Welcome to Sealantis

chapter 9: generational changes

The boys - or, I suppose now they were men - visited me the next day.

Of course, they claimed they'd visited me daily and I had simply been asleep whenever they visited, but it was no matter. We were together again.

Edward hadn't died.

Harry hadn't been absorbed into the machine.

They carefully skirted around the topic of Andy and Trident; ignoring any mentions of Milkensprouts and Soppensmirkz as expertly as we had avoided reminding our history professor of the homework she'd forgotten to assign. I demanded to see pictures of the two of them growing up - I tried not to think about how I wasn't in any of the pictures anymore - and that was when I learned Edward got married.

About two years after the incident, Harry'd convinced him to attend a dragonet con for a few days. He'd not missed a day when visiting me yet, and the guilt that he couldn't protect me as well as the anxiety of not knowing if I'd ever wake up had not done him any favors. Harry promised that he'd watch over me so that Edward could take the weekend off to simply be, and that con was where Edward met his partner.

The two had built elaborate dragonet costumes; Edward a bright silver, his partner a gorgeous gold. Having cosplayed the two lovebirds - love... dragons? - the two of them flirted with each other and pretended to be married the whole con... which of course, with Edward's hopelessly romantic heart, turned into real feelings very quickly. They exchanged numbers, dated long-distance for a few months, and then his partner accepted a job at the local vet.

"Is that the vet you go to when you shift?" Harry asked teasingly.

"Harry!" I chastised. Why would he tease Edward about something he was clearly uncomfortable with? I remembered how embarrassed Edward got when admitting he was a werewolf like it was yesterday.

Well, maybe like it was a week ago.

Still-

"It's okay, Millie." Edward placed a hand on my shoulder comfortingly. "It's cool."

To my surprise, mirth danced in his eyes as he looked at Harry. "It wasn't then, but it sure is now!"

And the moment shifted back into a comfortable rhythm, the three of us teasing each other and laughing like the biggest problem in our lives was some test to take next Friday.

Harry hadn't changed much at all - he'd of course matured some, losing some of his soft boyishness and gaining a more matured appearance, but he still had his charm and crooked smile. He was still obsessed with the steampunk aesthetic, wearing mostly leather and gears and clocks. He showed me his hat, which was handcrafted to hide small objects in it, and fit his head perfectly. He resembled his great-grandpa Harry Styles so much, I felt like I was looking at the history textbooks - and that was impressive, since his mom had actually been adopted by Harry when she was fourteen after her father sold her to purchase more alcohol.

I always admired Harry's grandma. She wasn't like other grandmas.

My Harry had actually amassed quite the following in the seventeen years I was missing. He'd somehow influenced thousands to wear steampunk styled clothing, "for fashion and function!" and led the research in understanding the strange gems that started the incident to begin with.

"I couldn't let anyone else get hurt by them," Harry said seriously, his emerald eyes studying my own. "Not after what happened to you, to all those clams."

I loved Harry.

After all these years, he was still committed to the cause.

To me.