Girl Genius fanfic: The Distance Between Us

[jennickels]

Gil has spent the last three years of his life fighting to save his friends, and now it's over. They won. It's time to settle down and enjoy the victory. Except nothing is ever that easy for Gil. Just when he was finding peace, Tarvek and Agatha throw him a curve ball. And it hurts.
1003 words | [PG]

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“I need space.”

Gil blinked at Agatha, not sure he heard her correctly. “Space? What does that mean?”

Agatha took a deep breath the way Gil’s father always did when he was coming to the end of his rope. “Gil, ever since we got back from England you’ve been-” She paused, apparently searching for the correct word. “Needy.”

“Needy?”

“I was going to say ‘clingy.’” said Tarvek, “but ‘needy’ works, too.”

“You’re so intense all of the time. Like you’re dialed up to twelve and the knob has broken off.”

Gil frowned at her. “I don’t understand.”

“It’s just a lot sometimes.”

“A lot?” Gil was aware he was repeating everything, but it was taking all his resources to process what she was saying.

Tarvek joined Agatha in front of him, linking their hands together. A united front. “It can be overwhelming,” he added.

Gil resisted the urge to repeat Tarvek, too. Overwhelming? Intense? Needy? Space. The last word bounced around his head. A vice wrapped around his chest, slowly squeezing out the air. His head spun as the meaning started to sink in. She wanted space. Away from him? This wasn’t happening.

“It’s like you can’t let us out of your sight for even a minute. We just need some time to ourselves,” Agatha said softly. “You understand, right?” There was a hint of desperation in her voice, but it didn’t compare to the panic settling in Gil’s stomach.

Something clicked suddenly. Holding hands. United front. Gil shook his head. “When you said ‘I’ need space what you really meant was ‘we’ need space. You and him, together. Without me.”

They exchanged anxious looks. “Gil,” Tarvek said slowly like he was talking to a dimwitted child. “we just-”

“No.” The panic boiled over into an anger he thought he’d left behind when they’d freed Mechanicsburg and decided to live together in Castle Heterodyne months ago. “He’s poisoned you against me. Don’t you see that?” he yelled at Agatha, unable to control his volume as the anger built. “He wants me out of the picture--that was always his plan. I help with the Lucrezia problem—a problem he caused, might I add—and now I’m not useful anymore.”

Agatha took a step forward; Gil took one back, keeping space between them. Space, ha! “Gil, this wasn’t Tarvek’s idea. I came to him about it. We talked it through before-”

“So you’re in it together.” He snorted. “How long have you been planning this? Since England?”

Tarvek removed his glasses and rubbed his face before replacing them. “Nothing happened in England. We only talked about this the other day. We’ve tried to find a solution. We’ve asked you to tone it down but you haven’t. We need a break.”

Tarvek’s bluntness was a knife right to his chest. Right through his heart. Agatha looked like she wanted to cry. Gil wanted to hit something. He glared at Tarvek. He wanted to knock those perfect teeth out of his perfect face. Why was he doing this? After everything they’d been through, Gil thought they might actually be friends again. He thought wrong apparently. The anger bled away, replaced by a despair he’d become familiar with over the last two and a half years.

“Once a weasel, always a weasel,” he murmured. He couldn’t even look at them anymore. Shaking his head, he took another step back. “I trusted you. Against my better judgment. I should have known better. I should have-” Gil didn’t know what he should have done. He was surprised that Tarvek’s betrayal hurt more than being rejected by Agatha. He tried not to think too long on that.

“You’re acting like a child,” Tarvek said, voice hard. “We just need some time alone.”

Alone? This was worse than he thought. They wanted to be alone. Together. Just the two of them. The thought punched him in the gut. Tarvek won. After everything Gil had done. Everything he sacrificed. For them. His time, empire, his sanity.

“Gil,” Agatha pleaded, “please understand.”

“So what now? Do we like divide the castle—a line down the middle. I’ll take the east wing.” He laughed without a trace of humor. The anger was gone. So was the panic. Everything was gone leaving him hollowed out.

Now Agatha really was crying. The knife wedged a little deeper, and then Tarvek twisted it.

“Castle Wulfenbach is still circling the town, helping with repairs.”

Gil’s jaw dropped. The implication knocking him speechless.

“We’re really sorry, Gil,” Tarvek continued. “We think this is best. For all of us.”

But I’ll get to come back, right? The words screamed in his head, but he couldn’t force them out. He didn’t want to know the answer. Tarvek took Agatha’s hand again and led her out of the room without looking back.

Tears burned Gil’s eyes, and a familiar ache wrapped around his heart. A pain that had followed him through life—a need, a longing for something. To belong. To know he was wanted. To be loved. He thought he’d finally found that with Agatha and Tarvek, but maybe he was never meant to know those things.

Intense. Overwhelming. Needy. There was obviously something fundamentally broken in him. He’d always suspected. Now he knew.

Gil let out a ragged breath then sucked in another. In, out. In, out. He glanced around the room—the one Agatha had given to him—but there was nothing there he needed.

With the weight of a lifetime of disappointment resting on his shoulders, he dragged one foot in front of the other. Out of the room, out of the castle, out of their lives. He’d get through this. He’d done it before. He was good at being alone. It came from a lot of practice.

Outside, Castle Wulfenback hovered in the distance, the sun glinting off the windows. Home.

It won’t be forever, he told himself. I’ll be back soon.

It scared him that he wasn’t so sure. It terrified him that this was forever.