so uh, you need to leave [remy]

Hadley hadn't slept well in days. Not since that Deilig idiot had come to tell him about his parents. Dealing with the revelation that Kole was now blatantly trying to take over his eilemaiden was taking its toll. When he wasn't staying up all hours of the night making plans, having letters sent to Tamar, and meeting with important officials, he was lying awake in bed, tossing and turning, seeing his parents' faces in his head. Imagining their final moments. Imagining Remy or Sol in their places.

He knew they were targets now. Kole had gone after his parents out of convenience, due to the fact that they lived in Deilig. Remy and/or Sol probably would have been his first choice of hostages had they been easier to get to. Since by now it would be clear that Hadley had chosen the star piece over his parents, Kole was probably already making plans to get to them.

He'd already sent some word to Sol about having her go to Nadar for a while. She'd gone on backpacking trips through the jungle there in the past, and it would be just about impossible for anyone to find her there if she didn't want to be found.

Remy, on the other hand... She already knew something was up, witnessing his late nights and whatnot. For her, he had a different idea for getting her away from Earalas, one he could only hope she wouldn't be too stubborn to accept.

If anything I could always try to use the baby to convince her... he thought vaguely, but if all went well he wouldn't have to resort to that.

"Remy?" he called out, wandering down the hallway. She hadn't been in the bedroom, so next he tried her former bedroom, which was now basically a giant closet for her insane amount of outfits. He heard some shuffling coming from inside, so unless somebody had a death wish and was messing with Remy's clothes, it was probably her. "You in here?"

Remy was busy sorting clothes in her wardrobe room when she heard Hadley come in looking for her. She stuck her head out of the actual closet in the room. "Hey," she said, before diving back in. She was busy finding all the clothes that were going out of style this season. And, ugh, it was looking like she was going to need to buy next season's maternity versions.

"What's up?"

Hadley turned his head in the direction of Remy's voice and started making his way over, taking a little extra caution since he didn't come in this room very often and didn't know the last time Remy had rearranged. He stopped when his hand brushed against the closet door frame and he leaned heavily against it, already feeling tired before the conversation had even begun.

"So, the thing is, I need you to do something for me. As my advisor," he told her, cutting right to the chase. "It involves going to Cuir."

Remy kept ripping through outfits, tearing the clothes off the hangers and whipping them out into the room. They'd be boxed up later and donated, but right now she just needed them out of her way. "Cuir, huh?" Remy asked. "What's going on in Cuir?" She hadn't been to Cuir in ages.

Hadley let out a long sigh and took a second to figure out how he wanted to word this. He didn't usually have so much trouble thinking of what to say, but his exhausted brain wasn't functioning at 100% right now. "It's...the whole Deilig situation, it's been getting kind of dicey lately," he said, giving the biggest understatement of his life. "Kole's been making some threats. And with the whole Solas thing...I think you should go talk to Liam, see if we can make some kind of, uh, alliance with Cuir."

That was terrible, Nila told him.

Ugh, I know.

Remy stopped sorting clothes. "Making some threats?" she asked, still in the closet. Her stomach tightened as she turned and peered out of the doorway. Hadley was standing just outside it, looking worn out and anxious. She'd noticed he'd been more harried than usual, but she'd chalked it up to him worrying about the baby. But if Kole was making threats... he usually carried them out.

"What threats, Hadley? And why Cuir? And why am I just hearing about this?" Hadley had been acting strange for days now, and if it wasn't because of the baby, then it must have been about this. Whatever this was.

"Because it just happened a couple days ago and I've been busy dealing with it," Hadley replied, much more shortly than he meant to. He stopped himself and took a breath. "Sorry. I just, I had to do some other things first. I had to think." His mind had been going non-stop since that Deilig idiot had been dragged out of his estate. Unsurprisingly they hadn't gotten any useful information out of the guy. Kole apparently didn't share his grand plans with his unimportant underlings.

"And to answer your questions: Threats against Earalas." He wondered how vague he'd be able to keep that. "And Cuir because Liam could be a valuable ally. And because, I mean, if things did get bad here, you'd be there. Safe."

Remy narrowed her eyes at Hadley when he answered so shortly. His anxiety levels must have been through the roof for him to lose all composure like this.

"Threats against Earalas?" Remy repeated. Why in the hell was Kole threatening Earalas? It was one thing to threaten Hadley when he was alone at night in the middle of nowhere, or to threaten Remy when she had unknowingly gone to stir things up in his estate, but it was something entirely different to threaten an entire eilemaiden. Unless... and suddenly it clicked why Hadley wanted Cuir.

"War." Remy swallowed. She couldn't help but realize that Earalas was so nicely tucked into the corner below Deilig. And Hadley had already mentioned Solas. They'd openly talked about how strange it was that the two eilemaiden had formed such an alliance. Remy had never met the new overloridian, but she'd known he was bad news if he was in cahoots with Kole.

