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“Dad and I found a couple of interesting things in the journal,” Everly said. “There’s a lock of Delilah’s hair and a list of the Meehan witches.”

“What?” Fitzgibbon’s eyes widened.

“The tree starts in 1624 and ends with Aurora’s mother, Rachel.” Everly flipped to the tree and passed it across the table to Aurora.

“These are all my great-grandmothers?” Aurora sounded awed.

“They could be great-aunts and cousins too. From the way the tree reads, there’s only one Meehan witch per generation. Right now, that witch is you.” Everly smiled at Aurora through teary eyes.

“I finally know who I am!” Aurora ran to the other side of the table to hug her friend. “Thank you, Everly. Thank you. Thank you.” As the girls hugged, Fitzgibbon got up and left the room.

Ronan was halfway out of his seat before Ten stopped him. He got up and left instead. It was probably a good thing Ten went in his place. With the mood he was in now Ronan would like as not punch Fitz. Everly and Ezra were conceived using the same surrogate and he knew a time would come when both kids wanted to know more about Emilyn and he’d prepared himself for that eventuality. He assumed Fitz would have done the same thing, but it seemed that hadn’t been the case.

He hoped to hell Ten was going to find some way to get through to Fitz before he said or did something that couldn’t be taken back.

8

Tennyson

Fitzgibbon was sitting on Ten’s front steps when he walked outside, shrugging into his jacket. “Fitz, are you okay?”

Fitz shook his head. Ten moved down the stairs to sit beside him and saw that he was crying. “What the hell am I going to do when Aurora wants to go live with her real family?”

Ten wrapped his arms around Fitz, just as Jude walked out the door. He sat two steps above Fitz. “That’s not going to happen. Aurora loves you because you’re her father.”

“Yeah, but she’s got real family now.” Fitz buried his face in his hands.

“Like you said inside, Fitz, we are her real family,” Jude began. “We’ve talked about this before when it comes to our girls. A day like this is going to come when Lizzie will want to know who her parents are. All Cope and I have is her mother’s name. She didn’t put a father’s name on Lizzie’s birth certificate. It’s natural for Aurora to be curious.”

“My heart is shattered,” Fitz whispered. “Not just with Aurora, but with you and work and Cisco being on my ass.”

“It’s been a rough few months, Fitzy,” Jude agreed.

“This is the last thing I needed. I’m too emotional to handle this like a rational man. So, here I sit, on Ten’s stoop crying my eyes out.”

“Family leans on each other during times of trouble.” Ten gave Fitz one last squeeze.

“God knows I’ve done my share of learning. I don’t think Aurora has spent more than seven nights sleeping in her own bed since the shooting. You and Ronan are practically raising her for me.” Fitz swiped angrily at the tears continuing to course down his face.

“You know we love having Aurora, Fitz. She’s sweet as pie and she and Everly get along so well.”

“I sense a but coming.”

Ten nodded. “But you need to come to terms with what happened the day Jude was shot.” Ten’s quick read of Fitz showed how high his anger and anxiety was over the things that happened thanks to Jonas Crawford.

“I almost killed my best friend. That’s not the kind of thing you get over in a week.”

“Fitz, look at me,” Jude said.

Both Ten and Fitz turned around to see Jude had undone the first three buttons on his shirt, revealing a reddish, puckered scar just below his collarbone.

“You didn’t almost kill me.” Jude said. “Do you see how high up my scar is? You were nowhere close to killing me. After Ronan dropped his gun, my full attention was on you. I could see the struggle in your eyes. You fought hard to overcome Crawford’s bullshit spell. We all know how accurate you are at the shooting range, not to mention the fact that you were only standing ten feet or so away from me. It was an easy shot, Fitz, one that you’d hit a hundred times in a row. There was something inside you that was strong enough to fight Crawford off.”

Fitz’s eyes moved back and forth between the scar and Tennyson.

Ten could feel the emotions pouring off Fitz. He’d never felt so much guilt from any one man in his life. “What would it take to end your pain today? Whatever you think that is, name it.”

“I suppose I’d feel a lot better if Jude got mad at me and socked me in the mouth.” Fitz smiled slightly.