Chapter Text
It's a funny thing. The first material realization Jim has about the kid is more about the kid's situation than the kid himself. Not his first realization, exactly—which was there's no way that thing's human—but the first one of import is: the kid is safer with Mitch and Guduza than anywhere else in Jim's prison, and possibly anywhere else in the city, and possibly anywhere else on Earth.
His first assumption is that the kid was brought in somehow by an inmate (and doesn't Jim have his suspicions as to whom) for reasons best not thought about, and was either rescued or intercepted by Mitch or Vinnie. His second assumption, looking at the kid, is that he's a mutant. A super or a meta or whatever they're called these days. Both of these assumptions turn out to be wrong.
The kid is—apparently—an alien. An actual fucking alien. From actual fucking outer space. Crash-landed in the prison yard with, great googly moogly, a second alien. Both of whom were taken to Mitch basically immediately, as decided by pretty much everyone present at pretty much the same moment. Which was pretty much as soon as they all realized how blisteringly young the aliens were, which was also pretty much immediately, since the bipedal one, at least, looks and mostly acts like a human infant.
Said infant kicks his feet, shoves his fist in his mouth, and stares at Jim from Mitch's arms while the man explains what's been going on under Jim's nose.
He hasn't been here long, Mitch says, in his slow, deep voice. Only a couple weeks. No, we weren't going to tell you. Yes, we figured you'd find out anyway.
He doesn't talk, and he hasn't cried. Not once, not properly. Sometimes he'll go pale and stiff, and his little face will screw up and he'll make…oh, sort of…raspy hissing sounds, but he hardly ever does tears. "At first, it happened a lot," he adds, "but not as much, recently." No, these episodes don't seem like seizures. No, they don't seem like asthma, either. Yes, maybe it is crying.
He seems to like it when Guduza reads to him. It calms him down. He likes to look at the pages when Guduza reads to him. He seems very serious about it.
"The pages of what?" Jim asks, and Mitch shrugs.
"Not like we've got a ton of options," he says. "I don't read much, anymore, me. But Guduza's got the Bible in English and Zulu, and he's got some stuff by Kant and Boudrillard. Davey says he'll bring in some of his kids' books, but we're still waiting on that."
"He likes both," Guduza says. The corners of his eyes crinkle when he smiles. "Bible stories, my philosophers. And Mitch, he remembers some stories. For his girls. I remember some stories, too. Some songs. Some hymns. We do OK."
Jim looks at the kid. The kid looks back, still sucking on his knuckles. "What about diapers?"
"Brian and Steve bring diapers," Mitch says, referring to two of the younger guards. "Davey brings wipes."
Good lord. Jim sighs, then reaches to take the baby. Mitch doesn't move, and the kid doesn't look at Jim's hand—he keeps his green eyes on Jim's face—but after a couple of awkward seconds, he pulls his hand out of his mouth and stretches both his chubby arms out. Which is apparently all the prompting Mitch needs to pass him across the desk, although he waits to withdraw until he's satisfied the baby's head is supported.
"Any idea how old he is?" Jim asks, shuffling the kid into the crook of one arm and holding a finger out for him to grab. He hasn't had much experience with babies—it's been a long time since his nieces were this small, and he only saw them the few times he made the trip out East—but he remembers how much they slept and how bewildered they seemed by everything. He remembers they liked to grab fingers.
Mitch grimaces, scratches the back of his neck, sits up a little straighter. "It's hard to say." He frowns. "I guess somewhere around two months, if he develops like a human. But I'm…it's hard to say."
This particular baby seems more interested in Jim's tie than his fingers, so he pulls it free of his jacket and tries to tickle the baby's nose with the short end. The baby looks briefly startled, then latches onto it with both hands.
Jim glances up at Mitch. The infant has the sides of his tie in a two-handed death grip and he's pulling on it hard, with surprising strength for something so small. "What makes you say two months?"
"He can't hold his head up very well on his own, yet," Mitch says. "And his sleep schedule is all over the map, which should point to a much younger kid. But he's smiling socially and his focus is excellent. He tracks sounds, his vision seems perfect, his hand-eye coordination is…frankly, stellar."
"He turns pages," Guduza says. "Bend down. He wants your tie."
"Yeah, I noticed," Jim mutters, but he hunches over anyway. The kid immediately releases his tie and goes for the knot at his collar. "He turns pages?" he echoes. That's right, Mitch said the kid likes to look at the pages when Guduza reads to him. "But—you said he can't lift his head?"
"He can lift it," Mitch says. "Just not for long."
The kid is really squirming in Jim's arms, now, and yanking on his collar. Jim isn't worried about dropping him, no matter how he wiggles, but—maybe it's time to give him back? He starts to hold the baby out, but Kiddo scrunches his face and curls his body to reach back towards Jim's tie. Well, fine, okay. Jim pulls him back in and hunches over again, resigning himself to the tugging.
And, he remembers, he can't give him back. Not permanently, anyway. That would be crazy. This is a prison, for god's sake. Mitch and Guduza are convicted felons. Life sentences, both of them; murderers, both of them. This is a baby.
