Swan Song

Chapter Thirty Five

This chapter was hard to write: I had no idea what to do with Gisela's death, I just knew that I wanted her dead. So Keefe's reaction was a bit of a challenge: But oh well! It's written now!

Enjoy!

Sophie's first reaction was to celebrate. Internally, at least. One of their enemies was dead! Huzzah! Yay! One less thing to worry about! One less psychopath to kill them!

Her second reaction was to worry about Keefe.

With reason. The last time (he thought) his mother was dead, he freaked out, sank into a depression, became obsessed with sorting through memories, joined the Neverseen, and worst of all, forgot to style his hair. Excuse her, Hair.

"Keefe?" she said quietly, turning to look at him.

Keefe was breathing slowly and heavily, fists clenched. He was staring straight ahead, seemingly at nothing.

Elwin nudged Mr. Forkle. "Let's give them a moment," he muttered, dragging Mr. Forkle into his office.

"Keefe?" Sophie repeated.

"I'm fine," Keefe said finally. "It's fine. This is fine. I'm fine."

"Usually, when someone says they're fine, it means they're not," Sophie pointed out.

"I'm fine!" Keefe shouted. He took another deep breath. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to yell. I'm not mad at you. I'm just... mad."

"At?" Sophie prompted.

"What are you, a therapist?" Keefe joked, rolling his eyes slightly.

"No," Sophie corrected. She tried out the words. "I'm your girlfriend." It felt amazing to say that. "And as your girlfriend, it's my job to make sure you're okay."

Keefe smiled at the label. "I'm... okay? I guess? I'm a lot more okay than I was last time, in case you were worried about that."

"I was, actually," Sophie said, her mind returning to how awful it felt when Keefe joined the Neverseen. She knew that the guilt had made him reckless, and she wasn't mad at him... she just really didn't want to lose him like that again.

"Wow, I must be a telepath," Keefe joked. "That means we can be cognates! The Foster Keefe cognates will triumph over the Fitzphies! Come, let me stare into you eyes for hours and hours..." Sophie smiled. If Keefe was making Fitzphie cognate jokes, then it couldn't be too bad. Then again, he usually told jokes to cope with things...

"You know it's okay to be sad about her dying," Sophie said. "She was an evil murderous psychopath, but she was also your mom."

"I know," Keefe sighed. "But it's good that she's dead, right? Like, she deserved it. It's her fault Gigantor's- her fault Sandor's dead. It's her fault I was in a coma for months. It's her fault Tam was kidnapped a while ago. It's her fault that a lot of the bad stuff that's happened to us happened, so we should celebrate."

(Requiem from Dear Evan Hansen starts playing.)

"You're still allowed to be upset," Sophie told him.

"I'm not," Keefe argues. Sophie raised an eyebrow. "Maybe I am. I just... I don't know. I mean, she kind of died when we found out that she was evil. She hasn't been in my life as a mother since then, or even really before then. And, like... she would either be dead or in Exile when all this is over, and neither option is really good, so I guess... now I don't really have to think about her anymore."

"Okay," Sophie said.

(Maybe okay will be our always... fine, I'll stop with the references.)