Jack, Henry and his little brother had been running around for at least 15 minutes at this point, and Aster was wondering when the hell these boys were going to run out of energy.
To her immense relief, Rossi called everyone in for dinner soon after.
"Alright boys, let's go. The sooner we eat dinner the sooner we get to eat dessert!" She clapped her hands once, getting the boy's attention. It was good timing as well, since the sun had started setting about 20 minutes ago, and the backyard they were in was getting steadily darker. Jack and Henry ran up to her right away, clearly thrilled with the prospect of food. Jack gave her a quick hug around the waist, which caught her slightly off guard.
"Thanks for playing with us Ash. The game only really works with 4 people." The boy said, looking up at his big sister with a grin on his face. She hugged him back tightly, telling him it was no problem and that she had a lot of fun. She watched as the two boys ran to the porch containing all of the adults, who had been sitting outside watching them, and she saw her dad wave to her in a 'come on' motion. She held up a finger to him, one second. Micheal had strayed further to the back fence, which he could just look over since it was only a half-fence, and came just over Aster's waist. He was still back there, staring past it into the dark alley behind.
"Hey bud, come one, let's go eat dinner. Your mommy is still waiting outside for us." She said, putting a hand on his little shoulder.
"But I saw something." He responded. He didn't sound exactly scared, but used the tone of voice a child does when they want an explanation for something they don't know about, and are expecting you to provide.
Aster froze for a second, but didn't see a reason to panic. He was a little boy with an imagination, staring into the dark, in a residential area. It wouldn't be unusual if someone was out walking their dog, or something.
"Oh yeah? It's nice out, plenty of people are probably walking around. Let's go back inside." She said, mostly because she was hungry, not worried.
"But he was standing right there." He pointed towards a hedge that was a little past the fence. Sure enough, hidden within the bushes, Aster could see a pair of eyes, just barely. It seemed like the figure had moved back far enough so that Michael lost sight of them, but now that Aster was aware of it, she didn't know how she hadn't sensed this before.
"I.. I don't see anything. Maybe they left, okay Michael? I need you to go to your mommy now, will you tell her I'm right behind you? I think I dropped my phone, I'm gonna stay and look for it." Aster said, having already put her body in front of his. She gently pushed his shoulder, without taking her eyes off whatever was hiding. Horrifyingly, she noticed it hadn't blinked once.
Michael seemed to accept her explanation, giving a shrug and a nod before running back to his mother. JJ picked him up, giving a quick concerned glance towards the teen still in the yard, before walking back inside. JJ was sure that Aster left her phone inside, and thought maybe the girl just needed a minute. I'll go tell Hotch, JJ thought.
Meanwhile, Aster was doing an assessment in her mind. The thing/person looked human, but that didn't mean anything. If it was a monster, it probably wouldn't have waited in the bushes to try to attack her. It wouldn't have cared. So if it wasn't a monster, who's to say it was even here for her? Was someone casing the house? Should she run and get help from the numerous literal FBI agents inside? Probably.
But she was frozen. Her heart had begun racing, and she could only describe what she was feeling as something horrifying and visceral. Pure terror. Neither her nor the thing in the bushes had moved an inch. It was just... staring at her. The more she looked, the more scared she was. Two floating eyes in a pool of blackness. They were too wide, too bright and too unblinking. And the more Aster's eyes got used to the darkness, the more she was convinced this thing was not a human. It was almost like what she could see of him, and she was sure it was a him at this point, was flickering in and out like a TV that lost signal. She felt deep in her gut that something was not right.
But she didn't move to draw a weapon, or materialize out of the shadows as she usually does. She kept her hands by her side, but if you looked closely enough, you could see her hands twitching at her sides. I'm not afraid of you, she told herself, I am a daughter of night, this is my territory now and I'm going to send you right back from where you came from.
The darkness responded to her, tendrils of it slowly creeping towards the thing in the bushes. Slowly, so as not to alert it, as it hadn't moved its eyes from Aster once. If Aster was being honest, making eye contact with this thing was kind of making her want to cry. Just as Aster was about to strike, she heard the backdoor open, and slam shut again. Her focus slipped, and she broke eye contact for not even half a second. But when she tried to find its eyes again, they were just gone. She couldn't see anything at all. It had vanished, and along with it, the bone-chilling fear that she had been feeling. Everything was just fine again.
"Aster? Are you okay?" The voice of her father came from behind her, making her jump.
She spun around, and gave him a weak smile. She glanced behind her once, at the fence and the now empty bushes behind it.
"Uh, nothing. I was just looking for my phone." Aster could tell he wasn't convinced.
"It's inside." He deadpanned.
"Oh. Thanks." She tried again for a smile, but failed horribly.
"Aster," Aaron's face softened, "If you're feeling overwhelmed, we can go home. No one is going to be upset."
"No, no, I'm fine." She said, pretty obviously distracted. "Let's just go inside."
She waited for him to turn around, instinctively wanting to make sure her body was in between her father and whatever it was that had been watching her. She grabbed his arm on the way back to the house, and Aaron didn't fail to notice the way her hands were shaking. Frowning, he moved his arm so that it was around her shoulder, throwing a curious glance back towards the darkness behind them, wondering what could've caught his daughter's attention, and what could've possibly scared that much.
...
"Did you two have a good time?" Aaron asked from behind the wheel of his car, as he drove the 3 of them home from Rossi's.
