Allie’s Aunt Carol worried Revik the most.
She’d been kind of a second mother to Allie over the years, and with Allie’s real mother gone, Revik suspected that Carol clung to Allie even tighter, as a remnant of her own sister, perhaps, despite their lack of blood relationship. Carol had been the one who cried inconsolably over the phone while Revik tried, badly, he suspected, to comfort her, and to reassure her that Allie wasn’t in pain, at least. He honestly didn’t know if she would feel better or worse when faced with Allie herself, but the latter reaction worried him.
He didn’t know how Allie would react to her family, either, much less her aunt’s tears and grief if they overwhelmed Allie with emotion.
He’d been careful to try and keep most of that from Allie herself since she’d returned to consciousness. He’d put the link in her ear so her aunt could speak to her over the line, but he hadn’t been able to tell if Allie even recognized her voice.
He’d been shielding most of his own emotional reactions from Allie, too...the extreme ones, anyway...although he’d been a lot less than successful with that over the last few days.
Still, she’d seemed okay with it. She’d comforted him even, in her own way.
The thought left Revik’s mind a second later, though.
His eyes got pulled by someone else.
Standing in front of that smaller group of Allie’s human family and friends stood a man Revik didn’t even recognize at first. Revik felt compelled to stare at him anyway, focusing on his dark blue eyes and black hair with a kind of blank concentration, without knowing what held him there. Then it hit Revik with a start he was looking at Jaden, his wife’s ex- and another refugee from San Francisco. The man had changed a lot in the intervening months since Revik had last seen him. Like Jon, Jaden looked like he’d lost weight. Also like Jon, most of what he’d lost hadn’t been muscle, which left him lean-looking, and taller somehow, almost seer height. He also looked more adult than Revik remembered him looking before, despite being in his mid-thirties, so well into physical maturity for a human.
Jaden stared at the Humvee with an intensity Revik had never seen on the other man’s face before, either. It looked almost like he stared at Revik himself, although Revik knew that couldn’t be true, given that the shielded, blackened windows remained rolled up.
Revik couldn’t remember ever seeing that particular look on Jaden’s face, in all the time Revik spent watching Allie in those years, while she still thought she was human in California. It struck him suddenly that Aunt Carol and the others probably would have told Jaden what happened to Allie, too. Staring at that face, Revik felt himself bristling, without any conscious thought attached to the reaction.
Jaden was on the human Displacement list, too. He’d been ranked relatively high on it, as well, Revik remembered...a ‘2’ designation, unlike the threes and fours that designated most of Allie’s family and friends.
In that same set of seconds, Revik knew something else.
Jaden would blame him for what happened to Allie.
He might have to restrain himself from killing the fucker when he did.
As the thought swam through his mind, along with a denser pulse of hostility, Allie’s fingers tightened on his shoulders, massaging the muscle there.
Revik turned to look at her, even as Deklan opened the back door of the Humvee from outside. As Revik met her gaze, the passenger section of the armored car flooded with light from outside. It lit her green irises, giving them a ghostly glow he felt down to his feet.
She was smiling at him again.
Gods. Pain snaked through his light, making his hands hurt where he held her.
When her own light flared, responding to his, he pushed her gently back with his aleimi, a dense apology woven into the pulse.
Sorry, he sent in a murmur. Not now, baby...okay? Later. Later...please...
He sent it softly, lower than before. He felt another stomach-wrenching flicker of shame for the promise inherent in those words.
He knew he meant them, though.
Jerking his eyes off her face, he motioned for the others to leave the car before them, and not only because they were crammed into the far side of the bench on the back end of the Humvee’s passenger cabin. He needed to pull himself together before he faced these people, or he really would lose it. He needed to do it for her.
By the time everyone else had climbed out of the car, he’d more or less managed to have his game face on again.
“Okay,” he said, taking her hand as he smiled at her. “Are you ready, baby?”
She smiled back at him, right before she lowered her face, touching her forehead briefly to his. Pain lived even in that small gesture.
Revik could imagine he felt love in it, too.
In any case, he sent his own love back to her, as much as she could hold, fighting tears even as he did it. He smiled through the sudden blur of his vision, holding her hand up to his lips to kiss her fingers before he started sliding across the bench after Balidor and the others.
For good or for bad, they had come home.
13
HOMECOMING
“DARLING,” A FAMILIAR voice called from the other room. The word came out almost sing-song, a lilting, seductive tone he used often with her now. “You’ll want to see this, my love. I promise, it’s quite exciting. Positively riveting, in fact...”
Cass smiled, giving a low snort in spite of herself.
Looking down at the little girl holding her outstretched arms up to where Cass stood, she relented, unable to squelch her returning smile towards the child’s nearly somber gaze.
“Such a serious little girl...” Cass cooed at her, swinging her up to hold her at her waist, wrapping her arms under her skirted bottom. “What are we so serious about?” she teased, giving her a mock frown in return. “Are you solving world hunger, my precious? Memorizing all of the elements on the periodic table?”
The girl giggled, blowing light bubbles at Cass.
