.  At a price.  We’d die for each— DID die for each other.  

Maybe that was the problem.  Without standing back-to-back, willing to sacrifice themselves to defeat an enemy, what did they really have in common?  Agatha flushed, feeling suddenly angry.  

Well, what DO we have in common?  

Besides being Sparks and rulers, allied in their vision for a more peaceful future, what else was there?  The hard truth was that they had started out at odds, barely trusting one another.  They’d worked together because they’d had to, not because they’d wanted to.

True, sometimes seemed to Agatha that the three of them had a kind of connection, like a magnetic pull that drew them together.  They’d certainly gone to hell and back for one another.  But, war was one thing.  The present was different.  And in the present, a part of her - the part that cared so much for Gil and Tarvek - felt lost.

Is that the best you can do? a cynical piece of her asked.  It sounded appallingly like Violetta. You ‘went to hell and back’, so suddenly that means the three of you will be together forever?  Live happily ever after in some kind of fairytale?  

The world just didn’t work that way.

And don’t forget, you’re all idiots.  Idiots who fell in love far too fast and for all the wrong reasons, that sharp-tongued and unforgiving part of her mind pointed out.  Where has that gotten you?  Nowhere.  

Agatha groaned, hearing the sound resonate in her skull in the way noises did when your ears were plugged.  

We’re not friends.  Or, I’m not friends with Gil or Tarvek, anyway…

The two men had a long and messy history, she remembered.  But, at least they could say they had been friends once.  And, they were again.  Friends and allies.  One another’s right hands.  

I’m the one who doesn’t fit.  I’m nothing but a Sparky-smart girl Gil wanted to protect and the Heterodyne legend Tarvek wanted to exploit.  

It wasn’t fair.  Agatha knew it wasn’t.  

It was especially unfair to Tarvek.  True, his intentions had been suspect at the start.  But, he had been trying to keep himself - and her - alive before all his plans had gone sideways.  Their enemies had taken her over, then escaped.  His home had been bombed, and he’d nearly been killed.

No, it isn’t fair at all.  Tarvek hasn’t been that person for a long time.

And Gil…  Gil might still want to protect her, but they both knew she hadn’t needed that for years.  She was the danger, not the damsel.  She was the one making Gil’s strongest military weapons and the technology he didn’t have the time to develop but couldn’t rebuild imperial infrastructure without.  

Gil is still sweet, but he hasn’t made me the focus of his hero complex in a long time.  

Then, what is it?  What made you go through the trouble to redesign current holography technology JUST to send a message to them?  

~

A loud crash - probably a table being overturned by one of her Jägers in his enthusiasm - hardly penetrated her reverie.  Agatha squeezed her eyes tightly shut and…

The scrape of a plate and the sharp smell of paprika invading her senses made her eyes snap open.  Mamma pushed a plate of goulash under her nose.  “Here.  Eat.”  

The noise in the bar must have disguised Mamma’s footsteps.  Either that or the General was schneekier than she’d previous appreciated.  “Hy fed hyu boy before dis, so don’t vurry about him.”  Mamma waved casually to where Dimo sat laughing with his brothers while Ilya slept peacefully - oblivious to the racket - his head in the monster’s lap and now clutching the old arm like a stuffed toy.

“Oh.  Good?”  For a moment Agatha couldn’t think of anything else to say.  Her head was still spinning with the contents of the letter and thoughts of Gil and Tarvek.  “Thanks,” she finally croaked out, still regarding the food as though unsure what purpose it could serve.

Mamma pushed a spoon into her hand, “Eet goes in hyu mouth.  Eat.”  

Arm acting on automatic, Agatha ferried food from plate to mouth for several long minutes.  Her tastebuds savored beef spiced with sweetly smokey paprika and dumplings in a creamy sauce.  Eventually, she heaved a huge sigh and her brain seemed to re-boot.  “Whew, I guess I was really hungry.”

“Hyu should know dis about hyuself already.  Everyvun is alvays tryink to make sure hyu eats ven hyu is vorking,” Mamma’s voice carried a gentle reproof.  

“I do know.  I just get… distracted,” she trailed off lamely.  

How many times did Gil or Tarvek haul me out of the lab and make me eat over the last few years?  

