~Fitz was quietly sitting next to his cognate on his bed one evening, studying for telepathy when he heard her gasp sharply. Alarmed, he looked over to see her clutching her temples in pain, eyes squeezed shut. Had that memory resurfaced? He placed his hands on hers and closed his eyes, taking a steady breath as he leaned in so their foreheads were touching. Within seconds he was in her mind.

The memory had in fact resurfaced again and was smack dab in the middle of the area. Fitz made us way over to it and took a breath before putting his hands against  it. At first, it was painful, but once his hands slipped into the memory, it wasn't so terrible. Frowning, his pulled his hands out and quickly stuck them in again. Oh, it hurt, but this new discovery begged to be looked into. So that's exactly what he did.

Boldly, curiously, painfully, Fitz stuck his head into the memory, surprised to see the memory to somewhat clarity. It was pretty fuzzy, but he could still tell that Sophie was reading what looked like a textbook, but he wasn't sure what. A person walked in and he could hear Sophie's voice speak, saying something like, "Oh hey, what's up?" Suddenly, the figure responded by lurching forward, and in those few seconds before their face collided with Sophie's, Fitz could see who it was. Keefe. Fitz's gut twisted when he realized that Keefe was kissing his cognate, though he couldn't tell if he was more disgusted or jealous that Keefe got- as far as he knew- her first kiss. No, he was way more disgusted, because Sophie clearly hadn't wanted it as she shoved him back forcefully. Keefe had just committed sexual assault kiddos.

Sophie was yelling something, and Keefe spoke back meekly, though was soon overpowered by a furious Sophie. He sounded like he was close to tears honestly, but Fitz had little pity for the boy who had just forcefully kissed his cognate without her permission. The memory slowly started to get clearer now, he saw the icy blue blobs that were Keefe's eyes and could hear him plead, "They're making me serve as a way to repay my mom's debt to them, if I don't do this they said they'd-" Suddenly the memory got fuzzy again, and he couldn't hear what they were saying. Seconds later, another figure came in and stopped the conversation. The figure pulled Keefe back out of the room, who begged something that sounded like, "Grady, wait, I can explain!" The figure, presumably Grady, said something to Sophie camly. As soon as the new unidentifiable figure stopped speaking, the memory ended and began to replay. He realized that didn't know how long he had been in the memory, aka how long Sophie had been in pain. He felt guilty at first, but then reminded himself that if the roles were reversed, he would've wanted her to look to. Besides, he knew why this was happening now.

Without wasting anymore time, Fitz used telekinesis to drop the memory into the very bottom of her memory pit. As soon as he did, he pulled out of his cognate's mind to see how she was doing. Her eyes were already open, and she was shaking, her arms starting to rise up, fingertips to the sky, one of her forearms crossing over the other to encase herself in a feeble form of protection, but he caught them, sliding his hands to hers so their cognate rings snapped together. Fitz leaned forward so there was only space for their hands between them, and lowered his head so his forehead rested against hers. He couldn't look into her eyes without feeling like he was going to fall apart at the way they watered, so he closed his own before he murmured, "I'm sorry I took so long, but I saw some of the memory, did you?"

"No," his cognate's voice trembled even with the small word. It must have hurt pretty badly this time enough to rattle her this much.

"Do you want me to tell you about it?"

He felt her nod a little with a shaky exhale of breath. He told her as much as he could remember, as much as he could describe. Sometimes Fitz felt her eyebrows furrow, other times he heard a quiet gasp under her breath, but nevertheless, she listened until he finished, "What does it all mean?"

Fitz opened his eyes and looked at his lap for a heartbeat before pulling away, not knowing how she was going to react to his conclusion. "Sophie..." he began hesitantly, "I think... I think you were mesmered."

His cognate's eyes widened in surprise, "What?"

"It makes sense, actually, I don't know why we didn't figure this out sooner," he rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly, "but your mind is impenetrable, right?" He waited for her to nod before continuing, "Well, your senses aren't. You remembered the moment, but the mesmering hid your memories of the senses away. Every time you think about that memory, you start to uncover the memories of the senses, which is where the pain probably comes from."

"You thought you heard Keefe mention Grady towards the end, right?" Sophie asked calmly, but her eyes were riddled with fear and hurt.

Not wanting to lie, he nodded, and watched as she squeezed her eyes shut, rubbing her temples as if it would help her absorb the information. "I'm really sorry," was all he could think to say, barely understanding the situation himself.

"It's not your fault, but I need some answers. I know that Grady would never work with the Neverseen, so why?" Sophie said the last question breathlessly as she shot to her feet, clearly still barely believing it.

Fitz stood with her and wrapped an arm around her shoulder, "Well, let's go find out."

A few minutes later they arrived at Havenfield. Immediately, Sophie lead him up the stairs to the second floor and down the hall to what Fitz eventually discovered was Grady's office. When his cognate opened the door, he saw the book cases that lined a wall, and the secretary's style desk against the other. Scrolls littered the room, resting on the floor, on furniture, and currently, on Grady, who was sitting in his big office chair reading one. As Sophie entered the room, Grady set it down, looking confused, "Sophie? Fitz? What's going on?"

