trans_9 | Reunion [Closed]

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Reunion [Closed]

He'd asked for directions from Marco and after a little more exploring, Jake had wandered down to the city and found Cassie's house. For a long while he just stared at the familiar building and its accompanying barn. It had been years since he'd actually seen it - after the war ended and everyone went their separate ways, he hadn't had much call to visit it. But here it was, exactly as it had been the first day they'd all met to figure out what they were going to do. A bunch of frightened teenagers trying to deal with something way out of their league and with no one to turn to but each other. He flexed his fingers and swallowed thickly. And he was supposed to meet his brother here.

His real brother, not the slug pretending to be him. The brother he'd ordered killed for the sake of the war. An order that had gotten his own cousin killed. He glanced down at his feet, hoping that maybe he could find some respite from this train of thought - he knew where it lead. Just more questions and more guilt. Maybe if he'd tried harder to find another way, his brother would be alive back home. So would Rachel. Or maybe they'd all be dead.

The self-doubt and the guilt always gnawed at him, but here and now it was hitting him doubly hard. His brother was alive, which meant he was probably pulled from earlier on the timeline. Which meant that i they fixed this, everything would go back to the way it was "supposed" to be. His brother would move on and end up dead by Rachel's hand and Rachel herself would die soon after.

Fantastic. Why was it always him again?

He shoved those thoughts aside, took a deep breath and put his hand on the front door knob.

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Tom had delayed, messaging Sam to tell him where he was going, fidgeting with how he looked. He'd picked up and left his back-pack three times before he finally left it in his room.

He knew where Cassie's house was, he was there often enough that to see Eva or Rachel. But this was different.

He sighed, holding Bobby's leash in a white knuckled grip before lifting his hand to knock on the door. What was he supposed to say?

Jake froze for a moment, hand on the doorknob. Of course he'd knock. For a long moment, he just stared at the door and then he opened it.

It was Tom. Tom from three years ago - maybe earlier. He took a deep breath, let it out and couldn't find the words. He swallowed, grip white-knuckled on the door knob.

"...Tom."

Bobby wagged his tail, mouth open in an exuberant doggy welcome. Tom kept his hand tight on the leash, looking uncertain. It was Jake, it was Jake as older, Jake who had lived through things he didn't know.

Like his death, maybe? Like Rachel's? He couldn't make himself ask. Couldn't make himself look Eva in the eye, or Marco and ask 'Did I die? Did my death matter? Was it worth it? Or did I just die, another nameless faceless controller that nobody ever remembered?'

"Jake...Uh, Hi."

"...hey."

He didn't know what to do. For all of his battlefield and strategic acumen, he had no idea how to react. Part of him wanted to cry. Another to scream. Another just wanted to walk back inside and stare at the wall until everything made sense again. He swallowed nervously.

"It's... it's really good to see you again."

He was supposed to be dead, body long gone with the Blade Ship.

Tom didn't know what to say either. He'd cried when Jake had been repodded, and he'd learned a long time ago not to feel ashamed. But he'd done his best to build some facsimile of a life. He had his garden and the birds and Bobby and Sam and Dean and Kaylee and Rhiow and Kang.

It wasn't a bad life, really, he liked it. Better than he'd had in the last four years. Better than dying. Much better than dying. It was living, and he wanted to live.

"Yeah...yeah...same. Just woke up again? How was that?" He sucked on his lower lip, uncertain. Iniss had been there the first time he'd run into Jake before. He had been there, watching. But Iniss had handled it.

He looked away, he was a different guy than he had been when he was fourteen, and he knew it. But Jake...Jake had known Iniss. Iniss was a better him than he was now.

"...again? People told me I was here before, but I don't remember it." Probably not what Tom wanted to hear. But, anyway.

"...slimy, actually. They need to work on that."

Despite the relative levity of his words, his voice sounded hoarse. He was trying to act normal - but he hadn't been able to act normal around his brother without it being a front for years. And then he'd just been gone. He swallowed again, trying to breathe, and then simply stepped forward and wrapped his arms around his brother, holding him tightly.

He was probably going to cry, but he didn't care if the whole ship was here to watch.

