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Read the full fic here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/54525688
Charlie eyes him like she’s trying to pick him apart with her gaze, scanning his body all the way down to his dress shoes before settling back on his face again.
“Where…” she swallows roughly, throat bobbing. It’s clear she doesn’t know where she wants to take her sentence. “Where were you, Al?”
Alastor stills, the obvious note of concern in her voice catching him off-guard. When he stays silent for a beat too long, Charlie plows onward, hands gesturing frantically as she tries to convey her point.
“It’s just—the shield just went down really suddenly, and none of us knew what to do because we never thought that would happen, and then Pentious—” she shakes her head once, blinking back traitorous tears, “Pentious sacrificed himself, and I wanted to check up on you because I know you’d never leave unless something really bad had happened, but then my dad came to fight Adam and I just…”
Her voice tapers off, a fat tear dripping off the crest of her chin and smattering onto the hardwood floor below. Charlie sniffles, trying to wipe the streak away with the back of her hand.
“I was worried,” she finishes finally, staring at him with such earnestness that it makes Alastor’s stomach churn. “You were—you were just gone.”