All Along the Watchtower

2nd August 1988

Elenna was sleeping in her child seat, while Nick was mumbling words his mother didn’t want him to say.

“Nicklaas Jensen Fee you have two options here, you either stop and apologize for every word you said or I’ll wash your mouth with soap and I’ll make sure it is a girly smell!” Lorelai said strictly to her son.
Nicklaas looked angry at his mother. “But Mom I didn’t want to go and meet strangers in the middle of nowhere!”

Lorelai sighed she wished her husband could have joined them but the women had decided that they would meet without their husbands. “Georgina will be there.”

Suddenly her son’s face brightened up. “You didn’t tell me that fact.”

“Because I didn’t want your sister to get all excited.”

“Mami? I pee.” A sleepy Elenna mumbled, hugging her teddy bear tightly.

“Maus we are there in a few minutes can you hold it a little bit longer?” Lorelai watched her daughter in the rearview.

“I duess.” Elenna whispered.

Lorelai drove the last bit of the road and stopped at a large but simple house. “There we are.” Nicklaas jumped out of the car and looked annoyed around. “This looks like a boring place. What are we doing here again? Georgina won’t like it here at all.”

Lorelai helped her daughter out of the car, the little toddler clung to her. As usual she was shy in new places.

Georgie sat next to her mother in the car on the way to some place in New York. She had no idea why exactly they were going there, but she knew that she would see her friend Elle again, and apparently another hunter family she hadn’t met yet.
She looked at her mother for a brief moment. “So, I’m really going to see Elle again?”

“Yes.”

“And who are the others?”

“The Remingtons? They are…friends of mine.” Josephine didn’t want to tell her little daughter that they met with hunters. Georgina did know many things about that subject already, but Josephine knew that the children of the other families didn’t, so she didn’t want her daughter to accidently mention those things in front of the other kids.
“Mariane Remington will bring her two sons, they are about your age.”

Georgie opened her little pink purse and got out a mirror. “Sons?” She fixed a strand of hair that was falling into her face. “Are they handsome?”

“Georgina.” Josephine threw her a warning side-glance.

“What?” Georgie shrugged her shoulders and put the mirror back in her purse.

“Do I need to remind you that you’re five years old?”

“So?”

Her mother sighed. “By the way, Lorelai mentioned that Nick will be there too.”

Georgie raised her eyebrows. “Really?”

“I just want to make sure that you’ll behave properly, even if there are three young men around you.”

A smile played around Georgie’s lips. “Of course I will, mother.”

"Sib?" Mariane tapped on the door to her sister's room, where her sister lay in darkness, buried under quilts. Incense and candles were lit around the room. Steven was sitting with her.

"Dad?" she whispered, letting herself in and going to him, taking his hand but also picking up her sister's cold hand from the bed.

"Hey, pumpkin. Where are the boys?"

"Playing by the river. How is she?"

Steven Campbell sighed, squeezing his daughter's hand. "No changes. Nothing except to keep reciting the same thing. I...wrote it down." Steven reached for a yellow legal pad, and handed it to her. Mariane took the paper, but didn't look at it--she knew what it would say. It was burned into her memory from her twin sister's screams.

"It's never been this bad--"

"I know. Visions are one thing. Your mother doesn't--"

"I know. She's baking. You know how she gets when she's upset."

Steven smiled mirthlessly. "So the entire surface of the kitchen is covered with cookies. Well, at least Romey and Raws will be pleased." The joke fell flat, and he shook his head.

"The girls will be here soon."

Now her father looked at her. "You sure this is the right thing to do?"

Mariane nodded, bit her lip. "I'll miss them. But yeah, pretty sure. Sibyl's never been wrong before."

"No."

There was a long silence. Sibyl shifted and whimpered, murmured--"fairy, servant and raven"--and then settled again. Mariane ran a hand through her sister's hair, and leaned down to kiss her brow.

"I should go. They'll be here any time."

"I'll be here," her father said.

"Some cars just pulled up, sweetie," Delphine said as Mariane came down the stairs. Her mother wiped at her eyes and sniffled.

Mariane pulled her mother into a one-armed hug. "Mom, she's going to be fine."

Delphine nodded hurriedly. "I made--cookies. I'll get some lemonade and iced tea made up."

"Mom, you didn't have to--"

"I did. Boys okay?"

"Playing by the river, mom. I think they're trying to set a trap for the raccoon dad said he was after." Giving her mother one last squeeze, Mariane went to the door, just as Josephine pulled up. Little Nick had jumped out of the car, and Lorelai was hauling Elle out of her carseat.

"Hey, girls," Mariane greeted, nodding.

“Hey Mariane.” Lorelai smiled. It has been a long time since she had seen her friend. Elle was hiding her face in her chest, while Nick found already stuff he could play with.

“Hey Nick can you take Elle to the bathroom.”

“But mom I am busy here.”

“I can go with her Mrs Fee.” Georgie chirped behind her as sweet as always.

“Oh that would be lovely.” Lorelai sat her daughter down. “Look Elle it’s your friend Georgie do you remember her?”

Elle was crying but looked at Georgie and then she grinned. “Dordie! Vermisste dich!”