"Yeah, they do, that was pretty gross. And then the scrub down she gives you is pretty...also gross." He kept his eyes on the ground, chewing on his lip. "Yeah, you were here before."

He startled a bit, dropping Bobby's leash as he returned the hug. His eyes felt wet, and he knew he would probably cry. He didn't seem to be able to feel happy without sobbing like a baby anymore. But he didn't care, this was his brother. His brother was back and ok and not gone. That was worth more than pride. A lot more than pride. He was just going to hug his brother and not worry about anything else right now.

At least Bobby was a good dog and not prone to darting off.

Jake took in another deep breath - he could feel the pinprick of tears and the tightness in his throat that he was struggling to hold back. He had tried not to let himself cry through all the years of war and now this was the one incident that was truly going to get to him. Finding his brother again, alive and whole and free.

He gave Tom a long squeeze, "I'm sorry."

He swallowed hard, feeling the lump in his throat and the tears starting. He was happy, which means his brain thought he should be sad. His head didn't make any sense anymore and he lived in it. "For what?"

He kept his arms tight around Jake, afraid he might vanish again, afraid he might wake up and Jake being back would just be a dream or something and he'd be gone again. Damaging dreams, like dreaming that someone had come and unlocked the cage and let you go. It always made him feel worse after, even having the dream.

Oh, the things he could tell him. About the quiet knowledge that his brother was an enemy now, dealing with the slug in his brother's head and listening to it gloat while they worked out a deal. About ordering Rachel to kill him, because he didn't see any other way out.

But none of that came out. So he just settled for a muttered, "Everything."

"That's a really broad topic, midget. You can't apologize for everything. Then you apologize for the good things too." He messed his hair, keeping the other arm around him.

"For the record, I'm sorry too."

For dad, for every time Temrash and Iniss had been a jerk to him, for everything he'd missed because of that Sharing. For basketball games in the driveway and not being there to tease Jake about his first date, or reassure him that it would all turn out ok before he went to meet the girl.

Jake's taller than Tom now and he notices, but he doesn't comment. It'll bring the fact that he's actually older than his 'older' brother by a few years home. He doesn't want to let go of him, because then it might end up being a dream.

"You don't have to apologize for anything."

"If you get to apologize, I get to apologize." He ignored the fact that Jake was taller, it didn't matter much right now.

Jake was here, he could be covered in purple spots and it wouldn't change the fact that he was here and safe.

Bobby sniffed at their feet, flopping on his side on the steps, tail thumping as he watched them.

Jake forced out a laugh. That was Tom. The Tome he remembered from before he'd become the enemy, another person to watch and be careful around. Anther person to fear. He'd forgotten what that was like.

"ALright, alright. Stop twisting my arm..."

"Gotta remind you of your place, Midget. Even if you decided to grow on me. What's with this height, anyway? Has Marco whined at you yet?"

It was fake, so fake. What could he do but be what Jake expected of him? He didn't have any other options, not really. He had to be the big brother Jake remembered.

It was hard.

Jake heard that and as much comfort as it brought him to hear familiar words from so long ago, he also knew that it couldn't be the same. Tom had spent years under the control of those slugs and he couldn't walk away from that the exact same person as he'd been at the beginning of it. Jake certainly couldn't walk away from his war the same person.

He played his part anyway, because the alternative made him wince. "Just a bit. You know how Marco is."

He swallowed again, trying to clear the tightness in his throat. "...Are... you alright?"

After everything. After all of that. After years of being trapped in his own head, forced to watch as the Yeerks made him hurt people, made him plan the enslavement of his family, of the entire planet.

Of course, he knew that any answer was probably going to end up deflecting the question. But he had to ask.

"Yeah. I think some time when we stop by a planet again, we should buy him a pair of stilts. Just so he can be the tallest man on the ship. Though I think he might get altitude sickness or something."

He laughed, a cracked and faded thing that didn't come close to resembling a real attempt. He broke the hug and raked his hand through his own hair awkwardly. "I'm fine. Not even limping anymore. Pretty impressive, huh? When I woke up in the hospital, the doctors were all talking about how much work it'd be to walk again." It was a completely physical assessment of his condition, addressed to the only physical injury he'd gotten during his time under Yeerk control.