Guduza is laughing at him, he's sure of it.
"Still," Jim says, feigning dignity despite his hunched posture and the baby's ferocious twisting and tugging. "I don't…I don't see how that would…"
"He looks at the books," Guduza says. "He turns pages. I lie next to him. We read like this," he says, canting his head and shoulders sharply to the left, his hands out in front of him like he's holding an invisible book.
"Sideways," Jim murmurs. Okay, sure. That makes as much sense as anything else, today.
He sighs, jiggles the baby a bit. Kiddo subsides, and the tugging stops, and Jim sits back in his chair. "Look," he says. "I'm…I'm glad you've been taking care of him. But this isn't the place for a baby. It's not a safe environment. You know that."
Mitch's jaw flexes. Guduza twists his hands together in his lap, starts going slowly from side to side in his chair the way he does sometimes.
"I'm sorry," Jim says, and means it. "I know you've taken to him. But he can't stay here. You understand."
"No," Guduza says flatly, and shakes his head hard.
"He can't go into the system," Mitch says. "He's got no papers. No social, no birth certificate."
"He wouldn't be the first," Jim points out, even though he's already thought those same things.
"He's an alien," Mitch says. Guduza just stares at Jim with hard eyes. "Him and his fish," ah yes, the mysterious fish, which is apparently hidden somewhere in Mitch and Guduza's cell at the latter's insistence for this meeting. "You don't know what…Jim, it's not safe out there for them. He's a baby. He's just a baby." There's an edge in his voice, but it has a pleading note under it. "At least here, he's safe. It's secure, nobody knows about him. And you know Dozer and me wouldn't hurt him."
Jim has thought those things, too. "What about the other inmates?" he says, glancing down at the infant he's holding. The baby looks up at him, no longer squirming. He looks—worried, almost, but that's likely just because his eyes are so big. "What about…no," he says, shaking his head. "No. He can't stay here. But I'll keep him with me," he adds, when Mitch starts to say something. "I'll raise him."
"And when you're at work?" Mitch challenges. "Who'll look after him, then? A nanny? Can you trust a nanny? Can you even afford one?" He's glaring. "They aren't cheap, Jim. Babies, in general, aren't cheap. And you've cycled the same six suits every week for twenty-five fucking years."
Jim opens his mouth, but the kid jerks in his arms and he looks down.
The baby relaxes fractionally, then kicks his legs straight again, punching towards his hips and arching his back. He's still staring at Jim—that hasn't changed—but his mouth is open, now, and his cheeks are flushed and his thin black eyebrows are rumpled together. "Hhhhhhhh," he says. "Hhhhh."
No wonder he stayed hidden for so long, if this is how he cries, Jim thinks, and he bounces the kid apologetically, looking back at Mitch and Guduza. "Look, all I know right now is…this is a prison. This is a prison for the criminally gifted. This is not the place for a child. A baby."
"Jim," Guduza begins, but the baby jerks again, and this time he doesn't relax at all. He gasps, pushes his breath out in the same hiss as before, gasps again, hisses again. Squeezes his eyes closed, and gasps, and hisses, back straight and stiff as a board.
Guduza rises. Reaches for him. Says nothing, but stares at Jim with his lips a thin line and his dark eyes blazing. The baby twists in Jim's arms, tension all through his little body, and stretches his arms out, too, reaching.
Jim doesn't move. He says, "Look—"
And the kid cuts him off with a noise that, frankly, shouldn't be possible. The kid sounds like a damn teakettle. Jim sends a swift glance at Mitch and Guduza, but they both look about as startled as he feels, so—whatever this is, it must be new.
The kid sobs in another breath, contorts his face, and cries out again, loudly enough that Jim winces, and the next time the baby inhales, it's with an undulating, oscillating scraping sound that makes all the hairs on the back of his neck stand up.
Guduza wiggles his fingers, his expression set. "Give him to me, now," he says, over the din. "See what you've done. Give him to me."
Baffled, Jim is all too happy to hand him the baby, which is still alternating between a rasping sort of warbling sound and those godawful steam-whistle shrieks.
Guduza holds him more or less upright against his shoulder, head bent to murmur in the baby's ear. Jim can hardly hear him over the racket the baby is making as he squeezes his little fists in Guduza's jumpsuit.
"Get his ankles free," Mitch says loudly, over the din. "Let him walk Blue around. It helps."
It's against protocol, but he might as well. Murderer or no, Guduza has never been violent; all his talent lies in explosives. And if such a simple solution will help quiet the crying, Jim's all for it. Better to let Guduza wander around his office than wait for all his fillings to come loose.
"Has this happened before?" he asks Mitch, as Guduza paces back and forth, murmuring, humming.
"Nope," Mitch says grimly. "But Jim, listen—he's a baby. An alien baby. He can't even walk. If he leaves here, lord knows what'll happen to him. Yes, this is a prison," he continues sharply, when Jim opens his mouth, "but he's got no rights anyway, you know that. They're still working on getting one of those outworlder cases up to the Supreme Court. We aren't liable for him. And you know this is the safest place for him. Dex and Billy 've taken a shine to him, too," and aha, Fuentes is in on this; that's how Mitch knows all this crap about the kid's rights. "Billy's started calling himself Uncle Bill, for god's sake."
