Rose could feel Jake's mothers' eyes on her the sharpest. She tried not to squirm but Haley had known her name which meant that, at some level, they knew something about her. What if a dragon family knew that she was a dragon slayer? There was no way that she would be allowed a place at the table then. The fact that no one had started screaming yet made Rose think that Jake's parents didn't know who she was. And Rose had taken great care to look like a normal girl, wearing the white dress that Jake complimented her the most on and a cardigan with cats on it that she had bought in a vintage shop in Nevada.

"You're not Trixie or Spud," Jake's mother said.

"No, I'm Rose. I hope I'm not intruding."

Meeting the parents of friends or partners was another thing that she had missed out on due to her upbringing. She hoped she didn't sound as awkward as she thought she did but, knowing her, she sounded worse.

"This is my mom, Susan," Jake said, taking over and sounding confident, "and my dad, Jonathan. And you met Haley."

"I like your sweater," Haley piped up.

Jonathan stood. "It's so nice to meet you, Rose."

He shook Rose's hand, which surprised her, but he seemed so bright and bubbly that it brought a smile to Rose's face. Susan was smiling at her too.

"You're welcome to grab a plate," Susan said.

"Oh, thank you. I didn't mean to interrupt your dinner."

"Susan always makes more than enough," Jonathan assured her and he went to get her a dinner plate while Jake pulled out the chair next to him.

Rose sat slowly, sitting across from Haley.

"So, how did you and Jake meet?" Susan asked. "I thought I knew all of his friends."

"Oh, he was hitchhiking and I almost ran over him," Rose said casually. "He's not very good at hitchhiking."

"I needed to make sure that I was seen!" Jake said. "New York is never dead but so many cars just drove by me!"

"You were hitchhiking?"

"Safely," Jake said to his mother.

"We know Jakey can take care of himself," Jonathan said. "Tuck in there, Rose."

"Thank you," Rose said again. "I don't think I've ever had a homecooked meal like this."

"Your parents don't like to cook?" Susan asked.

"I never had parents," Rose replied and then she cast an uneasy glance at Jake. What was she supposed to say? The truth? "I don't even know if my parents are alive."

"Foster care –" Haley started but Jake waved her off and shut her down with a sharp look.

Rose was surprised when Haley actually went silent. She didn't seem the type.

"Did you grow up in New York, then?"

"Yes," Rose said. "I, um –"

Jake squeezed her thigh under the table. "Rose was raised in the Huntsclan."

Haley and Susan gasped but Jonathan leant toward her. Rose turned to look at him, as he was just on the right shoulder at the head of the table.

"What does that mean?"

"Dad's human," Jake said under his breath.

"I was raised as a dragon slayer," Rose said. "Not just a dragon slayer. I was considered one of the best, next in line to take over the Clan."

Jonathan sat back in his chair, his face going white.

"What do you think you're doing here, then?" Susan demanded.

"I left!" Rose cried, feeling like she was suddenly trying to wade through deep waters. Unlike the Pacific Ocean, this felt weighted instead of freeing. "I didn't want to anymore! And I still ended up doing what I said that I wouldn't. I killed a dragon."

"She saved my life," Jake jumped in quickly.

Rose could feel the tension in the room and Jake's words did nothing to comfort his parents. If anything, it all felt worse.

"From the Dark Dragon," Jake clarified. "We were on a road trip across the states and we made it to from New York to Washington state and I didn't have any idea who she was and she had no idea who I was –"

"Were you the Huntsgirl?" Haley interrupted; her voice quiet. "Were you her?"

Rose could see what that meant to Susan, though Jonathan just looked more lost, reacting more to the fear in his daughter's voice than to anything that the words meant.

Rose nodded. She had left to reinvent herself but, sitting here, she realized that she could never do that until she had confronted who she had been and her legacy was not a good one.

"I was," Rose stressed, "and I left when I realized that I couldn't be that person anymore. I'm not denying who I was or what impact that I might have had on you."