It didn't come even close to any of the other stuff. He didn't intend to. "You?"

Edited 2011-07-06 02:18 (UTC)

That answer felt about as honest as he'd expected it to be. He'd become better at reading people, after all, and his own brother was no exception. But he didn't pursue that line of thought. He let his brother keep his secrets. He had to answer his own question now. He stepped back, hands clenching slightly at his sides and then picking at the meatsuit for lack of anything else to do with them. No pockets.

"I'm... fine. Doing alright. Could be better and not on a ship made of meat, but... you take what you can get."

How could he explain that he still felt so much guilt over what had happened to Tom and Rachel? How could he explain that he still stared at the wall or the ceiling until exhaustion finally forced him to fall asleep? How could he explain the nightmares or his lack of a life outside of teaching to-secret military commando units the benefits of morphing technology?

No. Fine would have to do.

"Yeah. You take what you get. I'm getting sort of fond of this ship. It gets a little crazy sometimes, but it's a good place. Sam's teaching me how to fly X-Wings, just simulators for now, but I'm learning. It's pretty cool, better than Bug Fighters." He'd never been allowed to fly a Bug Fighter on his own, but he'd experienced it, even if only from a distance.

"You might like it. Rachel sure seems to. Though get her to reign in the turning into a bear and charging all her problems, ok? Maybe she'll listen to you."

Make light of it, joke. Don't worry about the details, just be normal.

He could pretend for a little while, couldn't he? Iniss did it all the time.

"X-Wings? Really? We have X-Wings here?"

That was actually kind of cool. He'd loved those movies when he was a kid. Still did, not that he really made much time for watching them. He carefully side-steppe the whole bugfighter comment and move onto safer territory. If Rachel really qualified for that.

"I'll see what I can do next time I see her, but..."

Well. He didn't really want to think about his brother and Rachel, considering the last time he'd seen either of them alive.

"We have Rogue Squadron here, Wedge too. Sam's on the squad." He grinned. "It helps protect the ship. It's pretty much the most amazing thing you could ever think of, plus some extra on the side. I want to get out there for real at some point." Before, it had been a few indulgences from Iniss, allowing him to press his hands to to a view port. Now? Now he had a chance to fly, just him.

"She's in GLaDOS right now, but she'll be fine. She was little again for a little while, it was cute. Rachel with pig-tails and sparkly pink shoes."

"Wedge Antilles?"

Whoa. That was a shock. He thought Wedge was a fictional character. Then again, this ship seemed weird and he'd already run into quite a few unusual people.

"Good! Good. I'm... glad that you're enjoying yourself."

And he was. His brother deserved a shot at happiness after everything he'd been through. At least here, even if he'd never get it back home. Wait a minute, had he just said...?

"...I remember those. How'd that happen?"

"Yeah. Nightwing is here too, I met him. Well, Iniss met him, but it counted. I still need to get them both to sign something."

Tom had been here for a year by now, or at least he thought so. It was hard to tell. But he had gotten used to it.

"Yeah, I try not to hermit too hard."

He laughed, rubbing his face. "First promise me you won't think I'm insane."

"Sheesh. It's like a convention around here or something..."

He grinned and shook his head. Just when he thought his life wouldn't get anymore weird, he'd been tossed into a multiversal mish-mash to fight another war. Fantastic. He gave Tom a shrug.

"Sure. Promise."

"Yeah, it's pretty cool. Batman was here, and Superman is on the Council, and Spiderman is here." He grinned. "It's fantastic. All the heroes you could ever imagine and a few I think the universe just made up for this."

He grimaced. "Well, there was this clock. And anyone who heard it started aging backwards, Rachel and Marco were hit with it and they started getting small. Rachel got tiny before they fixed it. Like really small. And well, they didn't remember the ship or Eva being freed and they morphed and were running around crazy." He rubbed his face. "Rachel split in HALF, did that happen normally? And why? But uh, anyway. They fixed it, Marco and Rachel went back to normal, Rachel got grabbed right after, but she'll be back. They always come back."

