Bottle It Up

A continuation of "Taken Away".

"Hello?" Calvin called, his shrill voice echoing off of every wall within the room, despite the fact that he was lying underneath the bed with his face pressed against the carpeted floors.

Upon waking that afternoon, Calvin had come to the realization that Chase, Kitty, Thierry, and Fauve wanted him to join in on a game of Hide and Seek. They'd started without him - but he didn't mind. He'd come to this conclusion upon entering Chase's room to bid her good morning, only to find that the room had been cleaned of her possessions, and that she'd vanished.

Calvin was certain that these changes were clues that Chase had left behind for him to follow; an invitation to join in on the game.

Even after two hours of crawling about the floor in his pajamas, Calvin continued to search. He refused to surrender.

"Wow, Chase! You are really good at this game!" He called out to his friend with a grin - a grin that remained even as his skull met painfully with the wooden frame of his bed. Calvin crawled from the small space, and sneezed loudly; after his "journey to the center of the mess", he'd managed to cover himself in a thick layer of dust, which stuck to his cotton clothing like glue.

"Hmmmm, this is tricky!" Calvin shouted as he straightened his spine once more; he'd inspected every square inch of the bedroom. If they'd been hiding in that room, Calvin would have found them at some point during his search - and so, he moved to Reid's room.

"Good morning, Reid! I am playing Hide and Seek with Chase, Kitty, Thierry, and Fauve," Calvin squeaked with an enthusiastic wave of his right hand - before dropping to the floor.

"Reid, Reid, look! I found something fuzzy under your bed!" he exclaimed.

Reid was sitting on his bed with the note in his hand, chewing his lip. He was sad to see Chase go, but typically, he would have been happy to see her move on, it would be like she had grown her wings. He had reckoned that once Chase left, she would be happy and secure, and the hardest part would be to keep Calvin from giving half of his toys away.

But the note changed everything. It changed everything because Chase left and she was not happy, because she had had the kids taken from her. It changed everything because she was not secure, because she obviously had no idea where she was going and, even worse, how she was going to survive. But worst of all, it changed everything because she had not even waited to say good bye, not even to Calvin.

And now Reid had to break his heart.

This was more difficult too! If another Pacman had died, Reid could just go out and get a new one. But Reid could not just go out and get a new Chase. This complicated everything because Chase was a person, and a person that Calvin really liked. And he had absolutely adored the kids. And now, all of them, all of the most important people in his life (save for Reid, of course) had been yanked away.

"Calvin," Reid said softly as he entered, but Calvin was obviously intent on the one-sided game. "Calvin." He poked his head under the bed and Reid sighed. "Calvin!" There was a moment of silence. "We need to talk about Chase. She left me a note."

Upon hearing that Chase had left a letter behind, Calvin shouted once more in order to express his excitement; never before had he taken part in such a tricky game, and as more ‘clues’ were slowly revealed, Calvin’s curiosity only became more powerful.

“Isn’t Chase just brilliant at Hide and Seek, Reid – and she wants you to play too, doesn’t see? We can all play! Eeeehe”- Calvin squealed in Reid’s ear by mistake, having turned his head towards him in order to see the letter that he spoke of – “This is so much fun!”

Another sneeze erupted from Calvin’s sinuses, sending him rolling out from underneath the bed; in any ordinary situation, no sneeze could have such an effect on the person it belonged to, and yet, Calvin managed to defeat the odds by sneezing in such a spastic manner.

Lying on his back, Calvin gazed up at the ceiling for a moment; he was content, despite the fact that he was covered in the bacteria that had formed underneath Reid’s bed. “I looked in Chase’s room. She was very thorough; I couldn’t find a single thing, Reid! Chase is so smart! Can I read the letter?” he rambled on wildly.

"What does the letter say? What is my clue?"

Reid flinched and grimaced as Reid shouted and squealed in his ear. Calvin rolled out from under the bed and Reid settled back onto the side of the bed. He folded and unfolded the letter that he had to explain to Calvin and he sighed. He could not do this alone. He fished out his wand and waved it and his old stuffed Yoshi flew out from under his bed and landed on his lap.

"Yes she is smart," Reid said quietly. "Here. I meant to give this to you a long time ago." He pointed his wand a it again and all the dust fell off of it. He held it out and dropped the Yoshi onto Calvin's stomach, knowing he was going to need it. He opened his mouth to explain, but found he could not say the words.

How could he knowingly break his best friend's heart?

He let out a long sigh and opened the letter again, reading the words and trying to figure out how he could make this right, make it okay, make it less devastating. He knew it was not possible, though. So he sighed and held out the letter. "Why don't you read it, Cal?"

“The fuzzy thing,” Calvin agreed with a nod when he laid eyes on the green creature. When it had been covered in dust he’d had difficulty recognized it, but as Reid passed the stuffed animal his way, it took mere seconds for Calvin to realize that it was Yoshi. The adorable dinosaur was the only of his favorite videogame characters that he hadn’t yet added to his collection of plush toys, and thus he was thrilled by the gift. Nothing could make the afternoon more enjoyable - except, perhaps, the letter that Chase had left for him.

