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If playing tug-o-war over a jacket with a complete stranger was a bit out of the ordinary for any given day for Louvel, or choking on a mixture of eggs and getting the heimlich from the very same stranger in question then it still was pretty average at best compared to what he just heard with his own ears. He was frozen in that moment. Sitting there like the world just stopped spinning for the first time in history and he was at it’s center. Whether he wanted to be or not.

Cancer. He could see Mara’s face, feel the intimidating shape of every bone that protruded beneath the lifeless skin that lost it’s sunrich glow. Mother. Mara. He felt her presence and like any other time he savored it quietly as the soothing sensation took over. He didn’t doubt the truth in what Birdee expressed. Growing up believing someone who isn’t your parent, well, it wasn’t all that uncommon. In most of those cases it was a blessing. His lips parted just enough to draw in air. The goal was not to speak or interrupt but to draw in the strength to stay quiet. Mara was more of a von der Marck in character, substance and name than…

Otto.

Birdee’s voice saying his name had the power to stop his heart, or so it seemed. The crush of tension that formed around it and gripped hard had Louvel sitting with his mouth a little wider open than likely appeared reasonable. It wasn’t the remnants of his recent defiant breakfast. Nor was it the dryness setting in over the space of his inner mouth. His lower jaw cautiously rose to meet the upper and partnered into a joint press that had the outer muscles at each corner dancing slowly beneath his golden skin. There was a sudden inner assault of tension winding up in his body that he felt like he could obliterate everything around him with the mention of the man’s name when Mara was clearly somehow present.

“He is dead.” The words were far more direct in tone than anything he likely had said in a very long time. For as gentle as Louvel could be his name was chosen after birth and suited him for a reason and the spirit of the namesake within rose as if summoned. On guard it was as his eyes pinned on her. "And I am his son."

A rattling of the utensils on the table didn’t shake him from staring at her. The plates that were still left on the surface between them shivered in their spots with the force of her hands on their shared table. Even that didn’t sway his focus on her as she jumped off of the seat beneath her and traded it up for the empty space beside him. Okay, so now he had no choice but to shift his head to follow her.

“There is nothing to be sorry about. It was long overdue.”

He didn’t create distance between them. Even with her burst of obvious enthusiasm as if she hit the lottery against mind blowing odds...which was sort of more likely the more he gave it thought. The topic of Otto still left him conflicted to think about let alone discuss. After all wasn’t she a woman that until a recent heimlich maneuver was a complete jacket tugging stranger? But there he was in the moment with a heaping serving of reality that most wouldn’t be able to choke down if their life depended on it.

His eyes looked at her face and small shards of visual memory came to mind. Otto mostly was the center of them. In the hue of her mossy mirror like orbs he discovered Otto was more busy than even Heath’s mother, his life long mistress, could give him allowances for if she were even aware. Finally he felt the timing to blink was overdue and he did just that. Not once but twice.

“I wish I was made aware of you as much as you apparently were of me.”

What the hell could Louvel really say? Otto post-mortem was really reaching all new levels of asshattery above and beyond anything his oldest son had ever witnessed before. Louvel thought he seen and dealt with it all with the whole ordeal of Heath being born, of Otto’s insistence he be brought up von der Marck and the subsequent world wide divide it created between Mara and her only husband afterward. It was a lot to swallow for any good hearted and devoted spouse when they are told one wife isn’t enough. The proof in a child only years younger than their own kind of sets the message no one is prepared to hear in stone. Otto was capable of sectioning out his dark heart and handing it out in more sections than a Florida orange.

One of those seeds was looking at him for a response. Once again there he was trying to bridge the distance Otto left so callously behind for him to deal with. It was anything but Birdee’s fault. Twenty-five years was a lot longer than she stated knowing of a brother or looking for him. That perplexed him. So he had to ask.

“Twenty five years?”

Maybe they needed to go back to the beginning and start over. His hand palmed the side of his cheek and found it impossible to pull his eyes from her own. He could hear the soothing tone of a voice that could calm the fiercest storm with him.

Mara.

“Tell no lies, Louvel.”