Fitz immediately felt awkward, "Uh... I'm going to go... study... upstairs... yeah." A brilliant excuse of course, but it got him out of the argument without question.

Once he was in the safety of Sophie's room, he sat on the edge of her bed, knowing that when Sophie and her father finished their... chat... Sophie would need him to be right here in this safe little haven waiting for her. It wasn't that he expected this would go south, but he definitely suspected. He picked up Ella and smiled, remembering his first time holding her, when he went back into the Foster household to rescue her from being moved with Sophie's human family. He was fond of the small blue elephant, and felt sorry that her ears were so big because Sophie and her father were arguing so loudly now, even Fitz could hear every word they said through the walls. He closed his eyes and retreated into his mind, thinking it would be rude to listen in, focusing on when the sound of approaching footsteps would be instead so he knew when Sophie was coming, so he could be ready.

When the time came, Fitz came back into reality to watch Sophie open the door, her face red with anger, but her eyes overflowing with tears. He scooted back a little on the bed, his arms behind him, supporting some of his weight. Sophie walked over to him after closing the door, wiping her eyes and starting to hiccup. She crawled into his lap, folding herself against him as he eased them backwards so he was laying on his back with her on top of him. He wrapped one arm firmly around her waist, and the other curved around her shoulders to cup the back of her head. Her legs were off to one side, and resting his foot against the edge of the bed, leaving the other on the floor, he bent one of his legs as if he could completely encase her in this safety. One of her hands rested over his heart while the other held onto his arm while her face was buried into that shoulder.

Telepathically, Fitz asked her what happened, pretending he hadn't heard anything while she meekly explained the details, "He said he did it to protect me from the truth. We could've helped Keefe, we could've stopped him from becoming their... their puppet."

"We probably would've had an all out war then," he reminded her, even though it broke his heart to say it, "We would've lost so many people, strangers, friends, family. Minds would break left and right, it would be complete and utter chaos. Keefe sacrificed himself for the greater good."

"Then why is that same Keefe different now? He hit you once, he abused Biana emotionally. He kissed me twice without asking-" Sophie began to list, but he cut her off.

"Twice?" Fitz raised an eyebrow, he hadn't known about the second time.

"Well, almost twice," Sophie corrected casually, though that didn't stop the burning flame of jealousy inside of him.

"Almost twice is twice too many times for me."

"Over protective much?"

Fitz blushed, "No, I just- I- uh... How're you and Grady?" A very smooth topic change as you can see.

Sighing a little, Sophie answered, "I don't really know... we didn't really make up by the end, and we still don't see eye to eye..."

"He'll come around eventually."

"I hope so."

"Hey, the only thing I know who could possible hold a grudge for the rest of their life is iggy. He still doesn't like me, as soon as I walked in he hid in the bathroom."

Sophie laughed at this, and Fitz felt a little weight ease off his shoulders. She was relaxing a little, maybe Grady would relax too, and the two of them would make up in the morning. The thought was relaxing enough to make him yawn., causing Sophie to laugh again. He smiled, and asked aloud, "What's so funny?"

"You, yawning," said Sophie simply, looking up at him, her chin rested on his chest. Oh gnome, he loved her two amber eyes, especially when she was looking at him like that, especially when she was in his arms.

"Well pardon me, but after learning important information I get a little sleepy," he defended, causing her to laugh more.

"After you get the information, your body says 'up! That's enough for today, let's shut 'er down, folks!'"

"I have a lazy body, what do you want?" Fitz asked teasingly, tempted to say, 'and because you're so warm', but that was too... flirty, even though it danced the border.

"You can nap, Captain Lazy Pants,  I don't mind."

"I'm not captain lazy pants!

Sophie said teasingly, "That's just something captain lazypants would say."

"But I'm not..." he yawned, "Captain lazy pants." Fitz grumbled as he continued, "I'm just gonna close my eyes for a bit, that's all."

"Aye, aye captain."

"Don't make me set you aside for Ella."

Sophie surprisingly quieted down, and started snoring a few minutes later, much to Fitz's satisfaction. Who was Captain Lazypants now? Quietly he yawned, basking in his new found glory, and tried to avoid falling asleep, wanting to enjoy these moments for as long as possible, pretending it was another world, in another life, when they were in love with each other, they were out of school, they were living together, and they could fall asleep like this every night.

--

When Edaline walked upstairs to check on Sophie, she was a little surprised to find her daughter with Fitz, both asleep and holding each other close. She smiled a little, and hoped that Sophie hadn't fallen asleep crying. If she did, however, Edaline was grateful that Fitz was there for her. Those two were such a great team, no wonder they were number ones. With a quiet sigh, she closed the door again and made her way back down to her office. There was no one she would rather have as her future son in law.