Haley tucked her chin, glancing nervously at Jake. "You knew?"

"Not until the day I came home," Jake said. "And that's not why I came home."

He said it so sharply that even Rose wanted to flinch.

"Why don't you tell us the story?" Jonathan encouraged. "I know that I'm confused as all heck!"

"I think I should start my story before yours," Rose said, turning to Jake, "because I don't think I got to explain everything to you properly."

"The Dark Dragon was after you," Jake said.

"Yeah, that was entirely my fault," Rose admitted. "Well, Master, he wanted me to find him."

"Why?" Jake said. "I know you said you didn't ask but I know you have a good guess."

"A couple of guesses. Training, which I found unlikely, because he's not the kind of dragon you'd kidnap to teach Clan members to –" Rose snapped her mouth shut, realizing what she was about to say and realizing that it wasn't dinner conversation.

"I'm not a child," Haley said. "We all know what you meant."

"If it helps," Rose said, knowing that there wasn't a lot that could, "dragons are very hard to catch. The Huntsclan never managed it when I was there."

"That's good," Haley said, "because that's not right."

"No," Rose agreed. "It's not. That's why I left."

"And because of this … Dark Dragon?" Jonathan asked. "I'm still lost here! Does everyone else know what's going on?"

"I realized things, when I went to se the Dark Dragon," Rose said. "One, that it was a suicide mission. It wasn't just a test. It would have been very unlikely for someone to have come back from the traps laid around the Dark Dragon."

Jake nodded and turned to his father. "Gramps fought the Dark Dragon, years ago. The Dark Dragon had turned on magical kind and was intent on destruction. So, the magical community sealed him away – chains, magical barriers, a magical sleep. They didn't want to be murderers and they thought that it would be enough. Apparently, it wasn't."

Rose shrugged. "It was a well-made trap."

"Then, why send you?" Jonathan asked, leaning forward on his elbows. "If you were so important, why send you on a suicide mission?"

"To see how strong I was," Rose said. "To see if it I would come back."

"You said you realized several things while you were with the Dark Dragon," Haley said. "What were the other ones?"

"Overall, more embarrassing epiphanies," Rose admitted. "Embarrassing because it took me so long."

She knew that it was supposed to be an explanation for Jake's family, since she knew that Jake loved her anyway, but she felt the need to look at him for this part. She hadn't had much time to talk to him about life in the Huntsclan and she didn't want him to misunderstand where she was coming from.

"Do you remember what it was like, every time we met up as the dragon and the Huntsgirl?" she asked him.

"Yeah, sure," Jake said. "Gramps told me once 'if you used your tail more and your mouth less, you might actually win one'."

"So, I knew, on some level, that magical creatures had more intelligence than the Huntsmaster ever indicated but it wasn't until I saw the Dark Dragon that I realized that there had to be more of a system, more of a community. It wasn't as though we were hunting down dangerous animals. Dangerous animals wouldn't be able to regulate their own like that and know that another one was dangerous and to lock it down the way that the Dark Dragon was. I returned to the Clan and Master praised me for my mission. But, I was in turmoil. I'd lost my faith in the Clan and I'd lost my faith in who I thought that I was supposed to be. So, I packed my things, celebrated my birthday with the Huntsmaster, and I left. I left because I didn't think what I was doing was right anymore and I didn't know how to deal with that. If everything that I thought was wrong was right and everything I thought was wrong, I didn't know where that left me. I knew that if I stayed, I would end up being a killer, and I left because I realized that it wasn't glorified, not like I was supposed to believe. I didn't ever want to have blood on my hands."

Rose took a shaky breath, hanging her head. She had never been good with her feelings, had never known how to put it into words. But, tonight, she had told Jake that she loved him. Tonight, she was trying to explain herself. She was just hoping that it was all coming out right. She wanted Jake to understand and she wanted his family to understand. She knew that it wasn't going to be easy but she wanted them to think of her as Rose. Rose, who had discovered she liked music and cat sweaters, who knew what it was like to bury her toes in the sand and just breathe. Who she had been, she knew that she would never get rid of, but she knew that she could always be better.