He most certainly did not expect to find anything negative upon the wrinkled piece of paper...

After adjusting his position so that he was sitting cross-legged on the floor, Calvin held Yoshi to his chest gently, cradling the creature in his arms in the same way he’d held Kitty once before. It was nothing compared to the redheaded infant, but Calvin was pleased by Reid’s gift to him all the same. He planted an innocent kiss on the dinosaur’s forehead, and listened intently for Reid’s voice; he obviously expected his friend to read the letter aloud, much in the way he’d told Calvin fictional stories during their early years at Hogwarts.

As a result of his expectations, Calvin was surprised when his friend offered him the piece of paper so that he could read it for himself. Calvin was far too determined to find out what clue Chase had left behind, however, and so he took the letter in his own hands hastily.

“Na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na,, na, na, na, na, Batman!” he sang to himself – as he often did when he was incapable of containing his cheerful nature.

Calvin slid his square-rimmed glasses further up the bridge of his nose, and drew the note closer to his face. "Calvin,” he read aloud – which was arguably the saddest aspect of the situation. “They took the kids.... Fauve and Thierry....Khaat came and took them.. I can't.. I can't stay... I'm going to get a house on my own.. please don't hate me! I have to go... I'll send you my address when I have one,” he continued. He hadn’t stopped reading – as though he had no choice but to continue on, despite the tragic information that each line contained.

Yoshi had squirmed its way free from Calvin’s arms as he’d read the farewell letter aloud, it seemed, leaving Calvin with nothing other than the piece of paper in his hands.

It took a moment for the news to sink through Calvin’s skull, and thus, there was a moment of deafening silence that seemed to last an eternity.

Chase was gone. She’d left Calvin in order to find herself a home of her own, because she was devastated over the loss of Fauve and Theirry – who’d been stolen from her. Khaat, Calvin recalled, was a healer at St. Mungo’s – a kind women who had been through far more than was fair. She’d taken Fauve and Theirry from Chase. From their mother. Were they going to be taken care of? Were Fauve and Theirry in danger – and if so, where were they? Was Chase going to be O.K?

If it were possible, smoke most certainly would have started to drift from Calvin’s ears as he thought of the possibilities, turning each over to examine it as closely as possible.

Unbeknownst to Calvin, a visible reaction was trickling from his long, childish eyelashes, and continued on until each tear met with Calvin’s lips. “Chase isn’t playing Hide and Seek, Reid,” he stated.

Reid watched Calvin and felt his spirits sinking and dampening, knowing this was going to be tough, a lot tougher than a dead goldfish. Calvin read the note aloud and there was a small pang in Reid' chest. He pushed himself off the bed and sat down on the ground, across from Calvin, against the bed. He leaned his head up, tilting it towards the ceiling.

Things with Calvin were never exactly simple- but in a way they were. The reason they were so difficult were simply because all of Calvin's problems were juvenile, all of his characteristics childish. It was difficult to cope with him, for sure, but everything in his life were small problems, fixed with band aids and replaced fish, plushies and bedtime stories.

Chase made things difficult. How could Reid explain about the kids? Reid figured it out- since Chase had taken them from Elijah, he had feared there would be a fight. But how could he explain that? How could he explain why those events would cause Chase to want to move away, from memories? How could he explain to Calvin's, whose biggest problems were boo-boos?

Reid closed his eyes at Calvin's words and looked over at his friend. "No, she's not." He picked up Yoshi and reached out, using Yoshi's arm to wipe away his tears, leaving a few green fuzz balls on his cheeks. "Would you like to write her a letter, maybe? That might help. I'm sure she didn't want to leave. And I'm sure we'll see her again."

As he thought, Calvin’s glossy eyes did not move from Chase’s elegant handwriting; a shadow of the girl remained there, on that piece of paper. She’d left nothing else behind for him to remember her by until their next encounter, and it caused Calvin’s heart to ache in a way that he could not understand. He hadn’t thought it was possible to feel so saddened by the departure of a friend; surely he would she her again, so why did it pain him so to learn that she’d left?

Perhaps it was because Calvin had started to think of their odd group as a family…

Yoshi’s arms glided across Calvin’s freckled cheeks, and he was suddenly reminded of the fact that Reid had not left him behind. His friend – nah, his brother – still sat before him, ready to comfort Calvin as he always did, and this realization caused a small, gentle smile to form upon Calvin's face.

Calvin took hold of the plush dinosaur once more, sitting it upon his lap. The children had been rather fond of Yoshi, hadn’t they? Oh how he hoped they were safe...

