Courting Disaster

42.

"I think we're done here." It had been hours, Gilbert was tired, the man in the suit was tired, and they were getting no where.

"Is that to say I can leave?" The man stared for a minute and then the door opened.

"Free man, but do please try and avoid future wars with the god damn fae courts." Gilbert stood up his legs creaking from sitting.

"No promises." Outside the door Clarissa was waiting, she had there stuff from when they'd been arrested. Gilbert didn't say anything though clearly Clarissa wanted to talk, he waited until they'd gotten into the van and were down the road from the military base before he said anything.

"So you want to know what happened?"

"Yeah I'm so confused, I mean I told them everything I know and I don't know anything, how did we start a war with the autumn court?"

"Well we didn't, summer and autumn are already at war, as are winter and spring, we just kind of stepped in one through deception."

"Who deceived us?"

"Pretty sure it was god damn everyone on this one."

****

Arrows were stuck near the ground. The autumn ambush had been almost picture perfect, most of the escort was dead, Gilbert, Rolo, and Clarissa were crouched behind the shields of the fallen hoping to survive. Rolo was more than a little upset.

"YOU SET THIS UP!"

"Yes Rolo I arranged for you to carry us through this specific passage in the fae on the way to my office so I could die to your enemies, it was my brilliant plan to die to the court of autumn." The arrows stopped, that scared Gilbert more than anything, when your enemies aren't showing you where they are, they become unpredictable.

"Man, you can leave, we only want Rolo." It was some kind of gutteral creature, the word barely intelligible.

"Nice knowing you Rolo." Rolo grabbed Gilbert by the arm his eyes desperate.

"You can't leave me here, you don't know what they'll do to me."

"Kill you probably, but I don't know what you want me to do about it, I'm unarmed, Clarissa is unarmed, and we aren't anywhere near the office, we're in the fae."

"I can rip us out of the fae, I don't know where we'll be, but it'll be a far sight better than here." Gilbert smiled, he figured Rolo had a way out he wasn't using.

"Do it."

****

"And so as you know we wound up in a military base and may have inadvertently caused a minor scuffle with the court of autumn and the US government."

"No I got that, I'm still confused how Doris fits into this."

"We're about to find out."

It took Gilbert a few hours to drive from the military base back to his office. All told they'd been gone over a day and a half from when they were supposed to be back in a few hours. Gilbert was expecting to find his office in disarray or at the very least Doris upset. He was mildly perturbed when he came in to find her watching tv at her desk.

"Oh Janice you can do so much better than Jerome."

"Doris! We've been gone over a god damned day and this is where I find you just watching tv at your desk which I told you to specifically not to do." Doris just rolled her eyes.

"You guys are always over due or late, I swear Gilbert I'm not going to get the national guard every time you get lost in the woods." Gilbert was beyond angry but Clarissa couldn't help but laugh.

"Doris we were kidnapped by elves of the summer court who told me quite a tale about you! Are you an elf?"

"Yeah? I listed other on race when I submitted my job application, you never asked I figured you knew."

"This whole time?"

"Why do you think I wear my hair like I do? have to cover my ears, people always making jokes, it gets very tiresome." Gilbert had to sit down in one of the chairs in the lobby, he was just so overwhelmed by the situation in general.

"I think it's cool you're an elf Doris," Clarissa spoke up while Gilbert collected his thoughts.

"Thank you dear, so what did the Summer Court want anyway?"

"They accused you of being a traitor, that you sold them out to the autumn court." Clarissa had stepped up while Gilbert just held his head in his hands.

"Probably Queen Lustria right? She's the real traitor, probably arranged the whole thing to kill Rolo my half brother."

"Yeah he almost got killed in an ambush!"

"Well there you go, need to talk to Rolo, guy always was a headstrong fool, well I'm glad you guys are ok, well mostly Gilbert looks a little green under the gills, might want to take him home."

"That's an excellent idea, I need to rest, take some time, stop watching god damn tv though Doris I mean it." Doris rolled her eyes again, waited till Gilbert and Clarissa had gotten back into the van and then went back to her program.

"Janice! Don't you tell me you are having Jeromes baby!"