Then and there he felt the dissipation of bitter uncertainty that always came with Otto’s memory.

“Listen to the truth in your heart.”

That is what he did as he sat there waiting to hear what she had to say. He could tell whatever it was that it was a long overdue story he finally was getting the chance to hear. Better late than never. His hand went out to the one closest to him that was not his own as a slow exhale left his lungs and lips. Between the two of them he summoned the courage to sort out the years that both of them had otherwise been denied.

There was a protective tide that came in as Birdee spoke. An unseen force that collected him in it’s embrace and wrapped around her too keeping everything else around them at bay. The rattling of dishes settling on the distant overburdened tray beneath them didn’t have what it would take to have him look away. The nearby rustle of winter clothing being slid over patrons who were prepared to pay their tabs were no contest for the Keeper’s attention. Nothing could pull him from his focus on her or what she said. Not even when her kindred mossy hued orbs shot in the direction of the door then bounced back.

Bestfriends. Kindergarten. Not crazy. Dreamed. Color. Monkey bars.

Each word had a world of recollection behind it for Louvel. Visions of him and his life whirled through his mind as if it was set to the orchestra of her voice. Scenes that were once seemingly complete were now clearly missing something, even in the best moments that shaped who he had become. A shadow was present in the backdrop, the shape of a form that was distinct.

It was the sound of her hand setting down on the surface of the table that had his chest growing tight. An empty hand stood for so much more than he really expected to come at him as she spoke.

Missing?

Somehow, as if for the first time, he knew that all too well. It was a feeling he was connected with on the deepest level but he always attributed it to something vastly different than what he now, at that very moment, connected it to. It was usually at the forefront of what he likened to a tidal wave of inspiration and drive that would lead him to conquer summits in lands as far from Canada as he could humanly get. Since he could crawl and walk he was exploring. He couldn’t stay still. His first breath set him on a life consuming search. It found him drifting through lands and extremes. The boy he was grew into a man who sought the unreachable heights and depths most rather witness on a flat screen with a narrator as a guide or on the pricey glossy pages of a coffee table that was safe to open and close upon a brief whim. No investment was intended or needed in those cases. No risk and ultimately no tangible reward.

Louvel had a treasure chest full of memories from where it all had taken him. But then and there on the accommodating seat of the booth in the diner he had never been in before he suddenly felt like all that time he was missing what was easy to see. He sat there beside Birdee and felt an awareness wash over him. For all the time invested, the near death and close calls that he experienced to get where he had been, he clearly was searching for what was never found. Not in the clouds that haloed the majestic peaks or stood out among the reefs that mesmerized him. He sat there and came to terms with the fact for the man he thought he was that could want for nothing he was missing a hell of a lot.

“What happened in sixth grade?”

His chest grew even tighter after he asked. His stomach felt like it was trying to turn it’s own mass into tight forming knots against his will. He didn’t consider the swab comment or knew who Jerry Springer was. He couldn’t be important or relative if his name wasn’t ringing any bells. The air grew considerably cooler around his shoulders and the back of his neck as if the impending winter found it’s way in with full force. He stared at her with his jaw tightening briefly, then relaxing. He needed to know what happened. His back leaned against the support of the booth behind him.

“Tell me.”

“You can’t, Louvel. You can’t keep it. You need to take it back outside and return it. It doesn’t really matter if you have touched it. You are responsible for what happens from here on even if you were only trying to help. You have to do the right thing.”

His eyes glanced to his hands for visual reference as the memory of the tiny bare chickadee in his small palms was framed by the cupping of Mara’s own beneath. They were so much larger now, capable of repairing things and tearing them apart depending on his mood, the need. His fingers were far wiser, skilled. Back then he felt defeated as he carried the bird back to the wind downed nest and settled it back where it originally was. He watched closely from a distance hoping to see the parents return to nourish it. It was avoided by any signs of wildlife in the area. It didn’t take long. A few days and cool nights cand and went. The random chirping in the first hours decreased to silence. Predictably the tiny creature succumbed to the abandonment in the wake of an event that it had no control over, no choice.