"What about you, Jake?" Susan asked. "Why did you leave?"

"Because of the blood on my hands," Jake said.

Rose looked up as he stared down, looking at their linked hands, as if they were stained. She ran her thumb along the edge of his hand, trying to bring him comfort.

"Gramps and I were on a mission, of sorts. Or, he was behind me. The Dragon Council had warned us of someone who had relocated – a British wizard, who had been suspected of dark magic, but nothing had been proven. Gramps and I were just going to meet with him. You know, welcome him to the city while showing him that we were there. I was waiting on the street outside – he was in Magic Town, not in New York itself and so we thought it was even more important. If he was innocent, we didn't want rumours to fly. If he wasn't innocent, we didn't want anyone to be in danger."

Jake took a deep breath and squeezed Rose's hand hard.

"He saw me waiting. I didn't have any time to react or even try to stall for Gramps to get there. He wasn't innocent of what he'd been accused of, or he had decided that he didn't want to be innocent anymore. He took out a whole block. I was trying …" Jake's voice shook. "I was trying to save people but there was no one to be saved. All because I just … stood there. I wasn't who I thought I would be. I wasn't how I was supposed to be."

Rose gripped him tighter. She had run because she was supposed to have blood on her hands and he had run because he was never supposed to have blood on his. They fit together far more than she had imagined they had, when she first fell asleep against him and realized how comforting he was.

"Jake," Haley started but Jake held up his hand.

"Please, don't. You all wanted to know so bad and there it is. That's all there is. And I don't want to talk about it anymore."

There was a beat of silence around the table. Rose wanted to open her mouth and dispel the awkwardness. There were things that she wanted to say – things that she knew would make Jake smile and things that she knew he would want to hear. But, she didn't want to make this moment about her. She didn't feel like it was right.

"Okay, son," Jon said. "We won't talk about it. But you can. You know, if you ever need to. If you ever want to just say it and have a listen … You can, okay?"

Jake nodded. "Okay."

Rose exhaled.

Haley picked up her fork and grumbled about her friends and school and the family dinner relaxed. It was everything that Rose thought that a family dinner should be and she felt pains of anger and pains of regret. She didn't even know who her parents were. All she had ever had was the Clan. They were a family, in their own way, but it wasn't the type of family that any of them deserved to grow up in. And, she wanted to lean into the family dinner and appreciate the flow of it and the warmth that came from it, but she couldn't. She couldn't because she still had to be scared. She couldn't because there was still a world of people out there who would drag her down and back into something that she knew wasn't the right place for her.

"You're being unusually quiet," Jake said.

"Overthinking, I think," Rose murmured. "We can talk later, right? Just you and me."

Jake nodded.

The moment came when Haley's friend actually stopped by with her notes.

"Jake, can you do the dishes by yourself?" Haley said. "I have a test tomorrow and stupid Denise hasn't given me enough time to study."

"Dishes? By myself?" Jake groaned.

"I'll help you," Rose said. "I don't mind."

So, she found herself with a drying rag while Jake was dealing with a pile of bubbles and plates. And she giggled.

"What?" Jake side-eyed her. "What is so funny?"

"The scourge of the city and the hero of the city are doing dishes together," Rose said, "doesn't that strike you as at least a little funny?"

Jake snickered. "Yeah, I guess it is. But, you killed the Dark Dragon so you're now the hero of the city and I let a bunch of people die so …"

"You didn't do it on purpose. And, I was forced into it like I am with everything else." Rose focused on drying her bowl and then swallowed, hard. "I can't stay here. I want to and I want to stay with you but here, in New York, I wouldn't ever be able to go outside and I will always be in danger of being found and kidnapped and taken back. I was important and he's never going to stop looking for me. Then, you can't leave the city. I don't know what we're supposed to do. Except, I know that I'm going to keep coming back to you."

