The gentle murmurs from the kitchen cause me to slow my steps, placing my fingers on the handrail as I contemplate just sending him back upstairs. If this didn't work, if it went poorly, it could jeopardize everything. Taking such an unnecessary risk almost seemed foolish the closer we came to revealing the two to each other. Verando rests his hand on my hip, leaning down to kiss beneath my ear. 

"It's going to be fine, darling." He reassures me.

Placing my hand on his cheek, I turn my head to look over my shoulder at him. "I want to stop having to tell each other that. I want to have normal conversations."

"How's the weather?" He asks curiously and I wrinkle my nose at him with a heavy sigh. "One of our sons is a unicorn in hiding, love. I believe normal has gone on a stroll and won't be returning. It appears we have the vessel of a god in our kitchen." 

Taking a slow inhale, I agree with his assumption. "It's not that I'm worried about." Swallowing back my nerves, I decide it's now or never. "Are we ready?"

"No." Verando exhales in my ear, pulling me back against him as he laces his fingers in mine, kissing my palm. I can't help but roll my eyes at him, knotting my hand in his hair to bring him down to me and catch his lips with my own. Breaking the kiss, he looks quite pleased with himself, successfully pulling me out of my despair.

Landon sits behind his laptop on the kitchen island, nervously glancing up at the time-traveling pair before his eyes land on us descending the stairs. His hand shoots up, halting us though the amused scoff from my warlord causes the wind to leave his sails. Much as Landon tried to gain the command he truly deserved, his youth and gentle eyes brought much to be desired as far as presence. 

This form didn't compare to 'Lux', nor did it hold a candle to Tyr.

 I slip in front of Verando, shielding him from the unknown as if somehow my presence could protect him from the repercussions of our errors. Taking the opportunity, I elbow him in the ribs for his humor. "Don't be an ass. I've had enough of you already, your younger self is a complete dick."

"I warned you." He seems unsurprised.

K rubs the young man's shoulders, Landon's forehead creases with stress as he types nervously. "I didn't sign up for this." He reminds us. "I'd like to just finish college."

"What's that?" Caspian questions curiously.

"Is this safe or not?" Pascal asks, pushing the younger Verando into a seated position once more. "Gardo can't keep those kids away forever and I'd like to get off babysitting duty for these two."

The younger warlord scoffs, "Don't flatter yourself, darling, you couldn't keep me here. I'm only sticking around because you're feeding me."

Caspian shrugs one shoulder. "Don't get ahead of yourself, Doe. Wait till you see your future self. This is technically your house you know."

"Silence," Landon demands, swallowing hard. "Do any of you have the slightest idea of how risky this is? I need everyone to just.. stop talking. Please." He adds quickly, looking down to watch the screen. "I have the monitor up, if there are any pulses or strange fluctuations, such as what happened when the time jump happened, we will know that we need to remove one of the.. er... Verandos..."

"That's going to get old," Pascal grumbles. 

Caspian snickers. "Well, this one can be little Randy."

The younger man scowls. "Fuck off, ya prick."

"Language!" Stefan sighs heavily, disappointed in all of us it would seem. "Can we get on with this? I'm desperate for some form of entertainment this morning." Snapping his fingers hurriedly, he rolls his hand to gesture the proceeds to commence. Reluctantly, Landon nods towards us and I step out in front to allow Verando to pass around me and enter the kitchen. 

The size difference is quite startling, a true testament to the effective nature of the change. My Randy, while older, was nearly half again the width and a good three inches taller than the younger version of himself. The silver of his hair was quite stark against the younger man's dull gray, his eyes a block of piercing light ice compared to stormy, brewing blues. 

The grimace on Verando's face makes me question if this was a good idea, the near pained expression as he takes this younger man in. While the other appeared to be almost horrified. His eyes dart back and forth between the two of us before finally landing on this alien version of himself. 

"So it's true?" He finally asks. "They did something to us, the rumors that we were going to be captured, it's all true?"

Verando pulls his lips into a thin line, "We really shouldn't speak of the past."

"Why? Because history just keeps having her filthy way with us? Look at you! Gods if Mother could see us-"

Verando's teeth grit, his fists clench at his sides. "This was a bad idea." I feel him wanting to retreat and I touch his arm, nearing him. 

Landon's eyes scan the screen, giving me a nod to assure me that things were remaining stable. 

There was more than one reason for the two to meet, besides for the sheer reason that they would remain in the same house. Swallowing back the thickness in my throat, I make sure not to touch him too intimately, for fear of scaring the younger version even more. "The reason we wanted you two to see each other was for the reason that.. there is a question on if there is something Verando has blocked out or perhaps forgotten that you two might be able to answer."

