Coming Home (for threesecrets)

For years, Henrietta had been home.  But after everything that had happened in October, with the strange new sense of otherness awakening in Gansey, he thought that getting away for a year might be better for him than trying to scramble through college applications and listening to his parents' disapproval if he ended up in a school that was 'beneath' a Gansey because of his lack of foresight in terms of his scholastic future.  The idea had tempted his wanderlust, teased with the possibilities of exploring his relationships with Blue and Henry.  It'd seemed like an ideal solution to his confusion regarding his future.

At least at first it had seemed to be the ideal solution.

He enjoyed this amended version of his nomadic life, welcoming his girlfriend and boyfriend into the life he'd lived in the past, but somehow things hadn't quite settled in the ways he'd hoped for.  They were free of expectations, of responsibilities. There were no worries about ley lines or magic.  No psychics predicting the success or failure of their relationships.  It should have been perfect.  

But for some reason, his restlessness never eased.  The strangness he'd felt while in school seemed to slowly become more urgent the farther they journeyed from Virginia.  Time seemed to slip away from him more frequently.  He felt an odd, painful longing to head East instead of West.  He told himself that it was because of the ley lines.  It was because of his two resurrections.  Easy lies that covered the real reason for his discomfort and fear.

As the headed toward the Pacific, the otherness that was slowly overtaking him became more obvious.  He seemed out of step with those around him, mind drifting at inopportune times.  No matter what the three of them tried, it seemed that Gansey couldn't quite find his place in their developing trio.  Eventually, he realized that the best thing for all of them would be for him to gracefully bow out of the relationship before Henry and Blue headed to South America.  

 

Flying home to D.C., he collected the Pig, relieved that it was still in its shadowed corner of the garage, draped in tarps and ignored, but thankfully untouched.  

He didn't remember the drive from D.C. to Henrietta.  The trip from there to the Barns was a strange blur of past and present folding onto each other until Gansey wasn't sure if this was his first trip to Ronan's home or his hundredth.  As he stepped out of the Camaro and walked toward the porch, he heard an triumphant voice inside his head proclaim, Make way for the Raven King.

 

He wasn't quite certain what sort of king he might be with time wrapping around him strangely and his memories fragmented.  Knocking on the door, he hoped that he was in the present and not the past or future.