“Maus, I told you Georgie doesn’t speak German.”

“Oh I fordot. Come Dordie, we doe.”

Lorelai saw the girls walk into the house while she was hugging Josephine and then turned to Mariane. “The kids are safe here right? I mean they won’t find anything hunting related will they?”

"No, my folks are pretty good at kid-proofing the house. If Rome and Raws haven't found anything yet, it can't be found." Mariane crouched down in front of Nick.

"Hey, Nick," Mariane said. "The other guys are trapping a raccoon down by the river behind the house. You want to go hang out with them?"

Nick tossed down the rocks he had been picking up. "Yeah!" he said, and tore off down to the river.

Mariane, now that they were alone, turned to her friends and crossed her arms. "Well, let's get down to it. There's lemonade on the porch, and we can get stronger stuff if we need it."

“I’m fine with lemonade at the moment”, Josephine replied with a friendly smile. “I might go back to your offer later.”

The women followed Mariane to the porch and sat down.

“Your parents have a beautiful home, Mariane”, Josephine remarked.

Lorelai chuckled. “You know that we’re here for another reason than inspecting real estate, right?”

Josephine shot her a brief smile. “I’m aware of that.” Then she turned to Mariane. “So, what is there you wanted to tell us?”

Mariane tossed the legal pad onto the table. Lorelai picked it up and read it out loud:

"'The One with the power of the gods will be born to those who hunt: born of a fairy, a servant and a raven, after the darkest hour. The strongest weapon living can be used for only one purpose. The One who can end everything will have a power that the gods do not know'--Mariane, what is this?"

"My sister, Sibyl, is an Oracle. You'd think with a name like that we'd be less surprised, but--" she pulled a flask out of her purse and laced her lemonade with it. "Normally it's not this bad, or this clear. She gets visions sometimes, but this--she's been in bed for three days, just saying this over and over again. I did some looking, but I have no clue what it means. Well," she added. "I have a theory."

"The fairy, the servant and the raven, that's us," Lorelai said immediately.

"Yeah, that's what I thought."

"What? Why?" Josephine asked, suspicious.

"Married names, but it's our surnames."

Lorelai smirked at her. "Who are you and what have you done with Mariane?"

"I can read, Lor," Mariane bit back, in no mood for games.

"Girls, seriously," Josephine said, snatching the yellow paper from Lorelai and reading it herself. "What is this saying exactly?"

Mariane shrugged. "Beyond that, not sure. Something about our kids maybe? Gods? What gods? I have no freaking clue."

Lorelai read the prophecy a second time, quietly just for herself. “I don’t think it matters what gods, but this part here mean that there will be a child born, I’m not sure how it can be born by all three of us…” Lorelai trailed away. She saw inside the house Georgie and Elle playing, well Georgie was making her daughters hair.

“There will be something horrible happening and after that or maybe because of that this child will be born. I’m not sure if this ‘can be used for only one purpose’ means the child will die, but it seems to be more than special. Because I can’t think of any power a group of gods don’t know.”

Lorelai starred at her lemonade when she suddenly looked up. “We just have those names because of our husbands. We are not the true fairy, savant and raven. What if it is not us but our kids? They are born with the names.” It worried Lorelai to think that something could harm her children, she never wanted them to grow up knowing about all those horrible things. Even when Elle seemed to dream, see and know about them anyway.

“Wait…are you sure about this?” Josephine turned to Lorelai. “The children?”

“Well, I’m not completely sure, but it would make sense somehow.”

“So someone might use the children for this ‘purpose’ that is mentioned.” Mariane frowned.

Josephine was quiet for a moment. “Who would go after our children?”

“Oh, I bet there are many”, Lorelai mumbled. “But I think the prophecy points out that there will be a child born…” She looked from one woman to the next. “I don’t think it necessarily means that it will be a child of ours, but more a child of…theirs, maybe?”

Josephine raised her eyebrows. “That sounds a little absurd, doesn’t it?”

“Well…they will grow up too”, Mariane said.

That same moment Georgie and Elle walked outside. The smaller girl was holding the hand of the older and grinned.
“I’m sorry,”, Georgie said, turning to Mariane. “Do you know where the boys are, Mrs Remington?”
She ignored her mother’s warning glance and smiled innocently at Mariane.

Mariane forced a smile. "Yes, Georgie, they're at the river. Do you think you can look after Elle and make sure she doesn't get her dress dirty?"

"Yes, Mrs. Remington," Georgie said, and together the small girls toddled off together.

Mariane sighed after them.

"Remington is the raven, Gilmore is the servant, and Fee is the fairy--it can't be us, right? It has to be born to those three." She paused, thinking about that, and pretty much halted that train of thought before it left the station. "Which is weird, I'll grant you. How can a child have three parents?" She took a sip of her lemonade, but it wasn't strong enough. "I don't even want to think about this." She pinned Lorelai and Josephine with an even stare. "How do we fix this?"

Lorelai looked sad at the girls in the distant. It was a mistake to bring them along.

“We separate them and never talk about each other ever again.” Lorelai sounded upset, because that would not just mean that their children would not grow up together how they always thought, it also meant that the three women, friends would never see each other again.

