Yesterday's Gone: Season One Part 39

"I'll go out there," Ed said, "See if I can get to the SUV, and bring it as close to the front door as I can get. If they come at me, we'll see how strong they are and adjust our defenses accordingly."

"What if they kill you?" Jade asked. "I don't think you should go out there."

"We can't wait here and see what they'll do," Ed said. "Better to act than react."

"It's too dangerous, Dad."

"I'll go," Ken offered.

"You ever fire a gun?" Ed asked.

"Well, um... no," Ken said.

"Then you're not going anywhere. That bat won't be enough." Ed said matter-of-factly, no insult intended, though the kid's face went crimson all the same.

"I haven't seen you in three years and you're just gonna run out and get yourself killed?" Jade said, voice going from serious young woman to scared young girl.

"I'm not gonna get killed. I can handle myself just fine."

"You don't even know what those things are; how can you say something like that?!" Jade turned, pouting.

To Teagan, Ed looked like a beaten man, too tired to muscle through the motions of an old and weary fight reminiscent of ones he'd had too many times in the past, if not with Jade then surely her mother. Teagan wondered why he didn't go to his daughter and give her the hug she so clearly craved. For all his so-called talent at reading people, he sucked at reading women. Or perhaps Iraq had rendered him incapable of showing emotion outside machismo.

"Trust me," Ed said, "I can handle anything that comes my way."

Jade shook her head and Ed left the bedroom.

Jade stared at her lap, trying not to cry, slowly failing. Teagan felt uncomfortable, but forced herself to lean over and hug the girl.

"I'm sorry," Teagan said.

"He's so f.u.c.king stubborn," Jade said, surrendering into Teagan's embrace. Ken, also uncomfortable, left the room, closing the door softly behind him.

Jade pulled away, "He always does s.h.i.+t like this."

"What do you mean?"

"He takes unnecessary chances, puts himself at risk to be the big f.u.c.king hero."

Teagan was confused, "What do you mean?"

"Even though he wasn't a cop or agent or whatever the h.e.l.l he told you he was, he was always stepping in whenever someone was in danger or if someone had done something bad. Like when I was nine and we all went out to eat in New York City. We were walking back to our hotel when some guy s.n.a.t.c.hed a woman's purse right in front of us. The guy took off running while everyone on the street just stood around. Well, everyone except my dad, who, without a word to my mom or me, took off running, chased the guy down the block, caught him, and then beat the h.e.l.l out of him. He came jogging back a few minutes later with the woman's purse and handed it to her."

"And that's a bad thing?" Teagan asked.

"Well, at first, I thought it was kinda of cool. Like he was my dad, the super hero or something. But he started doing this s.h.i.+t all the time. And then it got worse. He would start acting if he thought someone was gonna do something. He'd jump them or scare them off. And when we asked why, he just said he knew the person was gonna do something. He felt it, he'd say, like he's some kinda psychic or something! It got to the point that we never knew what he was gonna do and we were scared to even go out with him. Even more scared when he was out by himself. Because then he'd be out late, and my mom and I would be worried that he'd done something stupid and gotten hurt, or worse. And then, a few years ago, when he started talking about the agents and stuff, we should have known it had gotten worse, whatever it was. But I don't think there's any way we could have known he'd go that far."

"What happened to him in Iraq?" Teagan asked, afraid she might be prying, but too curious not to ask.

"He won't say. I asked him once, and he said he doesn't like to talk about that stuff. I don't know if he's ever told anyone."

Teagan was quiet for several minutes, sorting through all that had happened, when Jade asked her about herself. Teagan gave the condensed version, then when Jade asked her how she had met her dad, Teagan filled her in on everything, including how Ed had saved her.

"He shot down a helicopter?" Jade said, eyes wide and hurt. "Oh my G.o.d."

"He thought they were coming for me," Teagan said, "for my baby."

"Why the h.e.l.l would he think that?"

Teagan felt her face flush, "We stopped at a hotel after he picked me up, and when I slept, I had a nightmare about people in helicopters coming for my baby."

