"Ah, Father,
even when danger comes, I think you'll find
courage in me. I am not scatterbrained."

"The Odyssey," Fitzgerald Translation. Book 16, Lines 369-371. Used without permission.
 

LANGLY:

August 28, 2001

We come home to find both kids crashed on the sofa. Miranda's on one end, Patrick's on the other, Movies Till Dawn screeches from the tube.

Wonder what time they finally hit the wall and passed out. Not that it matters. They can sleep all day tomorrow if they want.

I, on the other hand, have to be up in three hours. I was tired to start with. Bad enough if you start from normal levels. Really horrible if you're already bringing up the rear.

I really oughta go to bed, get what I can.

Who'm I kidding? I'm not gonna sleep.

How the hell could you possibly expect me to sleep right now?!
 

BYERS:

Juliet hasn't been up this late in ages, and it shows. Her movements are stiff and awkward; it's actually a struggle to get her into the apartment. This causes her to have a flash of temper. Juliet has a temper, but it takes a great deal to light the fuse, and it tends to burn slowly. Her present state exemplifies my own.

Tivvy is so happy to see us, she greets us at the door, which I'm not aware of upon entry-and I trip on her tail, which inspires her to squeal angrily and swipe at me. Now I have a crying, frustrated fiancee and a highly displeased cat.

And I'm a total mess.

I go over my schedule for the following day in my head. I have a meeting at 9, and a graduate tutorial from 12 to 4-no, there will be no escape for the wicked.

I could conceivably bail on the meeting, and cancel the tutorial...

Which would keep me awake all night, or what remains of it.

Not that I'll sleep, anyway. I make the motions of attempting to do so. I try to help Juliet get ready for bed, but she pushes me away in frustration, saying she is tired of having to depend on me for every little thing. I try not to take it personally, but my nerves are raw, and I snap back at her, which I immediately regret.

I leave her alone in the bathroom, and by the time she emerges, she's calmer.

"I'm sorry," she says softly. "I'm just...I'm determined that on our wedding day, I'm going to walk down the aisle and not limp. I'm doing just great, huh?"

"Yes, you are." And she is. She is dogged in her pursuit of this goal.

As she was in pursuit of me.

I'm grateful for this. Had she not been, I might not be her fiance.

We crawl in between the sheets. Normally, this is a sensation that immediately calms every nerve in me. Tonight, though, the silky coolness does nothing to lower me into either passion or sleep.

"Do you think he'll be all right?" Juliet asks, referring to Frohike. Who else right now?

"I don't know. I didn't get to read his chart." This was kept in the custody of the personnel with medical training-Jo, Martha and Dana Scully, who passed it around as if it were the issue of Cosmopolitan with the new sexual positions in it. (Yes, I've read it-how do you think I learn this stuff?)

"It took a long time."

"Bypass surgery is long." That much I know.

"I wonder how he did."

"I don't know. He looked-oh God, Jules, he looked so-so..."

And I feel myself break. Oh God, I don't need to do this right now.

And he'd kill me if he knew, that's the truly ironic part.

But Juliet wraps me in the cocoon of her slender arms, drawing me into her, whispering softly nonsense syllables and reassuring me of how much she loves me.

What kind of idiot was I to think I could live without her? Why did it take me so long to come to where I could accept her love?

Whatever kind of idiot I am, I collapse helplessly in her arms...and I don't move out of them until dawn.
 

MICHAEL:

Kelly's gone to bed. I tuck her in, but I can't sleep, which is weird, because I'm like so dead and usually having Kelly there, it really feels nice.

Well, kitchen's always open here...and I realize I'm fucking thirsty.

I'd sort of figured Ally and Langly'd crashed out, but Langly's in the kitchen still. Looks like he sort of was thinking about going to bed, he's dressed like it, but he's got the coffee pot brewing. I notice the can is the Puerto Rican stuff Ally finds every now and then.

Rocket fuel.

"You didn't make that, I hope," I say to Blonde Boy.

"Nope. Had Ally put it on."

"She go to sleep?"

"Think so. I was gonna go and try to sleep, but it's not gonna happen."

"Yeah."

"So you gonna join me in some of the super high octane stuff here?" Langly asks me.

"Sure."

It finishes brewing, he grabs two mugs-hey, I have my own mug here. It's a Pisces mug. Miranda got everyone their own astro sign so we'd know whose is whose. It's actually got good colors in it.

He hands me the Cancer mug.

"That's yours."

"Oh, yeah." Not that it makes a bit of fucking difference, but hey, I like my own stuff. Right now, hanging on to the little stuff, makes a big difference.

"Crab. That suits you, Langly."

"Fuck you, Junior."