Menlim already had little Kani’s light hooked into the construct, of course, but the child had her own construct, too. Menlim assured Cass it would speed up her light development in key areas if they kept her immersed in that more structured light, as well as help her learn the functionality she would need when they one day made her active.
“She won’t require any of the persuasions her father received,” Menlim promised, waving away her concerns the one time Cass pressed the point. “Not even the smallest amount of such a thing, so do not worry your head in the slightest, my dear. Not only will she have you and Terian to guide her...but we can channel her light appropriately from birth. Training your daughter will be like breathing for her...I promise you.”
Cass had been relieved by his words, but still wary. Something about Kani brought that up that momma bear thing in Cass so violently it shocked her sometimes. She’d never felt so protective of another being in her life.
Small fingers tugged on her hair.
When Cass met those gorgeous, stunning, clear and green-rimmed eyes, she smiled, seeing the serious look that had risen to her daughter’s face once again. She must have picked up on some element of Cass’s thoughts––enough that Kani’s small frown crinkled her tiny forehead. Her light exuded that worry too, along with a whisper of puzzlement, like she couldn’t figure out the precise source of what had bothered her mother.
Kani was getting better at reading the two of them all the time.
Seemingly every day, she got better at it.
Something about the intensity of that gaze touched Cass deeper than even the request to be picked up. Cass couldn’t help but find that seriousness, along with the clear intelligence and intent behind Kani’s gaze, completely adorable and touching and lovely all at once.
Cass also found herself thinking, not for the first time, that little Kani could be a miniature of her father at times, even down to that precious little wrinkle she got between her eyes when she frowned.
Cass refu
sed to acknowledge whether she saw any of her biological ‘mother’ in those features, much less in the eyes themselves. Whatever had been imparted through Allie’s side of the genetic pairing had to be pretty insignificant at this point, anyway, compared to the role Cass played in the little girl’s life.
Allie had lost her chance to be a mother.
She’d never really wanted it anyway, Cass knew. Even when they were kids, Allie only cared about herself, never about having a family or even a husband or anyone of her own. When she talked about her future, Allie never even mentioned those things.
It had always been all about Allie to Allie.
For the same reason, Cass knew without a doubt that the child had been Revik’s idea. Knowing him, he’d probably been pushing Allie to give him a child for awhile before she finally relented, and then it probably manifested as some kind of kinky sex game to Allie herself.
So yeah...fuck Allie.
Kani was here. Kani loved her.
She didn’t know Allie from shit.
“Darling?” Terian called again. “Really, you must see this...I implore you!”
Bouncing Kani on her hip, Cass walked with her across the deep burgundy carpet to the entryway between rooms. When she passed through the sliding wooden doors to the main living area, she saw Terian standing in front of a wall-length feed monitor. That monitor took up the vast majority of the bone-colored wall that stood directly across from the two-sided fireplace that burned brightly on either side of the two rooms.
Frowning, Cass watched the black, billowing smoke on the monitor, seeing it float and expand upwards in liquid-like plumes from a large dirt hole surrounded by a ring of trees. Still bouncing Kani, she squinted at the burning vehicles.
“Isn’t that...” she began, but Terian held up his fingers in a shushing gesture.
“Watch!” he said, his voice delighted. “Wait for it...”
There was a bare pause, then a sharp flash burst out from the screen.
Something underground, on the far right of the dirt clearing, went up in a blinding explosion of light. As the brightness of the initial blast began to fade, Cass saw darker, denser black smoke belching from that second hole in the ground, along with high orange and yellow flames, tinged with blue and green from some kind of chemical.
Terian clapped his hands together in delight.
“Did you see that?” he grinned, waving a hand at the screen. “Gods. I think I have a hard-on. Is that wrong?”
Cass laughed, even as she put her hand over one of Kani’s ears.
“Language, Papa,” she said, her voice mockingly stern.
“Sorry, poppet,” he said apologetically. Walking closer to the two of them, he wrapped his arms around her waist, pulling her and Kani against his side before he leaned down to kiss her cheek. “I got overexcited...”
“I see that,” Cass said, smiling at him fondly.
Looking back at the monitor, she frowned slightly, even as she saw the images click through to another track, displaying views from a whole different set of cameras. Several of those views around the rim of the larger monitor showed the docks on fire, as well, and Cass flinched in reflex when one of the OBE transformers exploded in a dramatic, fireworks-like shower of sparks. She watched as the gateway to the shore closed as the fire continued to burn, seeing that part mostly with her aleimi.
He’d just cut off the eastern docks.
“Someone’s having a good time,” she murmured. Shaking her head and smiling at Terian, she went back to bouncing Kani against her hip. After watching the monitor for a few more seconds, she looked at the little girl’s serious face, making another mock frown.
“Is that your daddy?” she asked the little girl, shaking her playfully as she pointed at the screen. “Is that your daddy, precious? Is he blowing stuff up? Is he?”
Terian laughed, kissing the little girl on her dark head before he planted a significantly more adult kiss on Cass’s mouth.
“Are we taking a field trip soon?” Terian asked her, wrapping his arms around her from behind, his amber eyes sharp on the screen. “Going to see daddy in person?”
