By the time his family had woken up Zavier had showered and started breakfast. He recounted the events of the night before and even discovered that he could share the combat logs through their party interface. The kids were excited to hear about the levels Jason and Madison had reached and wanted to go hang out with them.
"Oh! That reminds me!" Zavier went to the front door where he'd left his belt and came back with the gauntlet. He handed it to Luna and smiled as she inspected it, her eyes going wide.
"This is for me?" She asked, her eyes sparkling with excitement.
Zavier nodded. "Yep! I tried it out last night and it takes a little getting used to, but it's really cool. You'll have to get near the creatures when they die to pick up the excess energy, but this will let you start taking on the monsters out there without having to learn to use a whip or machete. Plus, it should synergize well with Cass's defensive skills. You can just reach your arm around the shield and fire away!"
Luna slipped it on immediately and the gauntlet started glowing. Chairs screeched across the floor as they all jumped up and started yelling. The glow winked out and Luna smiled. "Just testing it out! It's all good!" She jumped out of her chair and ran to her room to explore her new toy, breakfast forgotten.
"Anything for me?" Cass asked.
"Not from the Bouchards," Zavier said, "but don't forget about that snake shield. We haven't had a chance to try that out yet so you should take some time with it to get a feel for what it can do and how it feels to carry it."
Cass nodded and got up to go find it, retreating to his room soon after. With the kids gone Zavier looked at Tess.
"Hey," he said gently.
"Hey," she replied.
"We good?"
She shrugged then reached out to hold his hand. "We're good. Last night was rough but I'm feeling better today."
"Do you want to talk about last night?"
She shook her head. "There's nothing to talk about."
Zavier felt frustration starting to rise in him. "C'mon Tess," he started but she interrupted him, her voice gentle.
"I mean it Z, there's nothing to talk about. This new world is weird and some of the old rules don't apply anymore. We both made decisions we felt like we had to make. Every decision right now has the potential for being the wrong one, or not being what we need to protect the kids and ourselves. We're going to have to make a lot of decisions coming up and we're not always going to have the time to discuss first. We just have to hope that we're making the best ones we can."
She held up a hand as he started to speak. "We're good, I promise. We love each other and we love the kids. I trust you to do what you think is best for this family - that hasn't changed."
"I trust you too, Tess," he said. "I'm sorry I said you were being selfish."
She stood up and kissed him on the top of his head. "I know, Love, I know. Let's go spend a little adult time together then we can talk about my trip to the woods tonight."
Zavier raised his eyebrows at the last part but wasn't going to say anything that might stop the first part.