Chapter Text
2 weeks after the events at the border.
When they installed the device onto his ankle, Daniel screamed and screamed and screamed and screamed. Claire and Stephen had given him pills before the appointment, which he first refused to swallow before locking himself up in his room like a petulant child. That he still was. Yet he had grown so much, months of trauma carefully balanced on his shoulders.
A few hours before, Stephen had gently knocked on his door. If his grandpa had always been more accepting of his powers, Claire avoided talking about them like the plague. She usually carefully left the room, closed her eyes, and whispered a small prayer. “She’ll come around kid. Just give her time.” had said Stephen, wiping up the tears that welled up in Daniel’s eyes each time.
Sitting onto Daniel's bed with two little white pills in his hand, he whispered, “It’s my idea.” Daniel’s anger turned his face grey, and the lights flickered. “Listen, I’m not trying to sedate you. But if you blow up the entire room, they will never let you go son. We have to keep this quiet if you ever want a chance to see Sean again ok?” Tears finally started running down Daniel's face. He didn't want it to feel true. Hell, nothing this past year ever felt true. It felt like a distant nightmare, something straight out of movies. It reminded him of this weird feeling he used to get when leaving movie theatres. You enter the room during the day and leave when it's dark out. It's hard to reconnect to the real world.
The government officials hadn’t seemed to officially make the link between Daniel and the explosion at the border. He wasn’t locked up inside a room in Area 51, he wasn’t being poked and tested. Sometimes, fear wins over curiosity.
"You need to stay quiet. If you accept it without too much trouble, they’ll probably just think you’re overwhelmed. And when you’re 18, they’ll take it off without thinking much about it ok?” Stephen tried to hide the concern in his voice. He wasn’t all too convinced by on own words. What if they prevented Daniel from leaving the country altogether? What if they kept tracking his moves and actions to get him to lead them to Sean? He knew letting Daniel hope might lead to complete devastation later on, but his own hope was rubbing onto his words. And he couldn’t bear crushing Daniel’s heart once again. So he hoped and prayed, and hoped, and prayed again. Stephen gently rubbed Daniel’s head. “I know 8 years is a long time. But you’ll see the end of it. You’ll see him again.” Daniel sobbed gently, and buried his head in Stephen’s chest. “Just stay calm, and it’ll be okay.” Lies.
Daniel didn’t stay calm. He couldn’t. How could he? He had always hated rules. He was a good kid, a nice kid, a loving kid, but not an obedient kid. How could he stay calm when any hope of seeing Sean again seemed doomed? He screamed and screamed and cried again, cried until he felt like they was nothing left to cry and that no tears could never fill his eyes again. His heart twisted and twisted, his stomach shrieked. It was all wrong, it was all so wrong. He wasn’t as much of a wanderer than his brother was, yet robbing him of his freedom seemed like the end of the world. His innocence had been taken away from him. His brother had been taken from him. What more did they want?
Sitting in a grey room filled with too many policemen with worried eyes, Daniel felt like a freak. He started to understand how they had looked at Sean, with absolute disgust and hatred. He closed his fists, dug his nails inside the palm of his hands, and tried to breathe the best he could. Sean, Sean, Sean. The lights didn’t flicker. The room didn’t blow up. Daniel destroyed nothing but himself.
2 hours after the events at the border.
Sitting inside his car, Sean let the emotions bury him into the ground. He had always known that when you wish for something too much, the end result never makes up for it. He had lost so much. He felt like an old man worn down by life, scared and scarred, ready to fade away. Daniel’s smell still filled the car so Sean threw himself outside. The rocks of the Mexican desert scratched his knees, blood starting to wet his pants. He cried. He cried for everything. For Daniel, for Lyla, for Claire and Stephen, for Finn and Cassidy. He cried for Mushroom and Chris. For Esteban and Karen. But mostly, he cried for himself.
The past year, Daniel had been his lifeline. Sean had buried his grief deep inside his guts: protect Daniel, no matter what. It had allowed him to avoid thinking. It gave him purpose. It had allowed him not to break down. And without his baby brother, there was no hiding from himself anymore. He had to face what he had done, what he had lost. All the things he had yet to do and to feel and to face.
It took him an entire hour to calm down before he was woken up by the scorching heat starting to burn his face. He stood up and lit a cigarette, the filter moist and mushy from his remaining tears.
He got up and drove. He had stopped counting the miles. All he knew how to do anymore was to drive.
Puerto Lobos was… disappointing to say the least. He couldn’t help but feel the bitterness fill up his lungs, mixed with sadness, hatred, and cigarette smoke. He parked his car next to their father’s house. It was run down and abandoned, but it was somewhere. It was something.
He wondered if one day he'd officially own the house. He wondered if he ever could get an ID. He knew he was a Mexican national, but he was also a 17 year old boy on the run with an international warrant on his head.
He walked on the beach and lit up another cigarette. He had started to appreciate the heat during his time in Nevada and Arizona, but sometimes found himself missing the trees and fresh breeze of Washington. He tried not to think about it. It hurt too much. The thought of never setting foot in the United States again brought him to tears. He was uprooted from everything he knew. Hearing Spanish spoken around him felt too… foreign, too sad when it wasn’t his father’s soft voice telling him stories about his homeland. It wasn’t Sean's home. Yet.