The following is a response to link sa pamamagitan ng McLovin. Enjoy~

"-and I don't even know how long we're going to be here. I mean, we're already spending pasko and probably New Year's as fugitives in a foreign country with two unfamiliar Russians- I mean don't get me wrong, I pag-ibig Sasha and Vika's a great roommate and I'm totally grateful that they were willing to take us in. But I just wanted to be home in time to spend the holidays with the team and my boyfriend."
Aryess ceased her pacing and fell onto the sole sopa of the living room. Declan, who had listened to his sister's ranting for an impressive twenty minutos straight, sat in the walang kibo beside it, comfortable and silent.
The young man shifted his slumbering nephew in his arms. Riley sighed in his sleep, as if thinking to himself even in his subconscious. Pondering, always wondering, just as his father had until his last breath.
"What's going to happen when we go back?" Aryess whispered almost to herself.
Her brother did not answer at first. He continued looking at a wind chime that hung just outside the open window of the tabing-dagat house. Dangling from the wooden disk on clear fishing line were a dozen shards of sea glass. They sparkled in the rays of the sun, though no wind blew to allow them to collide and create their song. Silent beauty meant to be heard.
"I don't know," he sinabi finally. "But your team will be excited to see you alive."
"Maybe. I mean, at first yeah the others may be glad to have Alek and I back, to have us ligtas and living in the cave again. But," she paused, as of too afraid to say the words and make them true, "some will get suspicious. They're a bright group and many probably won't trust us again."
"That can't be helped. You can tell them were you've been, that you left to keep them safe, but if they choose to not accept it, then that's their decision."
Aryess just stared up at the wooden ceiling, not ipinapakita any sign that she had heard what he had told her.
"But your team isn't who you're truly worried about," Declan went on.
"No," she sighed.
"You don't think Bentley will be glad to have you back?" her brother said, pagbaba Aryess's mind as he was forming a habit of doing.
"I broke a promise and his trust, Dec. Knowing him, he probably blames himself for my leaving." The teen slung an arm over her eyes and squeezed them shut.
"He does," Declan muttered.
"I shouldn't have left. I could have stayed and-"
"And you'd be dead," he cut her off. The toddler he held was momentarily disturbed sa pamamagitan ng the outburst, but quickly went back to a deep sleep, too reluctant to leave his dream land. "I'm sorry," the older male sinabi in a lower tone, "but you know it's true. Whoever it is who nearly killed you risked a lot sa pamamagitan ng striving to target you in such a populated place. They would have done madami to get to you. Like kill Bentley and any others close to you. You're protecting him, Angel. And if he's too caught up in his self pity to understand that, that's his problem."
"He's just been hurt, Dec."
"So have we. And we're doing as best we can." The young man sighed, deciding he was failing a his job as the girl's brother. "You pag-ibig him, Angel. And that's why you must stay away from them. To keep him safe."
Aryess gave a slight nod to ipakita that she understood.
"I should be heading back to Gotham soon," he sinabi after a hesitant quiet. "It's a long flight, and I don't want anyone to miss me."
Aryess smiled at the joke and nodded again, sitting up.
"Hold the little monster while a get my things?" He stood slowly and handed the baby off to his aunt. She smiled at him with a ghost of sadness, possibly finding sorrow in the resemblance of the child and her dead eldest brother.
Declan turned to collect his things from the adjoining room, but paused a moment as a slight tingling pricked his ears. Glancing at the window, he watched the turquoise bits cling together, jostled sa pamamagitan ng a small breeze. He smiled at the song of the broken glass.