But it's lame. It's like, normally we'd have a lot of fun bashing on each other.

Wish we felt like it right now. He could still call me a fuckrag, and he probably will, but it's gonna be one mighty limp one.

"Scared the shit outta me," he says, and I know just what he's talking about, because it scared the shit out of me, too.

"Yeah."

"How long's it gonna be before he wakes up?"

"How the fuck should I know?" Like I have a medical degree or something.

"Just hope it's soon."

"Yeah, no kidding."

"He's like one of my best buds, and like my teacher, and sort of like a dad, you know what I mean? Like I'm missing a whole bunch of people, not one."

I sort of wish he'd just shut up. Langly tends to babble when he's nervous, and I'm like not in the mood for anybody's mouth flapping right now.

But I know what he means. My dad's a billion different things to me. Mostly he's a pain in the ass, but he's a lot of stuff besides a pain in the ass.

Right now, I'd give anything to have him be a pain in the ass to me.

"So how's it going on the new job, dude?" I just want to get off thinking about my dad. It's just getting me more and more upset. I should've stayed with him...

"So you know."

"Your wife told me."

"What else did she tell you?"

"Jesus, nothing! Chill out, Langly, would you?"

"Think you're the one that needs chilling out."

"Yeah, well, it's a little hard right now, y'know?"

"Yeah."

"So you didn't answer my question."

"It's...creepy, is what it is. I liked my old job. Didn't care for Nathanson, but man, after this asshole, I'd kiss the ground where he fucking walks. Don't know what happened to him, either. We like checked out a whole bunch of stuff, Bryce and Goldie and Richard and me. It's like the guy never existed."

"Bizarre."

"It's like...it's like being in prison, almost."

"CIA."

"NSA, actually."

"You're a spook now, Langly."

"Not funny, Junior. You know my bro was a spook, don't you?"

"Yeah, you said that."

"Only I didn't know it. And man, they are pissed at him about something. Not sure what. But it's like, every time I ask something, or make some comment, I get this comment, you don't wanna end up like Scott, do you?"

"Thought they thought Scott was dead."

"They did. Most of 'em, they're such idiots, couldn't find their ass with both hands. So they're probably real pissed off that Scott pulled it off so long."

"Y'know, I gotta ask. The Thinker, I sort of read that he was called Kenneth Soona."

"His alias. One of his many passport names. He apparently had a bunch of 'em. Like someday I got to go through his junk."

"You got it back."

"DC closed the case, unsolved. And I think it's supposed to be unsolved, I think they got told to keep it that way."

"Maybe they just can't find him. Or her. Or them. We're not talking a bunch of rocket scientists here."

"True, true."

"So how come you don't check out his things?"

"Haven't checked out Joanie's, either."

"So why don't you?"

"Case you didn't notice, Junior, I've been a little bit busy!"

"Yeah, but maybe there's stuff in there."

"Might be. But probably most of it's too old to make any difference."

"How d'you know?"

He shrugs. "You wanna know the truth, Junior? I'm too chickenshit. I'm afraid I'm just gonna go nuts when I do it."

"Why? You think there's something real bad in all this?"

"You don't get it, do you, fuckrag? This is all I got left of them!"

"You got Patrick."

"That's different. Patrick's great. I love that kid. But it's like, I never got to know Scott, and I feel fucking robbed! And all the time I didn't get with Joanie, well, I got robbed double, and I don't need it thrown in my face!"

"Hey, dude, wasn't trying to get you all bent out of shape. Why don't you let Ally go through it? She's careful. And she's a hell of a lot better organized than you."

"Thought about it. I dunno."

"She'd do it."

"I know. But that's not the point. I should do it. And every time I get up the nerve to go open the safe and reach in for the stuff, it's like, something always happens, like it's the Ark of the Covenant in Raiders, and it's supposed to be left alone or something..."

"Lame, Langly. Like you'd leave anything alone."

"I'm just...y'know, Junior, you found all that stuff on my dad...stuff nobody ever told me...it was like, I shouldn't have been surprised. It all started adding up. But it was like, the person I think I remember, was that that person at all? I mean, what the hell do you do when you thought you sort of knew somebody, they kick, you discover you don't have a clue in hell what was going on?"

"I dunno."

"So what do you know about your dad?"

"Huh?"

"You heard me. What do you know about him?"

"Not much. He's not much for talking about himself."

"No shit. But lemme tell you something, Junior. You better get to know him. I hope, I pray, whatever the fuck it is you do, that he gets away from the reaper this time. But man, don't let him go knowing nothing about him."

"I know a little."

"Force it out of him."

"Oh, yeah, you know how well that works!"