Jade stared at her. She didn't come out and say, "Oh, you're crazy, too, just like my dad," but her eyes managed for her.

"I feel terrible," Teagan said, "He killed them for me. I told him it was a nightmare, and it was probably nothing, but he..."

"He probably would've done it, anyway. My dad would've found his own reason if you didn't have one. You just gave a little shape to the nebulous conspiracy theories already spinning in his head."

"Does he know that he's not really an agent?" Teagan asked. "Does he know that you know he's not one? What if he asks me if you told me anything?"

Jade thought for a moment. "Oh, he fully believes he is some kind of secret agent. As far as my mom and I are concerned, he thinks we think he's crazy. Or that he was so deep undercover that we don't know and now we don't believe him. As far as you're concerned, we never had this conversation. I don't think he'd hurt me or you, but there's no way to know for sure how far he's messed up or how deep his paranoia runs."

Teagan just stared at Jade, not sure what to say.

"I shouldn't have said anything." Jade said. "I don't want it to be all weird between you two now."

A knock at the door. "Come in," Jade said.

It was Ken. "Your dad just went outside to get the SUV."

"He did WHAT?!" Jade said, jumping from the bed and running into the living room. "He didn't even say goodbye?"

LUCA HARDING.

October 17 Late afternoon Belle Springs, Missouri Luca stared at his reflection. He'd gone from an eight year old to a teenager in the span of minutes.

He was him, but not like he remembered.

He was now slightly taller than Paola with a full head of hair that fell just past his shoulders. The face staring back at him was at least a good five years older, and looked remarkably like his father's.

His clothes were torn, as if he'd grown right through them. Like The Incredible Hulk, except Luca wasn't green or full of muscles.

"It's gonna be okay," Will said, throwing a robe around Luca. "Come on; let's find you some new clothes."

He could feel all the frightened feelings sitting inside of the people. Even the leader man, Desmond, looked at Luca like he was scared in the places he didn't like to talk about. It made Luca's sad spiders start to crawl.

He couldn't explain what had happened to his face, or his body, but he knew it wasn't his fault, and hated to feel like the room was looking at him like was he part of the terrible scary.

Especially Paola's mom, Mary.

She smiled at him because she knew he had helped her daughter, but Luca could see behind the smile and her thinking didn't trust him.

She thinks I could hurt Paola if I wanted to and that maybe when I helped her it was only by accident. She wants me to stay away, but feels bad for feeling that way. Like when Daddy has work to do.

Mary cradled Paola. "I was so, so worried. Thank G.o.d you're safe."

Will and Luca went into one of the hotel rooms that had a bunch of suitcases laid out and open. "I'll wait out here," Will said, leaving Luca alone in the room. "You find some clothes that fit you, okay?"

Luca didn't bother to ask whose clothes these were. People who had disappeared. Like his family.

He found a pair of blue jeans, a red tee s.h.i.+rt, and some underwear, socks, and sneakers that were a close enough match to his new size. As he got undressed, he saw hair in places he'd not had hair before. Though he was curious about his new body, he was also embarra.s.sed, as if he were looking at someone else, so he got dressed quickly, so he didn't have to see so much of himself.

He wanted to talk to Will alone, but when he came back out of the room, Will was already in the lobby. Luca joined the group, feeling more self aware and shyer than normal. Though the people weren't staring at him, he could feel them looking when he was turned away, like they were trying to figure out how he did what he did.

Everyone could tell Mary and Paola wanted to be alone, so Jimmy and Will went to the bar. John and Desmond went to guard their areas. Luca was left to wander the lobby, looking at his feet and keeping away from the mirrors. He wondered where Dog Vader was. Then he spotted the dog curled up near the front door, sleeping. Probably tired from all the adventuring and walking from the past few days, Luca figured.

I sure could use a friend right now.

