The Red King and the Witch

Flirtation and Sarcasm

"You will always have a place in the Shelby home"

After gifting me another bottle of whiskey Polly had basically sent me off to bed.

Her dark brown eyes were kind yet contemplative, as if she had wanted to say more but held back.

The look in her eyes and her parting words unfortunately made sleep difficult to come by and I spent the night drinking and wallowing in my own self pity.

Saving the life of a two year old may have complicated my time here, and the more I thought about it, the more I wanted to drink myself into oblivion.

My first thought had made me almost vomit all the alcohol back out, realizing that by saving the life of one boy I may have changed the future for the worse.

What if the kid was supposed to die?

What if this baby turned out to be the next Hitler?

What if I just fucked the rest of the world over?!

Those questions and the others that followed took almost the entire bottle to get rid of, but it was Polly's last words that broke me.

I know they say hindsight is twenty twenty, but it seemed a bit extreme for the universe or God to send me back one hundred years just for me to realize that I wasn't alone in the world.

Back in my own time I had always struggled with the feeling of loneliness.

After my parents death the feeling grew worse, even with all my family in Chicago and the pseudo family I had in England, I had still felt alone, or thought I did.

Polly's offer was kind but it didn't change the fact that I had no one. I was alone in nineteen twenty-one England with no friends and no family.

Whatever loneliness I had felt growing up didn't even compare to what I felt now.

As I drank, I couldn't stop thinking about all of the people I left behind.

I couldn't stop imagining how they were handling this, or if they even knew I was missing yet.

I felt like shit, knowing how scared and worried they would be, how they would all blame themselves.

I knew my family in Chicago was going to lose it.

Since my mothers had death I had been the last part of her that stayed with them, which in turn made me the most watched Rodriguez of the clan.

My Wela Luz had stepped in as my caregiver and my Aunt's and Uncle's had become my teachers, their children my most fearless and loving protectors.

Growing up without mom had been difficult but they all did their best to make sure that her memory lived on for me.

My chest grew tight at the thought of my family blaming themselves for not protecting me the way they promised my mother they always would.

I knew Uncle Robert would blame himself entirely.

He would think I ran away again at first, and wish he confronted me about my demons sooner.

Later, when the weeks would pass he would believe worse had happened, and go over every piece of evidence to find me.

He would never believe that I had just disappeared.

Frank would blame himself for drinking.

Andy would hate himself for not walking me home.

I couldn't even think about the Marine.

The hot-tempered Royal Marine who would turn Birmingham upside down looking for me.

My heart and lungs seized for a few seconds, panic seizing my brain, when I realized how this would crush him.