"Rose –"

"So, I don't know what to do. And, I know you don't know what to do either so –"

"Rose!"

Jake grabbed her hand with his wet, soapy one and Rose watched the bubbles pop on his skin, unable to look him in the eye. It was such a painful thing to admit that the one person she could fall in love with and did fall in love with was the one person that she would never be able to be with.

"Do you want to go to Europe with me?"

"What?" He couldn't leave. She knew that much. She had seen that much.

"Gramps needs me to find a genie," Jake said. "And we have to go to Europe because that's the one we know how to find and there aren't that many of them."

"A genie?"

"You get wishes, with a genie. And, the Huntsclan is getting more dangerous. And we are going to find a genie and that is going to let us just wish the Huntsclan away."

It seemed so simple, so easy, to just be able to wish it all away.

"And that's going to work? You can … Just like that, they'll be gone? It will all be gone?"

"Not just like that. First, we have to find the thing. And, it's not like a genie in a lamp where you just find a lamp and you're automatically its master and you get your wishes. Genies have agency until you trap them. I've been researching and I'm just trying to figure it out and I will have more time to figure out when I'm hunting the thing down but, yes, at the end, you wish and it's that easy." Jake wrapped his hand around hers. "Gramps picked me to go. He wants me to go soon before the Dragon Council –"

"You have a council?"

" – comes back and gets involved in his life because he doesn't like that. And, the Huntsclan has become more on the warpath since I left. Well, you left. I guess that's a mystery we've solved."

Rose cracked a smile.

"He wants me to leave at the beginning of next week. So, you have to hide for four days and then we're going to go to Europe and then you'll be free. And, I hope, when you're completely free, you'll stay here with me because that's all I want."

Rose threw her arms around him, so grateful that the mannequin who had fled the Huntsclan would not recognize the person that she was now.

"Four days?"

"Four days. And then we're going to be searching ruins and pissing off archeologists and … do you still have your arm brace because even international magical creatures are probably scared of the Huntsclan –"

"I'm not going to be one of them anymore!" Rose exclaimed. "It'll be over! Jake, it's going to all be over."

Jake pulled back out of her arms to look at her. Rose met his eyes and felt joy like she couldn't explain fill her. It was nothing to the freedom and exhilaration she had felt, driving away from New York early in the summer. It was the joy of coming home, of finding herself and a place where she belonged with it.

"And then the rest of it is going to start," Jake said, and she could see the same joy in his warm brown eyes.

"I'm going to go to school. I'm going to get to be somebody and I'm not going to be told what to do anymore! I'm going to be free."

Saying it aloud knocked the breath out of her.

"And when I'm free, I'm going to get to really be with you. Everything that I didn't want to think of when we were on the road, everything that we thought we had to keep secret, we don't have to anymore. I want to know absolutely everything about you."

Jake laughed.

"What?" Rose asked and he just laughed harder, shaking his head at her. Rose shoved him. "What? Come on, what are you laughing at?"

"It's just hard to believe that we went from me trying to coerce you into talking to you not knowing went to shut up."

Rose rocked back on her heels, feeling wounded. "You want me to shut up?"

"Just so I can kiss you," Jake said.

His fingers trailed down her arm and Rose felt herself being drawn toward him until she had melted into his arms and her mouth met his. In four days, they would get on a plane. In four days, she would be closer to freedom than she had ever been before and she craved it in the way that the Huntsmaster craved blood.

But, for now, she had the boy that she loved and that was more than enough.

I know I said it would be out last week but I rewrote it and I am now much happier with it! So, this is a story that was designed to be able to have a sequel, if I wanted to go that route. I do have ideas for a sequel but I am currently working on something else for the fandom, so we'll see what happens! Thank you for reading and reviewing!

Let me know what you thought of the chapter, stay safe out there and don't forget that you can find me on tumblr: we - are - all - of - legend - now!

~TLL~