Agatha sighed and pushed her finished plate away. 

“Heet looks like more den jusht Sparky-vork vas distractink hyu,” Mamma said mildly.  It was the voice of an understanding bartender to whom inebriated customers poured out their hearts [and their wallets].  Agatha looked up into the Jäger woman’s understanding face.  She knew Mamma genuinely cared; she wasn’t just asking out of professional obligation.  

Agatha scrubbed tiredly at her face.  She was… exhausted.  Now that she wasn’t being sustained by a Spark-fugue, she could feel how bone weary she was.  She didn’t have the energy for dissembling, “I’m sad.  I think Gil and Tarvek and I are growing apart.  Well, they’re growing apart from me or I am from them.  Something like that…” she trailed away, waving a hand vaguely.

“Ho.  Und, vat makes hyu say dot?”

She shrugged.  “We live in different cities.  We see each other only rarely.  We’re all busy doing different things…”  Mamma placed a mug of tea in front her, and nodded encouragingly for her to continue.  “We don’t have a lot of time for each other anymore."

Mamma didn’t answer, just leaned companionably on the bar across from her and looked thoughtful.  Without entirely realizing why she was confiding so much, Agatha went on.  “I think I’m realizing that we may have fought and won a war together, but we aren’t really… friends.  Are we?”

“Ho?  Issent hyu?  De vay dose boyz look eet hyu seems pretty friendly to me,” Mamma replied with wink.  

“That isn’t what I mean.”  Agatha stared sadly at her image in the surface of her tea.  Wisps of steam twisted her features, seeming to reflect her unhappiness and uncertainty.  “I love Tarvek, and I love Gil.  But, that isn’t the same.  I thought we might have been in love once, but that was a long time ago.  There hasn’t been time to think about that.  It hasn’t been as important as…” she waved her hand, words failing to encompass everything they had been through to reach their present.  

“Ja, hy understand.  Var is a time for doink, for fightink, for survivink.  Hyu don’t hef time to vurry or tink too much.  Now hyu ees all home, und hyu hef to figure out vat hyu really vant.  From each odder.  From de future.”  Mamma patted her comfortingly on the shoulder and slipped away for a moment to draw another tray of drinks for a purple-furred Jäger in a magnificent stovepipe hat decorated with what appeared to be weasel skulls.

When she returned, Mamma went on, “So, vat do hyu mean ‘Hyu eesn’t really friends’?”

“A lot of things, I guess.  I just don’t know what we have in common without a war to fight, without an enemy to face together.”  Agatha paused trying to make her meaning clear, “Yes, we’re all committed to a new peace accord together.  But, beyond that…?”  She struggled to order her tired mind, to collect her scattered thoughts.  

“I mean ‘not friends,’ like I think of Zeetha as a friend.  I know her.  Before the war, we spent months together with Master Payne’s troupe.  We sat together, told stories and sang songs every night she wasn’t on guard.  We would crawl into my bunk and talk about boys!  I know she saw potential in me before almost anyone else.”  Agatha bit her lip and tried not to sniff at the memory.  “She’s my teacher, and I’m her student.  I gave her the first hope of going home that she’d had in years.  I know her worries and her dreams.  I know how she fights, what her nightmares are.  I know what size she takes in lingerie and armour!  I know what her favorite color is and what kind of pie she likes!”  

Agatha hadn’t realized how loud her voice was getting until she stopped and heard a hush settle across the room.  Mamma waved a languid hand at the assembled Jägers, “Bek to hyu drinks boyz!”  And, the hubbub rose once more.

“Hy vants to know hyu boyz favorite colors den?  Or jusht vat de looks like in de lingerie?” she asked Agatha, eyes twinkling.  

“That’s not what I…”  Agatha flushed crimson.  “But, I mean yes.  Some of that.  I want to... get to know them.  I guess.  And, not just as people I was thrown together with in a war!”

“Zo, de kissink isn’t enough den?” Mamma’s fanged grin was almost feral.

“Kissing!” Agatha cringed at her own strident tones and lowered her voice once more.  “What kissing?” she hissed.  “I said we hardly see each other anymore.  There isn’t the opportunity for kissing!  And, kissing isn’t all there is to life,” she concluded miserably.