Sparkle (KOTLC) {Completed}

27

After bringing up when Sophie would heal Prentice, Janessa felt as though she suddenly remembered just how many people had been affected by this war. She didn't know of any word that described it better. War. She had been kidnapped and suffered severe emotional trauma, but Sophie and Dex had been kidnapped once too, Biana and Fitz had been betrayed by their older brother, Mr Forkle had lost his twin brother and was on the verge of losing Prentice, a dear friend, for the second time. The list goes on.

Mr Forkle hesitated, before saying, "I'd like to ask a favor. I want to be there for every stage of Prentice's healing—especially the first one, when he'll be the most vulnerable. And with Foxfire resuming session, I have too many responsibilities as Magnate Leto for me to be anywhere other than my office for at least the next week. I can still work on these," he promised, tapping the journals. "But I can't be sneaking away to where Prentice is staying. I'm sorry—I know it's an incredibly selfish request. If I could still be two places at once . . ." His voice cracked, and Janessa felt like she could tear up, but kept a stoic face.

Tiergan wrapped an arm around his shoulder comfortingly. "It's not selfish. We all want to be there for this. And I'm sure the more time Sophie has to prepare for the conversation, the better. So how about we wait until everyone survives the first week of Foxfire? And in the meantime, we'll focus hard on these other projects."

Foxfire. Another thing Janessa had forgotten. In spite of this war, and everything changing for the worse for the world, in some strange way, everything for Janessa at the individual level was smoothing out as well. She was fixing herself and her relationships, and now, for the first time, she would be going to school like a normal girl as well. It felt wrong in such a time of crisis, but she couldn't help but grasp at the relief that something was going well.

Linh offered to go with Tiergan to help explain everything to Wylie and cheer him up, which made Tam glower.

"Oh sure. Leave us in research torment while you go hang out with your friend."

"Uh, hello." Biana said, pointing to herself, Janessa, Fitz, and Sophie. "You're hanging out with us."

"Yeah, but... in a library." Tam complained.

"It's too bad Keefe isn't here—you two could have a contest to see who whines the most." Biana laughed.

"I'd win." Keefe suddenly said from the doorway.

"Keefe! I thought you were chained to your bed!" Janessa said, grinning as she gave him a quick hug, feeling the brief rush of his emotions—mostly excited, and relieved.

"Psh, that was yesterday. Plus, it's boring being the only one in the Banned from Missions club."  Keefe joked, resting his arm on her shoulder.

"What are you doing here?" Sophie demanded. Immediately, Janessa felt the intense emotion radiating off of her, despite having thought she'd gotten used to it.

Keefe smirked as he looked at the blonde. "It's good to see you too, Foster—though yowza, that's a lot of emotions to hit a guy with all at once. In case you need help deciding, I'd go with the part of you that wants to run over here for an epic Team Foster-Keefe hugfest, and not the part that wants to rip off my arms and smack me with them."

Glancing back and forth between the two, Janessa was immediately reminded why she was not Team Fitzphie. Feeling their emotions for each other, as Keefe's arm was still on her shoulder, only made that clearer.

Keefe stepped closer to Sophie, taking his arm off Janessa's shoulder. "In case you're wondering, I'm all healed." He did a weird little dance to prove it, not bothering to stop himself from adding, "Elwin took me off bed rest last night. And you can barely see the scar. I'd show you to prove it, but it'd probably be weird to take my shirt off right now."