Jim sighs. The infant, bouncing slowly across the room in Guduza's arms, does not sound like he's calming down at all. "How many of the guards know?"
"Most of them."
Jim pinches his nose, rubs his forehead. Fuck.
"Jim," Guduza says, with his fingers splayed warmly over the back of Blue's head. Blue is still twisting both his little hands in the orange jumpsuit and shriekwhistling. "Jim, we don't know why he's here. Who dropped him out of the sky. But he's alone. Him and Fishie. And Fishie he's smart too, maybe, Dex says. Maybe he is as smart as Blue, we don't know. And—"
"We cannot keep a baby in a prison, goddammit, the press will have a field day!"
"So we say he is unknown." Guduza's voice is firm. "We say he is dangerous. Fishie he has big teeth, maybe Blue gets fangs when they grow in. We say, contamination risk. We say he's a pet."
"A pet—"
"God dammit it don't matter what we say," Guduza snaps. "He stays. here. USA is not the only country with dangerous men in high places. South Africa, too. I know. He stays here, where he's safe, where they cannot get to him. Not until he can run himself away."
Jim stares at him. "Jesus, man, you sound like they're gonna put him in some kind of bunker."
"Lab table," is the flat reply. "Xenorganomorphic engineering or weapons design. And Fishie, he—he's a fish! What you think, he can't fight! So we say—we say Blue he's a contamination risk, Fishie he's a pet. From Earth. And they stay. Here."
"Guduza—"
"Blue here is too small to get taken by your—blackjacks, your whitecoats—whatever you say," Guduza snaps, clutching Blue against his shoulder and bouncing him. "Too small. And too smart. We—have an obligation. Keep him here. An obligation to society as a whole. Your Uncle Sam he's gonna use Blue for military work, you understand? Jim, look at your tie." To Mitch, in an undertone laced with scorn, he adds, "Two months?" and Mitch throws up his hands, shaking his head.
Jim feels at his collar. His tie is—
Huh. That's. Not the knot he knotted this morning, his standard four-in-hand. That's…loose, sort of lopsided, but it's a full or double Windsor, if it's anything. "What the…"
"Like I said," Mitch sighs. "His manual dexterity is off the charts for a kid that can't hold his head up on his own for long. It's a decent knot," he adds, grinning a little. "Better than that lopsided bullshit you always wear, anyway. Go ahead and tighten it down."
Jim still isn't convinced, but he's getting there. Against his better judgment, he keeps discussing with Mitch, trying to ignore the feeling that he's trying to talk himself into something. Guduza continues to pace in slow circles, humming to Blue, murmuring quietly in isiZulu, bouncing him as he quietens down.
Finally Jim sighs and sits back. Turns to Guduza. "Here," he says tiredly. "Let me take him again."
Guduza eyes him warily, but he moves like he's trying to settle the baby in a way that will let him change hands. Blue, on the other hand, won't even look at Jim this time—he jerks and twitches in Guduza's arms and he lets out another of those horrible kettle-whistle shrieks, clawing with his pudgy baby hands at Guduza's collar. Jim waves, signals no, never mind, and pinches his nose, trying to think.
Okay. So, this…is something that's going to happen, apparently. Apparently a group of his inmates is going to…keep? And raise? A baby. Possibly two babies, if Fuentes is right about—Fishie, or whatever his name is.
Across his desk, he hears Guduza settle slowly back into his chair. Blue is quiet, except for his gasping.
Fuck.
Well, Mitch was a pediatrician and a father and Guduza was…not, but he's gentle enough and it's clear Blue likes him. He might be good for Guduza, too; this is the most Jim's ever heard the man say in one sitting.
Fuck. Okay.
Jim sits up, scrubs both hands down his face. Guduza has his eyes closed and he's rocking again from side to side, side to side, side to side, one brown hand curled over the hairless blue skull as the infant he's holding shivers and hisses against his shoulder. Mitch is just…sitting watching him, his jaw set. He raises his eyebrows when Jim glances at him.
"Fine," Jim says. "Fine. He stays. They both do. For now. But the other one—the fish—I want to meet it, too. And if Fuentes is right—"
"Dex," says Mitch.
"—if Fuentes is right, nobody can know about that. We'll keep Blue until we can figure out what to do with him for the long term. I've got some people I need to talk to—"
"No," says Guduza.
"I've got some people I need to talk to," Jim says firmly, because the idea that they can keep a literal actual alien baby secret in a prison is ludicrous. "But the fish, okay. I won't say anything about the fish. For now. Just don't…don't get too attached."
He knows as he says it, it's useless. Mitch hasn't seen his kids in years and Guduza is obviously totally spoony over this baby. Or—these babies? Jim is going to need to take a look at that fish, for sure.
Either way, this is going to be interesting.