"Hey, you're his kid."

"He thinks of you and Byers like kids, too."

"Yeah, but it's different. It just is."

"Big difference being, he hassles me even more than he does you guys!"

"Yeah, well, you're his. He feels probably like he has to."

"So like this whole thing...you think, he could come out of this like, you know, different?"

"Hard to say." He refills the rocket fuel. I am gonna shake like crazy today. "He's pretty not changeable."

"Yeah, but he's never like come this close to almost..."

"Yeah."

"Yeah."

"You gonna be all right, Junior?"

"I think so." Yeah, sure!

"What time you got to go to class?"

"Got an 8:00."

"You're an idiot."

"I waited too long to register."

"Like I said, you're an idiot."

"Oh, don't tell me you never had an 8:00 in your entire college life!"

"Yeah, but I never went to 'em."

"And you didn't go to any of the others, either!"

"Showed up for the tests. Besides, I would've missed the best D&D game going on the East coast if I'd gone to class."

"Must be nice to be so fucking smart."

"Yeah, Junior, fucking lot of good it does me sometimes." He folds his arms and lays his blonde mop down on them. "Least you're doing it right."

"Yeah, fucking lot of good it's doing me."

"Sometimes brains don't make a rat's ass of difference."

"So what does makes a rat's ass of difference, since you're suddenly so wise, Blonde Boy?"

I expect him to volley back, but he just looks kind of sad.

"Your family. Your friends. What you believe in." He's still got his head on his arms, he looks real tired, and a lot younger and older all at once than he really is.

"So what do you believe in, fuckrag?"

He yawns. "I believe I need another cuppa." He heads for the coffee pot.

I'm gonna be sorry about this...but I think I believe the same thing right now.

I've got a quiz in two hours.
 

"Hey Michael!" Somebody's rapping on my back and yelling at me.

Oh Christ. It's the child from hell. "Hi Patrick."

"Mommy says you gotta wake up."

"Why?" I guess I dozed off on the table.

"'Cause she says you gotta."

"Since when did you start listening to your mom?"

"You get up, Michael!"

I look at my watch. 6:15. How come this kid has energy at this hour?

Anyone with energy this morning deserves to be shot.

I need a shower. I stagger into the dungeon, I hear the water. Kelly must be in there already.

Maybe she wouldn't mind some company.

Door's not locked. I creep in.

"Hey, Kel?"

She shrieks. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry."

She pops her head out. "'S all right. You just scared me, that's all, I think I'm just so tired...you coming in?"

I can feel the corners of my mouth turn up for the first time in god knows how long. "Sure."
 

You would think, being as tired and wrecked and messed up as I am, the last thing on my mind would be doing the nasty.

I may be all those things, but I'm not dead. Which I think is the only way I won't think about sex.

I take that back. I'll be the horniest corpse they ever buried.

Problem is, we're still like...we got no idea what happened last weekend...and I want to...and I'm scared...

But Kelly, bless her heart, has the sweetest mouth in the world. I let her massage me all over, and then, under the warm water and sweet melony smell of her bath gel, she kneels down in front of me...and takes me in real deep...it's so nice to feel something other than awful, even for a few minutes...it's like I don't even wanna come because once I do, I have to come back to real life, and right now, last thing I wanna do is come back...

But she works me to the inevitable. I feel my balls draw into me, once that happens, I can't turn back...and I get flooded with warmth and light...

She definitely knows how to make a guy feel like going on.
 

My car's still at the VA, Kelly says she can meet me later, Dr. Scully told her she could have the afternoon off if she needed it.

That was real righteous of Dr. Scully. I know they're real busy, but they're also real good friends to my dad.

I feel a little better knowing she's gonna meet up with me.   The problem is how. She's done at 1, but I have to come back for a 5 to 7.

Fuck it. I could probably teach that class. I'll deal with it later. Anything as complicated as picking up my car, that right now just blows my mind.

And now I got to deal with fucking biology, which Kelly tried to make me study for last night, but I can't remember a fucking thing...

"Think Johnson would let me get out of this one?"

"Michael, just try it. She drops your lowest grade, anyway. So you bomb one, maybe. Big deal."

Yeah, for someone else. I know how she feels when she only gets a 95.

I'm getting as bad as she is that way.

Mostly, what I really wanna do is just crawl into someplace where I can feel safe and happy...

And for some reason, I head back to the shore.

I always feel better at the shore.

I smile a little.

We're there, and one good thing about early classes, you get the best parking spaces. Kelly kisses me and gives me an extra long hug. I don't wanna let her go.

"Kel. We gotta go back to the shore."

"Someday, we will."

Sooner than later would be good.

END OF PART 29