"Have you talked to Arizona yet?" she asked. She was already the closest thing Hadley had to an ally, so she should be warned as soon as possible. "What if he's tried threatening her too?" Remy wasn't a fan of Arizona's leadership style, but she also didn't want her on the opposite side if a war were to occur. Liam and Cuir would definitely be beneficial, but having Adhbhar on the wrong side could be disastrous. Earalas would be trapped, wedged between two eilemaiden and the sea.

"I sent out some letters," Hadley said tiredly. "To Arizona, Liam, all them. But I kept things really vague, you know, in case the letters were intercepted or whatever." He had, in fact, considered that Kole may have threatened some other overloridians too. He liked to hope that Kole had gone after him first, which was possible; Kole had a personal hatred for him, and his parents had been right there in Deilig. Still, it was no guarantee. It worried him, because he wasn't sure that the other overloridians would be as quick as he was to choose their star pieces over their friends and family.

It was the right thing to do, he reminded himself.

"It's hard to trust anyone right now," he admitted. "But I took every precaution to make sure Cuir'll be safe."

"If you already sent Liam a letter why do you need me to go?" Remy asked. She'd heard him say she'd be safer there, but what about him? "You want to stay here alone?" What if something happened and she wasn't here? She pictured Hadley in the hospital bed, this time much worse off than just blind.

"Send Alicia." She could just as easily do the adviser work. Sure, she wasn't as seasoned as Remy, but she'd been tagging around for the last weeks. She could talk to Liam. Remy would stay here with Hadley.

Although Hadley had known it was coming from the beginning, he was in no mood whatsoever to have this argument. "It's not just to talk to Liam, haven't you been listening?" he asked impatiently. "If there ends up being a war, Cuir's gonna be the safest place in Amelia. If you stay here, Kole might try to get to you, like use you as a hostage. Or something." Or something, as if that wasn't exactly, 100% what would happen.

"Besides, Liam already knows you. Trusts you," he added, hoping that if emphasizing the danger of staying wasn't enough to get Remy out of Earalas, going at it from a different angle might work instead. "Like I said, it's hard to trust clio right now, and he's never seen Alicia before in his life."

While it was nice that Hadley had thought of her safety Remy still couldn't imagine leaving him behind. "I'm not leaving you here. I'll go with Alicia to introduce her and then come back."

She paused to look at Hadley, who was staring at the space just left of her head. If someone tried to attack him, it would be so easy. He was fully capable of living life on his own, but not when there was a death threat on his head. "I'm not leaving you," she repeated, firmly. She was his adviser too, not just his girlfriend. Wasn't this something she had signed up for years ago? Sure, war wasn't likely back then, but it had always been a possibility.

Hadley suppressed a groan and gritted his teeth in frustration. He got that she was worried about him, too. He didn't have any delusions that he was some kind of halfway decent fighter who could fend off an attack on his life. But honestly, even if she did stay with him, what difference would that make? It wasn't like she'd be able to prevent any kind of attack on them either.

"Remy...we're having a baby together, for fuck's sake," he said, jumping to his last resort. If she wouldn't do it for her own sake... "And Kole is going to come after you. There's no question at all in my mind."

Ah, yes, the baby. What a convenient time for him to bring it up. "The baby isn't worth this," she told him truthfully. "Hadley, I would have no way of knowing you were alright. It takes hours to get to Cuir sometimes. Even if someone sent a message straight away, I might not know anything until it's too late." She was aware she wouldn't be able to fight anyone off, but just the not knowing would kill her.

"How could I sit around in Cuir knowing that I have no way of knowing if you're dead or alive? If you're safe?" She wasn't going. Bottom line. He could get frustrated and angry all he wanted.

God fucking dammit. "You know what's worse than sitting around in Cuir not knowing if I'm okay?" Hadley asked, out of patience. "Being brutally murdered by Kole because I didn't hand over my star piece to him."

Honestly, Hadley wished he could just fuck off to Cuir and wait out the war in safety. But as the overloridian, he was stuck. Gods, he'd never thought when he settled that he'd ever have to deal with this kind of shit. Remy was lucky she was able to leave.

"Hadley I'm not going." There wasn't anything else to say. She would feel like a coward or a deserter if she left him here, even if she was in danger, which, she had to admit, was more than likely true. "Think of the workload. Do you think you're going to be able to do that all alone right now?" She paused. "I could stay in the estate of it makes you feel better. Help from here." They could even hire the bodyguards they'd had stationed awhile back when Kole had issued his first rounds of threats.

"What makes you think he is after the star piece?" she asked suddenly. That would mean he was trying to, like, take over the world. Remy thought maybe Kolewas just angry with Hadley for helping Dian with power. It seemed Kole's issue was with Tamar, then. But if it was true he was after the star piece...

Hadley's shoulders slumped. Remy was just not going to budge on this, and it wasn't like he could force her to go to Cuir. Well...technically he could, he supposed, being the overloridian and all. But he didn't want to do that.