Cass snorted another laugh, even as she saw a light blinking on the edge of the monitor.
Menlim. He must be watching this, too.
He wanted to talk to her. No surprise there.
“Hold her for me, will you?” she murmured to Terian, handing over Kani. Once Terian had the little girl balanced in his arms against his chest, Cass straightened her suit jacket and shirt, right before she turned, heading back into the other room. She could tell by the signal that Menlim wanted her to come to him in private this time.
“I’ll only be a few minutes,” she called back to Terian. “...An hour at most. You can feed her while I’m gone, if she gets hungry.”
“You don’t want me to come along, dearest?” Terian called after her.
“Not for this one, no,” Cass said, smiling at him.
Changing her mind, she shucked off the suit jacket by the table, pulling her red leather jacket off the dining room chair instead. Sliding a hand into the nearest arm, she pulled it around her back, inserting her other arm before she tugged her long hair free of the back collar and shook it so that it hung straight down her back.
“Play with baby girl,” she added. “I’ll fill you in when I get back.”
Terian grinned at her, wolf-like. He raised up one of Kani’s pudgy little hands by the wrist, helping her to wave her tiny fingers at Cass as the latter walked towards the outside door.
“Say bye-bye to mommy, precious,” Terian cooed. “Say bye-bye mommy...”
Kani laughed, waving under Terian’s guiding fingers.
Cass waved back, laughing. “Bye-bye, precious!”
“She’s going to make a welcoming party for your other daddy,” Terian confided softly into the girl’s ear. “Aren’t you, mommy? Making a nice big party for Daddy Revik? With a cake? And lots and lots of friends and presents...?”
Cass grinned in response, giving Terian a wink as she adjusted her shirt, tucking it into her pants before she slid her foot into one of the Italian-made red pumps standing by the door.
“Don’t let her watch the feeds for too long,” she cautioned him, settling her heel before she stepped into the second shoe.
“I won’t, mummy...cross my heart.” Terian said, using Kani’s fingers to cross her own heart on her small chest. Terian smiled wider when the little girl giggled at the game, following the motion with those shockingly light eyes. “We won’t watch the nasty, nasty feeds, will we, Kani darling? We’ll find something more fun to do...maybe you can ride Uncle Ulrich again?”
The guard by the door, who happened to be that very same Ulrich, smiled, even as he bowed respectfully to Cass, keeping his head low as he opened the door for her.
Still smiling, he stood out of the way so Cass could enter the outside corridor.
Cass laughed, too. Flipping her hair over her shoulder, she gave the two of them a last wave before she walked out, the grin still widening her lipsticked mouth.
JON FORGOT TO breathe.
Faces surrounded him, people clapping him on the back, touching him, clinging to his arms briefly then releasing him as he wove through the seemingly endless, snaking crowd. Everything felt surreal, like being caught in a confusing dream filled with half-remembered faces, fingers touching him only to leave behind flickering pulses of presence and memory. Warmth flowed through the strands that held him, and Jon felt Revik there, stronger than the rest, wrapped into and around Allie’s light like a protective shield, but refusing to hide her, either.
He wouldn’t hide her.
They walked through the front doors, just like Revik said they would.
It didn’t really sink in to Jon why Revik had insisted on that, what it meant to him, to bring Allie in openly, not hiding her from the seers and humans who rushed around them, fighting to touch her, to see her, to be near her, most of them not even seeming to notice that faraway
stare in her eyes. That same stare might focus on them, or on the high windows of the House on the Hill behind them, shining brilliantly with their organic shields temporarily lifted...or she might be staring at a bird winging against the dark blue of the sky, or a piece of trash in the road, or one of the paintings in the lobby, or a birthmark on someone else’s face.
None of it mattered to any of them.
Jon felt shame when he realized that.
If it had been him, he might have snuck her in through the back. He knew Revik was right and he was wrong, and that shame worsened.
Gods. Why had he judged Revik for what he did with her?
She was still Allie, regardless of how much or how little of her remained.
Jon recognized faces, but most flashed by too quickly for him to react with more than a jerk and a flicker of shock. By the time he’d reached the actual floor of the lobby, that fire in his chest had worsened, though, bringing stinging tears, seemingly out of nowhere.
But not nowhere. He’d pushed all of these people out of his mind, too, just like he had Allie. He’d barely let himself think about any of them since he’d last looked down on that tsunami wave slamming Manhattan’s shores...because truthfully, up until this very moment, he’d doubted he’d ever see any of them again, at least not alive.
The fact of his own cowardice hit him again, harder as he looked at the group of humans, watching the proceedings somberly from the side.
His people. Christ.
He’d barely spoken to any of them since he’d left. He’d heard from Balidor that Revik had been in touch with his and Allie’s family, but Jon himself hadn’t been; he hadn’t even tried to contact any of them. Revik even asked him once, to call his Aunt Carol, maybe so she could hear from someone she knew about Allie, or maybe just so she could be comforted by Jon’s voice, by Jon being alive. Jon hadn’t done it though, even then.
Allie's War Season Four Page 28