“I would have come looking for you if I had known you existed. Trust me when I say that.”

Louvel looked at her visibly sobered by what he had briefly reflected on, what she had said. She kicked the punk which didn’t surprise him. The fact she suffered permanent hearing loss as a consequence for not giving in to his advances, well, that was like a hand that gripped around his internal mass of his gut and squeezed hard until he felt the need to shift where he sat to put his back to the rest of the world to focus on her. He deserved more than a kick in the nuts.

“We all have to grow up.” His mossy gaze drifted to her ear, the definition of her cheek as it blended into the lips that told a history he was hearing for the first time. “Except Peter Pan. But he has Tinker Bell so he is set.” He smiled just enough to soften his expression as his arm stretched to line the top of the booth behind that they were sitting in. No contact was made. “Let’s see. I never did this before so I guess I will start with what seems to have us filling in a lot of blanks. As you know Otto is deceased.” He chewed his bottom lip long enough to sum up his thoughts on it. “You didn’t miss much.” His hips slid forward just enough that his long legs found the space to get comfortable. "So is my mother, Mara. I am the first born.” He looked away long enough to shake his head to decline the approaching waitress who had a pot of coffee in her hand lifting for suggestion. “Or as far as I know. Obviously that could change.” A slight lift of his shoulder demonstrated he wasn’t going to be bothered by it or half as surprised since she appeared.“Heath was born seven years after I was. As soon as he arrived Otto pretty much had a dual family life as well as residences from then on between Switzerland, the states and here. You don’t favor Otto if that helps. Take it as a compliment.”

Was Heath in Switzerland?

Now that was a good question. One he didn’t have the answer to. Louvel could take a wild guess and assume the man was bouncing the planet and following the currents of affluence and entitlement that his cushion of inheritance afforded him to flow with. The Keeper wished for something far more satisfying for his brother deep down. Maybe Heath finally settled down and cashed in the few clues he hoped would have the youngest of Otto’s children living a life that had more substance than what his last name bought him without the inconvenience of having to lift his own fingers to acquire it. Heath was the poster child for what happened to the pretty, the rich and the entitled if told all of the above far too often and not for their own good.

“I would be surprised if he was not somewhere in Europe.”

His mossy orbs shifted from the movement of his fingers on the back of the seat and on Birdee as he commented. He knew Heath was the last one she needed to cross paths with so soon. Lou didn’t underestimate Birdee’s tenacity or ability to handle herself against the pompous *** Heath was known to be with those he considered below his self imposed station in the world. Nor did he doubt his younger brother’s delight in trying to break down what refused to bend or shift under the increased pressure of his self-serving judgements- which he highly doubted had lessened in severity. Louvel could hear Heath loud and clear. It was the makings of a von der Marck explosion of two heated tempers clashing that Otto passed on to his sons. As he eyed Birdee he eventually tossed her hat in the ring as a contender. Heath even tried to start something and he would be lucky if he had skin left between the two of them going for his throat.

“Heath and I do our best to stay clear of each other. The last time I saw him was…” Louvel’s words fell short of divulging the truth trapped behind his lips. The night of Alaric’s summoning came to mind briefly. “At a family gathering over a year ago when he landed to grace me with his presence. Of course it was to try and get me tangled up into whatever grand scheme he had likely found himself caught in and was looking for an easy way out. I quit saving his *** when he refused to learn from the lessons he was handed on a silver platter.” Louvel’s winter sun kissed lips twitched just enough to be noticed then relaxed. “Heath hasn’t grown up yet. He still lives in a rather well padded and cushy world that denies him the full effects of humbling falls that we all typically experience and mature from. He is blood and family but he has a lot to learn before he can be considered reasonable and tolerable on any level you would typically expect from a man of his age. He looks the most like Otto. It is eerie. He just so happens to be the spitting image of Otto when he was in his twenties. I will introduce you to him evenutally, no worries there.” He shifted back to notice another table being cleared next to the one they were sitting at. “Then you can hate me for doing it.” A brief white flash of teeth was revealed with his playful grin.