Caspian perks, curious, while my warlord shrugs me off in a sign of betrayal. The younger gray-haired man backs towards Caspian for comfort, flinching back the discomfort of the impending hangover. 

"First things first, what do you want to be called?" I address the young man, he seemed to prefer we treat him like a human than a captive. I figure that is the best place to start. 

Suspicious, he mutters to Caspian in what I could only assume to be Spanish, it sounded enough like my native tongue to help be guess the origin but not enough to decipher it. The poor boy couldn't possibly know that we could hear him, creatures such as us did not exist in his time yet. Nevertheless, it brings a disgusted sound from my husband.

 "No, we're not trapping you by telling us your name. For the love of the gods, you're hardly worth a cent to anyone in this time, it's a simple question-"

"I want to see Kitten." The young man demands, causing us all the flinch. I pray that he takes it back, silently begging him to drop the subject. "You're alive, so surely she is too. I want to talk to Kitten. I saw the kid, there is no denying where he came from. Where is she?"

Pain crosses his face, this wasn't the direction I had hoped this conversation would take. Caspian reads the room in an instant, touching the young man on his arm. "Let's worry about that later. Why do you call him Randy? That's what he's used to in our time."

Randy yanks his arm away, just as my husband had. They stare at each other, eyes locked, body rigid. Slowly, the young man takes two strides forward and he begins to shake his head. "No, she's not." He declares, with a nervous, half-hearted laugh. My husband frowns, reliving it all over again. "No. No, she's not. No. It's our job to protect her. We protect her." 

"Randy... This is very far into the future." Caspian attempts to reason.

"Kitten approved of where we ended up. She was proud of us." Verando tells him firmly. 

Randy shakes his head, running his hands through his hair as a strangled sound climbs into his throat. "God-" He shoves a chair to the side and Landon jumps, Marcello quickly moves to protect the youth as K clings closer to him. Verando waves a hand towards them, insisting they remain calm. "Who else? Damn it, who else?"

Landon shakes his head. "You need to stop, you're creating some spikes."

Verando sets his jaw. "This was a bad idea, Nic." He says through his teeth. 

The young man turns on his heel, "So all of them, then? You son of a bitch, you traded your soul just like father wanted you to do? Damn you!" He snaps, shoving Caspian away from him as the man attempts to comfort him. "You let our entire family go? All of them so you could do what? Fuck a man?" Randy begins his approach, my warlord stands his ground as the young man storms towards him. "I would rather die than end up here, whatever questions you have, you can shove them up your-" 

Legardo skids down the stairs, hardly managing to stay on his feet as Silvia clutches his neck and Xaiver is firmly in his arms. Pascal rushes to him as the drywall explodes and Verando moves quickly to block me from the shrapnel. Marcello shoves Landon and K down behind the island, the laptop bursts as the bolt of light moves into the kitchen. 

The scent of blood is strong, I notice the steady drip from Verando's nose. We were affecting the timeline again. I clutch his face, desperate to do anything to assure he would remain here. Darrius appears from the light, eyes solid white. "Stop hurting my daddy!" He screams at the younger version of my husband. 

"Darrius, stop!" I attempt to command the boy. "You're going to hurt him! That is your daddy!" 

Randy scrambles backward, away from the beacon of light that was the child. "He's making Daddy's light go out!"

"I don't know what you're talking about kid!"

Caspian grips the man's arm. "You're changing the past, you've got to stop jumping to conclusions. You're going to make this psycho kid kill us both!"

Darrius clutches his small hands into fists, the windows explode from the overhead above the sink. "Don't call me names!" 

Verando drops to his knees, clutching his stomach, and Darrius quickly wheels around to rush to him. As quickly as it started, the room is calm as the small boy throws his arms around Verando's neck. Breathing through his teeth, he sucks in a much-needed breath as he settles onto his hip to hold the small boy. "I'm ok. Daddy's fine." He assures him.

"The upstairs isn't," Legardo grumbles as Pascal dusts the drywall out of his hair. 

Xavier holds his arms out to us, screaming for one of us to hold him. Legardo is all too happy to hand him to me as Silvia quickly jumps into Verando's lap as well. "Papa, your nose." She points out as Verando dabs at the blood with the back of his hand.

"My laptop." Landon whimpers. 

Marcello eyes us both, "That kid is not a kid. That's not an elf. That's not a lycan. What is he?"

Stefan rolls his eyes, "Obviously he's a celestial creature of some sort... duh, Marcello."

The two young men clutch each other, practically shaking in their boots. Caspian clears his throat, "I think... Randy... you should apologize to the kid... for hurting his daddy."

