walking forward with the passing shadows - motherland (bbc) isekai fanfic

It had been a few days since the whole debacle in Anne's house, and also since I've been questioned about every single piece of my life due to my sister's poor physical emotional control, or whatever you call it. In the meantime, apparently my sister violently attacked her husband, not exactly to death but he died a few days after, so that's a funeral I have to go to now. Marie and Calliope have strangely been really understanding of the situation, and mind you they're 8. When I told them that their dad was dead, they were disappointed, but for some reason not surprised? Jesus, maybe the fighting had gotten so bad they were fully expecting my sister to kill him, like seriously kill him. That's a harrowing thought, now that I think about it. Poor kids. They didn't deserve to go through all that.
I've been given custody for them for the time being. Also, strangely, it was not a hard transition for me from child care to full on parenting, maybe it's because I've been taking care of them ever since they were babies, or maybe it's because it's literally child care but 24/7 with the same children.
Liz and Julia however... Their relationship is a bit strained. Or maybe more than a bit.

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Liz sits down next to me at the café. Her demeanor has changed slightly since the fight. It's hard to notice unless you're me, I've convinced myself that I knew the characters better than the writers of the show. Kevin walks over to us.
"Liz, Manaria."
"We told you Kevin, we're not going over there. The socket's here, we like to be beside the socket." I told him.
"But you're by the toilets, and you keep getting the breeze from the door," He tells us.
"I like being by the toilets and I like the breeze from the door. We like it here," Liz tells him.
"You're really missing out," Kevin whispers, "You're missing out. We've just shared a croissant between three of us."
Liz sighs, "How have you been, Kevin?"
"Oh, great, great. Might be going back to work soon."
"Oh, good for you," I say. "How did that happen?"
"You know how Jill and I have been seeing someone about Jill's... Not unhappiness, that's too strong a... Her melancholy, let's say. Wait no..."
I chime in, "Her disappointment?"
"Um... something like that," Kevin brushed it off.
"Anyway." Liz forces him to continue.
"Anyway, our counsellor thought we needed to shake things up, so I'm going to go back to work. I'm actually really looking forward to it." Kevin smiles, "I'm so glad we started seeing that counsellor, even though everything was fine and we didn't need to." Well we'll see how that goes...
"How are you, Liz?" He asks.
"I'm all right," She responds.
"Seen Julia?"
"Oh, Kevin, stop asking."
His phone buzzes, "Oh, no, Anne! This should be in the school channel. Can you delete and repost?"
"How do you delete?" Anne says from across the café.
He sighs and walks back to the big table.
I look up from my sketchbook to Liz, "...You miss Julia don't you?"
"No I don't." Liz looks away.
"You're holding a grudge. I get it. It's sometimes hard to let go of feelings of resentment. But you really care about her don't you?"
"...I don't know what you're talking about," Liz quietly denies my accusations. She's usually much better and slick at lying. But at this moment, she's really going through it.
"Denying it won't help at all."
"Shut up," She mumbles. She continues to look away. Wait, what the hell... Is she blushing? What the fuck?! I swear, I think I'm just seeing things at this point.
"Alright, I won't try and pry into you," I smile.

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It's about 5 minutes after the drop-off time, and all the parents are piled up outside the gate.
"Auntie Rina? When are they opening the gate?" Calliope asks me.
"I don't know, Calli. We'll just have to wait and see."
"A stroke? What, that lovely caretaker man that used to open the gate?" Julia asks.
"Wait, remind me, when did that happen?" I ask.
"A few weeks ago," Kevin explained.
"Oh, yeah. Hope he's okay," I commented.
"Was there a funeral?" Julia asks.
"Well, hopefully not. He's still alive. It was just a mild stroke. He is happily recuperating in St Dominic's," Kevin says. "Did you not get the message? You should have got a WhoZis alert."
Julia realizes, "Oh, that's what that was. Yeah, I got about 12 of those. One just said "Cake"."
"Oh, that's because you've got to remove yourself from the cake channel." Liz walks by and Julia notices, staring at her from a distance.
I don't have an iPhone so I can't download WhoZis, so either Liz or Kevin texts me everything. Mainly Kevin, though.
"Is that why we're all jammed up here?" Julia asks.
"Yes, it's a bit of a makeshift system till he gets back."