“I promised Chase that I wouldn’t let it happen,” he informed Reid, offering him the opportunity to understand the disappointment that Calvin was feeling towards himself. Calvin was certain that he could have done something to help, had he gone to sleep at a reasonable hour the previous evening. It was his fault; if he hadn’t slept in, he could have helped.

Quite suddenly, however, Calvin decided that he was giving himself far too much thought; there was no time for regrets when he could be helping Chase cope with this heartbreaking situation. A letter – yes, that was it! He could write Chase a letter!

“Quick, Reid! We need the crayons!” he exclaimed as he rubbed at his big, brown eyes from beneath his glasses.

Reid wished bitterly that there were spells that made these sort of problems disappear as he stared down at the wand held loosely in his hand. That small stick had made messes disappear, it had made injuries disappear, made fires disappear, scary movies and scary shadows... It had done a lot of protecting, but it could not shield Calvin from the way people acted.

Calvin picked up the Yoshi and Reid was just a little glad he had forgotten to give his friend the bear until now, because it was needed in this moment. Reid reached down and tied one of his shoes, trying to invent a reason to not look at Calvin, because he could see his heart breaking, his soul dampening. His eyes seemed to be crying the word 'why?' and it was killing Reid.

At his words of the promise, Reid nodded. "And you did your best. We'll talk to Khaat. She can do something, I'm sure. We can at least find out if they're okay." He smiled lightly when Calvin asked for the crayons. He got up and opened his own drawer, knowing most of the kid's and Calvin's stuff somehow ended up there. He grabbed a notepad and a fistful of crayons and held them out for his friend.

From birth, Calvin had taken it upon himself to smile at all times (so to make those around him just as cheerful as he was, of course) and it was for this very reason that Calvin felt wrong for expressing such sorrow. There was no such thing as a depressing Calvin Secundus Ransom; such a human being was against the laws of nature. It seemed, however, that at that moment of heartbreak, Calvin was incapable of withholding the unpleasant emotions that he was experiencing – and so he shielded his saddened eyes from view by examining his fingertips, which were still covered in dust. He rubbed them against his ever-so-colorful socks, and listened to Reid’s reassuring words.

“I’ve met Khaat,” Calvin informed him; he felt that perhaps this information would be of use if they were to pay the women a visit in the future. “She is a very kind woman; she helped mend my arm once,” he added; it seemed that he was incapable of feeling negatively towards anyone, even if they had taken part in as dark a dead as Khaat had. In his opinion, everyone was innocent until proven guilty, and despite the fact that Chase had informed them that Khaat was responsible for their current situation, Calvin could not prevent himself from feeling as though Khaat deserved a second chance. Everyone deserved a second chance – if the children were safe, that was.

Calvin inhaled through his nose, sniffling in a rather pathetic manner; Calvin’s sinuses had never been kind towards him, and that had been without involving tears. The young man’s raggedy hair had fallen forward over his glasses, causing him to look even more like a child who had just been informed that his best friend had moved away.

“Thank you, Reid,” he spoke once more when he was provided with the necessary tools for writing a letter – or, the necessary tools for writing one of Calvin’s letters. Having taken hold of an orange crayon with his left hand, Calvin crawled onto his stomach, allowing his head to hover inches above Reid’s notebook. Something unusual happened at that moment, however; just as Calvin had pressed the tip of the crayon to the blank sheet of paper, he stopped. Calvin had hesitated – something which he had never done before when offered the chance to draw.

Suddenly, he was nervous.

“Do you want to start the letter, Reid?” he asked, glancing upward through his sticky eyelashes.

"Yes, well, she does work with the Ministry," Reid said in a knowing voice, a hint of bitterness causing there an edge to be in his usually patient voice. Reid was known for having a severe distrust of all sorts of authorities and government, the very reason he had never taken a job alongside his friend as an Auror- well, that, and that he was less of a fighter and more of a talker. Still, he could not deny that he did not trust this Khaat woman and he would rather not make her acquaintance. He was sure she would not be above having spies set on him. He already suspected a few.

He ha to force his mind from his paranoia, because he knew it would not help him or the kids. Still, if he could cut out the Ministry middle-man (or woman) he needed to rack his brains. He thought back to his conversations with Chase and remembered how she had feared the Krums would come after her for the kids. And once he had come to that conclusion, he knew his thought process was right. If they wanted to find the Krums, they needed to find Kitty's father, Elijah Krum.

He murmured, "We may pay Elijah a visit.." He was not sure if he should include Calvin in this thought process, but he had said it a lot louder than he had intended, so he met his friend's eyes and said, "If we want to make sure the kid's are alright. I'm almost positive that's where they would be, and then we could see for ourselves that they were okay."

Calvin needed help starting the letter, which was sort of a surprise. Typically, Calvin was the scribe and artist of the home. He liked writing all of the letters. However, this was not a typical letter. Reid sighed. "'Dear Chase' would be a good place to start." He paused, thinking carefully. "Tell her you received your letter and that it saddened you, but you hope she feels better wherever she is."