The Reset

Chapter Seventeen: Beyond The Invisible

AN: Pausing for just a moment to return to the present. Just a moment though. I know how much you guys are enjoying the past, but I'll send you all back there soon, I promise.

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Kai lost count how many hands had touched his shoulders; how many gentle squeezes had been given. He'd forgotten the number of times he'd nodded his head and forced a smile across his face - a smile that lacked any real feeling behind it and one that definitely didn't meet his eyes. The numbness had overtaken him and he felt like little more than a statue as he stood at the entrance of the main hall as others pooled in one by one or in groups. The world was completely desaturated - void of color save for the stark, black tint that stood out among the throng of those who came to pay their respects.

The Wake had been a somber affair. At least from Kai's end. He didn't even recall giving his remembrance speech, but he had. Clearly, he had to. The whole thing seemed to have blurred together from the moment he'd stepped into the facility.

Everyone who was in attendance had been informed of the change in Kai. Lydia had done her part as the eldest to make sure that everything remained hush-hush outside of family and The Gemini Coven. Those who failed to comply would answer to his daughter, Abigail. As the current Gemini head, she had the right to swiftly enact whatever punishments she deemed fit should word get out about Kai's "condition." There was a bit of confusion from the grandchildren, but nothing that wasn't readily accepted and understood. After all, they grew up in a world of magic. Being thrown back in time while simultaneously still existing in the present should not have been that surprising.

It had been dubbed as a "freaky magical accident" for the time being. At least until a better explanation could be given. Kai wasn't sure if he had one. Not yet.

As his eyes swept across the room, he felt his chest growing warm with the realization that so many people - family and friends alike - were in attendance because of Bonnie or Kai or both of them. Leaving Mystic Falls had been one of the better decisions Bonnie had made and it was solely on her own terms. It had taken her just a small amount of time - an adjustment period - to make her stead in Portland. Kai had done little during that time since she had been so stubbornly insistent on standing on her own.

She'd spent her entire life in Mystic Falls. It was all she ever really knew and understood. Her safe haven, so to speak. The only thing Kai ever really did back then was convince Bonnie that she should not ever be a product of her environment. If it was one thing he'd come to understand while living in the prison world and after meeting her, it was that anyone was capable of change. Even him. So long as they were able to have a little bit of help along the way.

Kai wanted to help her. He knew she was strong-willed and ridiculously independent. It was a result of how she'd been treated for so long. But that didn't lessen his desire to want to help her.

"Dad?"

A voice brought him out of his internal reverie and he glanced over his shoulder and met the gaze of his son, Josiah. Dark brows furrowed over steel-blue eyes and Kai couldn't help but blink in slight surprise. Out of all of his children, Josiah had been the more emotionally balanced one and equally as level-headed. He didn't know if it was a product of growing out of his rebellious stage as a child or if it was simply who he'd come to be over time. But when Lydia was out of sorts and Abigail lost in the cumbersome weight that came with donning the mantle of the Gemini's leader, Josiah was usually the one who kept everyone else in line among his siblings.

"Hm? What is it, Jo?" Even though his own twin had passed a few years ago, it still gave him pause to call his son in that manner.

Josiah stepped closer to him, his body shielding off others who attempted to get too close. He had always been a perceptive child - taking note of all the times it had irritated Kai to attend group functions with other witches since the sheer amount of magic that encompassed the area usually overwhelmed him. Especially through touch. Kai had had enough of people touching him today.