"You're not my only employee you know," he told her, in response to her workload comment. "And are you really okay with not leaving the estate? This could go on for months. You'd have more freedom in Cuir." It was all pointless, he knew, but he still felt the need to try and convince her.

Maybe staying in the estate would be an okay compromise for now. And if things got bad (and let's face it, they were going to), maybe then she would see his reasoning and agree to leave for Cuir. Or maybe if he bugged her enough about it she'd get annoyed with him enough to want to leave.

His tired expression hardened when she asked about the star piece. "Because that's what he threatened me for," he said shortly, and left it at that.

"Oh, please, like you can trust any of the other employees with the things you're going to be dealing with." Hell, Remy was starting to feel like half of them shouldn't be trusted with the jobs they had now.

She noticed his change in demeanor when she asked about the star piece. What could he have threatened to make Hadley act this way? "You can talk to me about this, you know," Remy said, softening her voice a little from before. She wasn't sure if she was hurt, or what. She was his adviser; she was his girlfriend. Why was he hiding something from her?

Hadley stood there for a long time, not saying anything. Finally he went to speak, meaning to say something like, There's nothing to talk about, or, The details aren't important. Instead, what came out of his mouth was: "My parents are dead." Then he lapsed into silence again.

Hadley took so long to respond that Remy had already opened her mouth to speak again when he finally told her about his parents. After he spoke, just one sentence, his mouth closed again and he got quiet. Remy's mouth closed too. Whatever she had been expecting, it hadn't been that. Now that she thought about it however, it completely made sense; the Sterlings lived in Deilig, they were incredibly easy targets.

Remy had only met Hadley's parents a few times, and they had never left a good impression. She hadn't talked to Hadley too much about them, but she knew they'd never had a good relationship. And Solange, who Remy actually enjoyed talking to, had disclosed a bit about their childhood. The word "parents" only applied extremely loosely, here.

But it had rocked Hadley. Looking at him now, Remy could tell. She wasn't sure on what level it had affected him, but it definitely had. Despite their lack of relationship, it was still his mom and dad. She suspected a lot of his anxiety had come from the fact that Kole had gone after clio that (should have) had deep emotional meaning to him, which meant he wouldn't bat an eye harming both she and Sol, but she was sure that some part of him was also grieving for his parents.

"Hadley," Remy said, not sure of what else to say. She wasn't good with emotions, but she wanted him to know she was there in case he wanted to talk about it. She laid her hand on his arm. All she could do was be here for him. "I'm sorry." She leaned in and hugged him, biting her lip. No wonder he wanted her gone so badly.

Hadley swallowed a lump in his throat, not moving as Remy said his name in that choked up way she did sometimes when she felt especially bad for him and laid a hand on his arm. When she hugged him his shoulders slackened a little bit, but he just couldn't find the energy to hug her back. "He would've killed them anyways I think," he said after a moment, his voice oddly listless considering what he was talking about. "Even if I gave in. But I mean, even if not...it was two peoples' lives versus all of Earalas."

He'd repeated those very justifications in his head over and over, and even though he knew without a doubt that they were true, he kept feeling the need to tell them to himself again. And he dreaded the idea that he might have to make the same justifications when it was Remy's life at stake instead.

Remy nodded her head. She couldn't imagine making the choice Hadley had to, but she knew he'd chosen the right one. She felt sick. "Gods, Hadley," she said, pulling away. "What the fuck is wrong with this guy?" They'd known he was evil for months, but who could have predicted this?

"I guess this is what happens when an unbalanced psychopath settles as an overloridian," Hadley mumbled as Remy pulled away from him. She hadn't really responded at all to his justifications, but he supposed he had said them more for his own benefit than for hers. She clearly didn't disagree with his choice or she would have said so, right? "I can't give him the star piece. For anything."

"I agree," Remy said truthfully. It wasn't necessarily that Hadley had made the right choice, but that he'd made the only choice. Condemning an entire eilemaiden to save two clio, even if those two clio were special, was not a choice at all. No matter how wrong or painful it felt. "You handled it the only way you could have." But oh, how she wished he hadn't of needed to handle it at all.

She knew he was hinting at Remy's future, also, but her mind was set. She would never expect him to give up Earalas for her, and she knew that he wouldn't, anyway. It didn't change anything. She was staying.

"Yeah." Hadley sighed heavily and ran a hand through his hair. "Yeah, I know. I just..." Just what? Felt guilty? Helpless? He didn't really know if he could put a word to exactly how he felt about his parents' deaths. He didn't think he would miss them, per se, but anytime he pictured them or thought about them his stomach gave a painful twist. The only thing he knew for sure was that he was tired. And worried about what was coming next.

He shook his head. "When I found out I was the overloridian it was probably the best day of my life," he said, thinking back. "Never thought I'd have to deal with this sort of shit because of it." Go figure that after years and years of peace, the first war would happen to start while he was an overloridian.