Dinner had been nice, the food was delicious, even if Aaron had been distracted by how quiet Aster was being. It wasn't as though she was particularly talkative before this, but she had been engaged and listening to the conversations going on around her. But once they sat down for dinner, she seemed completely out of it. Aaron thought she was having a good time, but now he was thinking it must have been too much too soon.
Jack was almost completely asleep in the back seat, so his answer was no more than a semi-audible grunt that Aaron interpreted as a 'yes'. Aster however, was a little more verbal.
"Yeah, it was fun." She said, looking out the passenger side window. Aster was being genuine, but she could see that Aaron wasn't convinced. However, Aster had too much on her mind to bother trying to convince him otherwise.
"I'm sorry if you felt overwhelmed." He said.
"Hm? Don't be, I wasn't overwhelmed. Really Aaron, I had a good time." Aster replied.
Aaron sighed, seeing that was probably all he was going to get out of her tonight.
He side-eyed her a little, "Well, the team really enjoyed having you there."
She smiled. She enjoyed seeing how much of a family they all were. However, her smile quickly dropped. She promised herself that she wasn't going to put any of them in danger, especially Aaron and Jack. So after what happened tonight, she wasn't sure she could stay much longer. Because whatever that was in Rossi's backyard, it certainly wasn't like any monster she's ever seen. And it certainly didn't behave like one. Something was going on, and Aster wanted to find out what. If she had to leave her new family to do that, and to keep them safe, then she would. She only wished that she could have just a little more time with them.
...
Aster found herself sitting alone in her room, having just said goodnight to her father and brother. All she really wanted to do was sleep, but the chances of her sleeping peacefully were all but none. So she thought now would be a good time to call the resident expert on all things underworldly.
"Hey Neeks, how are you doing?" She said into her monster-proof phone. She was smiling softly, looking forward to talking to her friend even if she knew the conversation she was about to have was probably not going to be very happy.
"Miss me already? That's a first." Came Nico Di Angelo's reply. To anyone else, they would probably take that comment to heart, but Aster knew that Nico was only messing with her.
"Ha, ha. Miss you of all people? Never." She joked, but no amount of joking could hide the weariness in her voice.
The boy on the other end of the line paused for a moment. Aster could almost see him furrowing his brow in front of her.
"Is something wrong, Aster?" Nico was not one to beat around the bush.
"Despite what you might think, I do seek out your company solely because I enjoy talking to you. Unfortunately though, you're right." She felt the need to reassure him of that first point. No matter how much things have changed since Tartarus, Aster was still scared Nico was going to start isolating himself again.
"Yeah, yeah, I know. We're "trauma bonded for life" or whatever. Now spill. Is it that mortal? I knew we shouldn't have let you just run off with him-"
Aster cut her friend off, quickly reassuring him that everything with Aaron was fine. She hesitated, but only for a moment, before she launched into the story of what happened at Rossi's. She spared no detail, wanting Nico to get the clearest picture of what she saw just in case he knew something about what it could've been. Unfortunately for Aster, Nico seemed equally as confused.
"I'm serious Nico," she was finishing, "I don't think I've been so scared in a long time, and we both know that I've been in scarier situations than staring at some weirdo in a bush. I just.. I can't even describe it, it was like something out of a horror movie. Ever heard of the uncanny valley? Something about it was human at first, but the longer I stared, the more wrong it felt. Like someone was pretending to be human and failing."
"And you're positive that it was a monster?" Nico asked, equally as freaked out as Aster had been.
"I mean, I couldn't be sure, no." She sighed, frustrated with herself. Now that the terror had faded away, she was upset that she had let it get away without at least getting a closer look. Though if she could remember just how deeply rooted the terror was in that moment, she might feel differently.
She continued speaking. "I've never seen anything like it Nico, honestly it seems just like the type of horror mommy dearest might dream up. I just can't figure out what it wanted, why was it just staring at us? And Michael, he..." Aster trailed off, a thought just dawning on her. "Oh my gods, Michael saw it too, he saw it like how I did."
"Like how you did? What do you mean?"
"Micheal, my dads coworkers kid, he said that "he was standing right there". He saw a man, just like I did. If it were a monster, don't you think the mist would've changed it into, I don't know, a dog or something?" Aster was freaking out just a little. She was used to dealing with Greek monsters, and the thought of it being something other than that was making her nervous.
Nico would never admit it, but it made him nervous to think of it as well. However, he tried to calm Aster down by rationalizing with her. "Ash, he could've seen the same thing for plenty of reasons. He could've been clear sighted. And you said yourself that you had to look at it for a bit to really be sure that it wasn't a mortal. So if it already looked normal, then Michael probably just saw a normal man, without any of the scary stuff."
"Okay, yeah, that makes sense." Aster took a deep breath, trying to work herself down from the sense of panic she was feeling.
"Listen, I'll talk to Will and see if I have the all clear to go visit my dad soon. I'll ask him about it, if he knows what it is, and if he doesn't I'll poke around and see if I can overhear any chatter about something going on." At Aster's small sound of acquiesce, Nico continued on. "I'll let you know if I hear something as soon as I can. But in the meantime, you should let Chiron know. And please Aster, be safe. Don't do anything stupid."
"Thank you Nico, I won't, I promise. Love you, and I'll see you soon." She said.
"Love you too." He responded, and then hung up.
I'm in the middle of finals so this is currently unedited, I just wanted to get it posted. Enjoy!!