He thought about his best friends back home. Scott, Omar, and Billy. He'd been missing his parents so much, he'd hardly thought about his friends at all. He wondered if they were missing too. Or if maybe they were looking for their parents, too. He hoped they were okay. Luca laughed when he thought of how Omar might react if he saw Luca now looking so much older. Omar was the oldest of the bunch, by six months, and he never let anyone forget it, often acting like he was way older, and therefore more experienced at things than the others. Sometimes the other kids would get in fights with Omar because of the way he was, but Luca never minded. Omar was just being Omar, and Omar was his friend, no matter what.

Luca stopped in front of a wooden shelf with lots of pockets, all stuffed with brochures, then began pulling them out one by one, starting at the top left corner and moving row by row, and skipping the duplicates, until he pulled the 23rd brochure from the bottom right.

Luca took his pile of brochures, then sat in a chair to read the sad spiders away.

He read about the "bird's eye view from the Gateway Arch," the "thrills and spills at Six Flags St. Louis" and the "exciting dioramas on display" at the Lewis & Clark Boat House and Nature Center.

They all sounded like fun adventures, and the pictures looked nice, especially the roller coasters at Six Flags. But none of the 23 brochures helped the sad spiders go away. He still missed his mom and dad and Anna, and couldn't keep from thinking about how he was making everyone afraid.

I wish I knew if everyone was really thinking the stuff I think they're thinking, but I can't tell where my thoughts stop and their's get started. Hearing their thoughts seems un-possible. Even if Will thinks it isn't.

He was wondering if sad spiders filled the entire hotel when he heard Jimmy's voice behind him. "Hey, little man, how you doing?"

"I'm okay," Luca said.

"No you aren't," Jimmy shook his head. "Tell me what's wrong."

"I was only trying to help, but I think I might have made things worse."

"Don't be silly." Jimmy threw himself into one of the oversized chairs next to Luca. "It's just that we're all getting used to seeing all sorts of strange shh...stuff we're not used to seeing. And you gotta admit, that was pretty weird back there." Jimmy leaned toward Luca. "Any idea how that happened?"

Luca shook his head.

"Well, it's not like it matters anyway," Jimmy said. "Hey, wanna play a game?"

"Sure! What kind of games do you have? Does this place have a Wii?"

Jimmy laughed. "Ha, I wis.h.!.+ I'd love a PS3 and some Uncharted 2 right now, but I'd definitely settle for a Wii. h.e.l.l, I'd settle for a DS! I found a PSP, but the batteries went dead the first day. Least I thought it was the batteries, but all the other batteries I tried went dead too. So I figure it had to be the PSP is busted. So, no video games. But I did find a deck of Uno cards; wanna play that?"

Luca loved Uno. "Yes, please!"

"Be right back." Jimmy said.

Jimmy returned two minutes later with the fattest deck of Uno cards Luca had ever seen.

"Why are there so many?" Luca asked.

"I found four decks in the hotel. Guess Uno keeps the kids quiet. I put all the decks together and made a super deck. More fun that way."

Luca agreed.

"Okay, now I haven't played in a long time," Jimmy said, "So you promise to go easy on me?"

Luca laughed, "I promise."

Jimmy laid out two piles of seven cards as he glanced around the lobby. Will, John, and Desmond were still up front and Mary was sitting at the bar. Paola walked toward the card game.

"Hi," she said to Luca. "I'm Paola."

"Nice to meet you," Luca said.

Paola shook Luca's hand then sat in a chair across from him, next to Jimmy.

"Can I play?"

"Course you can play," Jimmy nodded, flicking seven cards into a third pile.

"Why so many cards?" She pointed at the top-heavy deck.

"It's my Super Deck. Way more fun."

Jimmy and Luca traded a smile.

The first game lasted just three and a half minutes. Paola had two Draw Fours, three Draw Twos and a Skip. No one stood a chance.

"This isn't a hand, it's a foot!" Jimmy said, looking at his cards.

Paola laughed. "You're right; the Super Deck is more fun."

She blew raspberries at Jimmy. He gathered the played cards, shuffled, slipped them into the Super Deck, then counted three fresh piles from the top.