"If they have Superman, why do they need us?" Jake asked ruefully. Rhetorical, really. Tom wouldn't be able to tell him. Besides, his story about Rachel and Marco deaging was more interesting. He cocked a brow.

"...oh, wow. Sounds like something the Ellimist might be able to do. And... uh..."

He shrugged ruefully at the mention of Rachel. "That was a long story. Rachel ended up morphing a starfish and then she got split in half somehow and she demorphed... Yeah. It's complicated."

"I keep asking myself that. She seems to think that everyone has something to offer. I can't figure it out. I mean. Superman I get, hell, Wedge, Nightwing? Sure, heroes. Every one of them. But me?" He laughed ruefully, shaking his head. "I'm not a hero."

He was just something's discarded meat suit.

"The Ellimist? What's that?"

He shook his head. "Guess it couldn't all be lions and tigers and bears, huh? Why did she morph a starfish in the first place? When I think of Rachel, that's the last thing on the list of things she might want to morph."

"Yeah, well... I'm not a hero either," Jake replied, a hint of regret in his voice. He didn't think of himself as one. "Fighter, maybe. Not a hero."

Others could think what they wanted, but he wasn't about to start calling himself one. A long time ago, he'd thought about that. Sort of. Back in the beginning when they had all been a bit more naive and a bit more idealistic.

Now? Now he really just wanted to find a way to move on with his life.

"The Ellimist is... was... a being of a great power. He occasionally liked to screw with us for the sake of a grand game he was playing with another being like himself. He helped us out... most of the time."

He ran a hand through his hair, "And about Rachel? It was... uh... complicated. Very complicated."

"More of one than some people here, I guess." For a moment he almost didn't reach for his brother, nerves and uncertainty making the motion unpracticed and a little softer than it otherwise would have been. "That's more than a lot of people would have done, fight back? I mean. I think you did good."

Jake had fought when nobody else had known there was a war on, or at least, nobody who didn't have a cage to look forward to every three days. And he'd been a kid. Elfangor had picked up a handful of kids.

"I wish you hadn't needed to do it, still. But you did your best. Here, that means something."

It really was weird to have some sort of supernatural being invovled in all this, all along he'd figured he'd just been the unluckiest bastard. Or maybe, just maybe, there was a reason he'd gotten tangled up in the invasion. He didn't want that reason to be getting his brother invovled in it. He really didn't. "Wait so he's like...some sort of god or something? You met God and he screwed with you? There were two of them?"

"Complicated how, exactly? I mean...she's changed a lot. She doesn't like to talk about it, Marco doesn't like to talk about it. I just..."

He didn't know half of what he wanted to, and he was scared to be trusted with some of it. Spending four years without the ability to have a secret left you a little shy of trying to keep them.

"Not really God god, but he was powerful enough that the distinction didn't really matter. He could manipulate time, create all sorts of stuff. He was fighting this other being called the Crayak. I... really don't know all that much about their fight, but apparently we were all just playing pieces for them," Jake replied. His voice hardened. "All of us. The Yeerks, the Andalites, Earth."

He swallowed and looked like he wanted to go on but he stopped himself and held up a hand, "...like I said, it was weird. Just like everything else that happened to us. And... Rachel? Well, she was a starfish and then the starfish got cut in two and when she tried to demorph she ended up as two different people."

Jake frowned. That had been another "fun" adventure. "Took us a bit, but we got her back to normal. And-"

Another pause. His brother had fought on the other side for three or four years. How was he supposed to explain this? The fear? The hiding? The knowledge that you were the only thing standing in between humanity and enslavement?

"...it was hard, Tom. But we made it."

That was the best he could come up with.

"Not really God, but might as well be in the end?" He looked away, smiling quietly. "Yeah, that's hard to get used to. Just being a pawn."

It had been pretty hard, coming face to face with just how weak he was, just how small. Just how helpless to do anything to effect his own fate. To discover that something even bigger might have been playing with his life wasn't that much of a stretch. It might not be a comfortable place to sit, but at least it was a familiar one.

"Yeah. You did good, Jake. You and Rachel and Marco....I just wish you hadn't had to."

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Reunion [Closed]

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Guh, sorry. Thought I'd tagged this.

Sorry on my part too, I didn't get the notif