Traffic [Valduggery, Skulduggery Pleasant Fanfiction]

Sand

Valkyrie opened the door, scowl already set.

"I thought..." She stared at him. "Fletcher?"

Valkyrie looked different. She was stronger, solid, like she was always going to be. Hair still long, pulled back into a bun. And she seemed... tight. Like if he pushed her, said the wrong word, her whole façade would snap and she would cave in on herself.

Valkyrie's eye twitched, and her mouth tightened, and then she was grinning. Hugging him, so strong she knocked him back a few steps. Fletcher laughed, and she pulled away.

"You're wet."

Fletcher raised an eyebrow, and Valkyrie punched his shoulder. He held up his hands.

"I went swimming, sue me."

Skuduggery returned, and Fletcher shook his hand. Valkyrie was trying so hard to make everything okay. But Fletcher caught her staring off into space, and then she would shake her head violently, force her attention back onto him.

Skulduggery started, too, if anything to make it easier for her.

"The usual," Skulduggery said, standing near the armchair Valkyrie was sprawled in. "Saving the world, wearing nice suits, being all together charming and fantastic. Valkyrie?"

Valkyrie blinked, looking at Skulduggery then Fletcher. "Humble," she said after a moment.

"Did you defeat Darquesse?"

Skulduggery adjusted his cufflinks. "She's gone. Disappeared off of the Sensitives' maps. Whatever they saw, it was averted somehow. I doubt she was even real, more a manifestation of the war. Blackness spreading across the countryside."

Fletcher nodded. "How is... everyone?"

Skulduggery was still, and Valkyrie was gazing off into space. It's like they weren't even there. Like their minds were somewhere else, and eventually Valkyrie looked at them.

"Alice is good," she forced. "Mum, Dad, good. Steph..."

Fletcher's stomach dropped.

"Steph's around," Valkyrie said, looking away. "She asks about you, sometimes. When her husband isn't about."

Skulduggery looked at her, and she was mortified, Fletcher could see it on her face. Tension wracked her frame, and Valkyrie looked at him.

A year. It took them a year to return to the pyramid. By that point, Fletcher had stopped pouting. The chains were a part of him now as he climbed the bridges, high in the air. He didn't even feel them, but he hated raged when they had put them on.

Now, what could he do?

Wails of babies filled the nights. Fletcher listened to them. Night by night, the number of screaming inscreased. He had went to the first few births, but he had seemed out of place. The other Brides looked at him, smiled with a forced politeness, let him hold the child.

Princess had been the most beautiful, the first. So, so beautiful, and even as she screamed in his arms, Fletcher had grinned like an idiot and looked around. He met stony stares. Ajuoga had laughed like something was desperately funny, and Fletcher felt a little lost.

All daughters. He didn't ask what happened to the sons.

And Fletcher paced around. Every corner of the pyramid. Where the Devoted dwelled, the streams that ran without source, the shops, the corners, even the sand for miles and miles around.

Most times, he would just sit, gazing out. Waiting. Waiting.

But there had always been her. She smiled at him, genuine smiles, and when the sand had baked away Fletcher's resolve, it was to her tent he would retreat. She would hold him and smile. No one commented on their relationship.

It wasn't one. He didn't even know her name. Most Brides didn't think it was important. Maybe she didn't, either, but she would hold him.

A year, and she was pregnant. How could he leave?

And then Valkyrie and Skulduggery came back. Fletcher had been sent out to meet them. Valkyrie had started crying, shaking her head. It had been hot. Fletcher was used to it, nothing but a light pair of pants on. Valkyrie was red as a lobster, covered in sand.

"Who won?" Fletcher asked, the first word to friends in a long year.

"We did," Skulduggery said.

"Then where the hell have you been?" Fletcher asked.

Skulduggery paused. "It was a long war."

Fletcher laughed. "Rich. You probably didn't even remember me. I've been stuck here. Where the hell have you been? Why didn't Gracious or Donegan or... What?"

Valkyrie closed her eyes. "They're dead. So many people, Fletch, they're all... We had to clean up. We were... Without us, it would have been..."

"You left me here." Fletcher shook his head. "You said you would come back."

Valkyrie gritted her teeth and opened her eyes. "We are back."

"I can't leave. Not... They'll kill her. They'll kill everyone. They don't even care. They'll kill the Devoted just because they know it'll mess with me. They don't—"

Skulduggery tilted his head. "We'll stop them."

Fletcher laughed in his face. "You and what army?"

Valkyrie looked sick. "I could."

Ajuoga ran at Valkyrie. Valkyrie looking sick and torn, hand pressed against her ear, and finally Fletcher—

"Just stop!" he yelled. "Keep me! Let them go! I won't run away!"

Valkyrie took a breath and fell to her knees, and Ajuoga looked over at him.

"You keep me, Skulduggery and Valkyrie leave, and you don't help the warlocks."

Ajuoga smiled. Fletcher still loved her smile. "And you'll breed with us?"

"Yes."

And maybe, deep down, Fletcher had thought Skulduggery would protest. Wouldn't let Fletcher go like that. But Skulduggery had looked at him with those eye sockets, and then he took Valkyrie and ran away.

But what was Fletcher to Skulduggery? Valkyrie looked close to breaking, so close to doing something. Of course had chosen her.

And they had run away.

But they would be back. They had to.