Randy's eyes focus on the white-haired man, switching from him to Xaiver, then finally taking in the scene surrounding him. "Gardo..?" He asks slowly. "You weren't even months old when-"

"When you left?" Legardo spits, moving to stand beside us with Pascal as Verando climbs to his feet. "Turns out if you had stuck around you actually weren't such a shit father." Earning a questionable look from Verando, he shrugs it off. "I don't know, I'm still pissed at you.. but you're ok. Sometimes."

Silvia moves to stand in front of us, firmly lifting her chin, a tiny Alpha in the making. "You need to tell us what we want, mister, or my Papa's are going to kick your butt!" I shush her, shooing her back over to her father. 

It seems to be more than he can stand to take in as he backs up until he's sitting on the back of the couch. His hands braced, holding him up as he searches the floor. "Why would I-"

Verando frowns, "A lot of shit happens between your time and this one. But, if you want to get to this point, if you want to have a family, you're going to have to cooperate. Nic has some questions he needs to ask you, then we can send you home."

__________________________

Allowing the crew to come in for clean up, it takes everything in my warlord to allow the repairs to commence without him. While Lotta assures that we're under some sort of government allowance and the repairs are covered, that seems to offer him little comfort in the validity of the mens' ability to fix our home or do it to his standards. 

We sit in the outside patio, enjoying the outside air and the breathing room. The home was getting quite cramped considering how many people were now occupying it. Marcello leaves us, with the promise that would reach out to him with more intel on Darrius, for it was no longer safe to stay here. With our home in disrepair and the massive spike in magical energy, we were a beacon for any mythical beast hunting us. Our home was no longer a safe haven. 

Darrius sleeps in Verando's lap, curled up into his chest, while Xaiver plays casually with some toys at my feet. This seems to bring Randy a great deal of discomfort, watching the scene as if it was out of a horror movie. Landon agrees it's time to find us all other arrangements since our Caspian's hunters were still actively searching for us.

"What did you need to ask us, Nic?" Caspian prompts. 

I blink, prying my eyes away from my soul mate. I should never have let them meet, but I needed my husband to guide this younger version into the truth. The truth that I knew had to be in there. "The story of three seemed to be fuzzy by the time it was retold, I was hoping one of you would know what the key is to stopping the cycle since you are currently living it."

The two hesitate and Verando gives me a sharp look. I'm unapologetic, keeping my eyes forward on the pair. 

"Father always said it was the strongest of the three that would kill the other two and absorb their power. It's barbaric." Randy snaps, settling into a chair, still looking quite spooked. Caspian considers this as he sits beside him. 

"You have to figure this out.. because you want to kill me and save Kestrel from becoming me, is that right?"

Randy stares at the other man. "You're my best friend, why would I kill you? That's the problem, isn't it? I can't kill you. I've never been strong enough to anyways. You've always bested me." Crossing his arms over his chest, he chews on his thumb in a way that is so uniquely my husband and I can't help but crack the smallest smile. 

"We can't say." Verando hesitates. "I'm not sure what Nic hopes to gain but I was positive that the ritual was that it could be passed on instead of having to kill each other."

Randy shakes his head, "No, father and Sota were always adamant that killing each other was the only way to pass it on."

"So if you kill me, it will pass on to Kestrel..." Caspian concludes with a frown. "And this bad thing will pass on to Kestrel..."

"So kill Kestrel?" Stefan suggests with a shrug. 

"Would you kill Gardo?" Pascal asks stiffly. 

Considering this, Stefan waggles his eyebrows and Pascal threatens him with an icy fist. 

"Kestrel is a documented citizen and a part of the resistance. I can't cover that up. If you kill Kestrel, they will trace it back to you. I'm already in so much red tape for all the other shit you two pull." Lotta snaps, rubbing her temples. 

"So kill me now?" Caspian demands. "Before any of this happens?"

Silence falls over our group. Marcello must be pleased, thankfully he wasn't here. "No." Both Verando's say at once. I can't help but flinch. "We can't affect the timeline. There has to be a way, we must be missing something."

"Why him?" Randy finally blurts out, I clutch Xaiver tighter. "Why him? Why, if you chose a man, why not Caspian?"

"You know, I wondered that same thing," Caspian suggests, tapping his chin thoughtfully. 

"This really isn't the time for this," Verando growls through gritted teeth, Darrius shifts closer in his arms. "That isn't the question that we're asking you."

"But you don't want him to die, you just said it yourself. So why would you pick this man over Cas? Why not Cas? If you're talking about killing him, and you can't do this without my help, I have my own questions I need answered before you send me back to that hell hole. So I'm going to ask you once more, why didn't we end up with Caspian?"