“This prophecy is bad and we have to make sure it never become real so as long our children don’t know each other there can’t be a child. But I think we should be prepared that our plan will not work. That something happens to us and we can’t protect them from meeting. We write in a code the prophecy down and we teach our kids the code without them knowing what it is.”


Meanwhile at the river.
“Look Dordie, da Nick!” Elle pointed at her big brother and started giggling before she looked at the other two boys. One looked rather grumpy but the other one look nice. The little brunette squeezed Georgie’s hand tight.

Georgie stopped for a moment to observe the three young men at the river. She immediately spotted Elle’s brother Nick, since she already met him and had –obviously- worked her charm on him, and a smile played around her lips. She liked seeing him again, but then her attention moved towards the other two boys she hadn’t met yet, Mariane’s sons. They looked cute, although one of them didn’t seem very happy, he just stood there with his arms crossed, while the other was clearly more outgoing.
She felt Elle’s little hand squeezing hers and she didn’t let go off her when they walked towards the boys, but at the same time she put on her charming smile and threw her blonde hair over her shoulder.
“Hi boys…”, she said flirtatiously, turning to Nick first. “Hey Nick.”

The older boy just stared at her and started to blush. “Hi…”

Georgie turned to the other two while she played with her long hair. “I’m Georgina, and this here is my friend Elle. It’s very nice to meet you two.”

Nick looked at his little sister and then at the friendlier looking boy. He didn’t like at all how she looked. It was the same look she had when she saw Peter Pan her big love and not even Peter was good enough for his little baby sister! Nick knew exactly what he didn’t want for his sister, a douchbag, but not boring either, able to tell her how much she means to him and really good to her.

“Hey Elle come here let me show you something you will like.” Nick took her hand and led her down further to the river.

“Be careful Nick!” Georgie watched her little friend for a moment before the other boys distracted her.

“Don’t worry I am. Here crouch down see there is a duck nest. The duckling all hatched. Can you tell me how many eggs were in there?” Nick was most of the time good with his little sister.

“Oh. Duckies. Um… eins, zwei and drei.”

“That’s right three ducklings.”

“Dordie see edds!” Elenna jumped up and down excited from one foot to the other. “Baby Entchen!”

When the new kids came over, Romulus looked up and waved. Rawson, on the other hand, was determined to finish building the dam. But Raws always was the socially retarded one. It was a heavy burden for a five-year-old, knowing that he had gotten the looks, the brains, and the ability to string together intelligent conversation at someone other than their parents. Even if Raws was a bit bigger and stronger, and was technically older.

He just wasn't as cool.

And speaking of cool...

"Allow me, ladies!" Rome said, taking off his sweater and plopping it down in the stream over a rock so they could cross. He let the little one play with the ducks, but the older girl had lovely golden hair and she was clearly a lady of breeding. "My name's Rome. That's my brother, Raws. He's my twin. We're building a dam, would you like to watch?"

...

"I'm pretty sure that's exactly how we make it come true," Mariane growled, "have you never read Oedipus?"

"Of course I have," Lorelai retorted. "But this isn't a Greek tragedy, Mari, this is real."

"You think I don't know real? It's not your sister upstairs stoned out of her gourd by a pre-cog about us!"

"Ladies!" Josephine scolded. It was clear that neither of them relished in the idea of never seeing each other again, but it was coming across all wrong.

Lorelai took out her own flask and filled her half empty lemonade glass. “What else do you want to do? Move them all together in a safehouse and start breeding that there are so many kids the gods will have a hard time choosing the one they need? Let’s face it with Josephine’s girl and Elle your two boys they are doomed to have at least one couple come out of that. We can’t just sit here and wait for what is going to happen because let’s face it we might not be around that long, who knows if we see them grow up.” Lorelai didn’t like saying that but it was the truth her parents had died before she met Christopher the same his parents. That were the dangers of being a hunter, live fast die young. And one of them had to be realistic. “We have to try and protect them, we just have to.” Lorelai whispered sounding hurt.

---

“Oh schau Nicky, so many wader.” Elle grinned widely and toddled back to Raws, Rome and Georgie there were standing next to the dam. Georgie was playing with her hair when Elle took her best friends hand.

“Dordie me like this.” Elle couldn’t stop grinning. “Look, look fishy.” Elle was leaning closer and closer over the water to see some fish and then it happened she slipped and fell in the water. Nick had wandered down and couldn’t get that quickly back to his little sister. The water was too deep for her to stand but her head bobbed a few times back to the surface.

“DORDIE! DORDIE! Me no fishy, no fishy.” Elle chocked on water.

Elle felt her clothes pull her under water while the current dragged her away. To her surprise a figure appeared in her vision.
The little girl was clinging to him, she looked at Rome with adoring eyes. He was a hero in her eyes, Georgie was talking but Elle didn't hear her.
Rome sat her at the edge of the stream. "Are you okay?"
Elle nodded even in her young brain she understood that he saved her for Georgie but she knew that one day she would find a Peter Pan like Rome and he would safe her despite the dangers.