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Chapter Text

Solomon had never been a very adventurous boy. He’d grown up in Louisiana, bouncing between the outskirts of Hammond and the heart of Honey Island while under the care of his mother and close family-friend, Lancaster. What little he remembered of his childhood was kept straight under the might of his mother’s wooden spoon and Lancasters’ educational study programs. It wasn’t much, but it was so much more than what the other kids in his neighborhood received. Besides, it kept him out of trouble.

It also helped kick-start his passion for the sciences. The non-environmental side of science. Actual, real science that extended past things like soil quality and erosion. Solomon found that he enjoyed working with his hands.  Enjoyed being elbow deep in wire coil and blistering circuitry. The satisfaction of a machine humming to life beneath his fingertips. Solomon still thought fondly of his first computer. It had been built from a kit. That computer had also provided him with an escape.

Despite his own mother’s belief in the supernatural, and Lancaster’s study of cryptid biology, he’d simply never taken to the flare of his ‘magical’ state. Solomon held no interest in the occult. His mother found it horribly ironic. It had been a spot of contention between the both of them for the longest. Solomon was more than aware that his home state was considered a supernatural hotspot. He’d just never fed into the gimmicky attractions that lined the more prominent buildings around New Orleans. Most of what was advertised was simple tourism. Nothing more, nothing less. It was all a quick cash grab.  

Perhaps that was why he struggled to open himself up to what was beyond the boundaries of accepted science. Cryptids themselves rode that precarious line. They were creatures that shouldn’t—couldn’t—exist but did anyway. Even then, they could be explained in a way that made sense. It was all about biology, natural selection, mutations in breeding. Perfectly understandable, logical things.

And then he met Drew Blackwell. They’d met sometime in their sophomore year of college. At the time, he’d thought she was incorrigible. He could say that with sincerity as she had sat next to him for the entire semester that they’d taken that one off elective about the Southern Mesopotamia.

Drew was eccentric, to put it plainly.

Solomon had assumed her constant tardiness stemmed from some lackadaisical attitude towards education. He had never seen her with any supplies except for a blue pen, which stayed tucked behind her ear. If she bothered to write notes on any given day they’d appear on her forearms or on a crumpled receipt she’d pull out of her jean pockets.

He couldn’t decide if it was cute or careless.

Solomon might have extended the olive branch by offering a spare sheet of looseleaf, but Drew was the one to nurture their relationship into something greater.  It was overwhelming. She came and went like a whirlwind. Nothing could keep her captivated for long.

Drew was larger than life.

And yet, she chose him.

She chose Solomon Saturday. An African American with an accent strong enough to make even the most accepting of people give him a wide berth. Drew looked at him and saw past his quiet, stoic attitude and decided he was worth her while. She was one of the few that were interested in him for something other than the thrill of pissing off her relatives. Or his deep pockets—not that she had been aware of the sizable trust fund he’d come to inherit. No, it was his ‘big brain’ that she fell in love with. And his kindness. Mostly his kindness. Or so she said. He didn’t think he was very kind before Drew entered his life.

She made him want to be, though.

In a world where everything was cut-and-dry, she made him want to step outside of the cookie-cutter life he’d decided for himself. It terrified him. He was in-line to graduate as valedictorian. He planned to return home with a bachelor’s degree in engineering. A minor in biology.

Solomon threw it all away in a heartbeat.

Oh, he still got that degree. With a fiancée attached. He never did return home, though.

After Drew, he knew Louisiana would never satisfy him the way it did when he left. Maybe they could have made a life there. It would have been an easy one. A lifetime with minimal strife or hardship. Drew wouldn’t have complained. She wouldn’t have been truly happy though. Louisiana wasn’t magical. It was stifling and afraid of change. The people moved too sluggishly to keep Drew content. People didn’t go to Louisiana to make a life—they went to drink themselves to death and settle unknown into the countryside.

And, well, Solomon wanted to live. He wanted to see everything with Drew. The mountains she grew up in; the rolling dunes of the Sahara; the lush jungles of the South American continent. He wanted to experience the world. More than that, Solomon wanted to be a part of the one she lived in. He wanted to find out for himself just what Drew saw in the crumbling ruins of the past civilizations she’d doodled in the margins of her borrowed notebook papers.

He pictured a life of adventure. Nothing less would suit her. When he proposed—midnight exhaustion, finals, Chinese take-away—he imagined a life of challenge. A push and pull between the two of them as they found the middle ground of their beliefs. An intellectual who not only matched his own wit but could leave him baffled by the extent of her own. Nothing about what they had could be described as easy. He loved her for it. Each sunrise led them to something new.

Fresh from college and recently eloped. Nothing but the future ahead of them. It felt too easy. Fun. A taste of eternity with his wife. With someone who was a little bit of the both them.

Looking back on it all left a sour taste in his mouth.

He had grown lax. Complacent. Drew had overwhelmed him completely. Entirely seduced him into a state of arrogance. With her by his side he felt invincible. It felt like they had never left behind that honeymoon stage in their relationship. Like they were still that lonely boy and larger than life girl sharing a summer elective.

Their son—their pride and joy— paid the price for it. Their tiny little boy that took the best from them and hid the worst. A boy that tried to walk in shoes far too big for his feet. Solomon was just the good-for-nothing father that let him. He thought that he could protect his boy.  He should have known better.

The world was too wide for that.

Zak took after his mother in the worst ways. If she was a tempest, then her son would be a forest fire. A great, roaring fire. He was insatiable. Reckless. Energy personified. Nothing would have stopped him. He grew bright and strong until he, too, felt larger than life. Impossible to contain. Solomon couldn’t bear to lock him away. He’d never been able to say no to Zak. He had no reason to.

Solomon and Drew had the world. When they gave it to their son, it swallowed him whole. It was inevitable. Too much too soon.

Solomon charged the defibrillator.

Zak’s heartbeat had been a miniscule, fluttering thing when they pulled him from the depths of the Weird World rubble. Solomon thought it would have stopped altogether during the frantic scramble back to the airship. And yet, Zak persevered. His grip on life was a stubborn, tenuous thing.

There wasn’t room for error.

“Clear.”

Solomon charged the defibrillator, again.

They’d survived the impossible before. They could do it again. Solomon just had to hold out for one more miracle.

It was funny how far he’d come. Believing in miracles.

There was a time when he wouldn’t have held his breath waiting for a miracle.

“Clear.” He recharged the defibrillator.

Now it was all he could do.

Solomon’s hands shook as he lowered the defibrillator again.

The sharp shock of electricity echoed in the silence of the infirmary. He couldn’t keep going. It wasn’t working. The heartrate monitor didn’t display any promising signs of recovery. In fact, the graph had gone eerily still. The last non-aided, irregular pulse had died down mere seconds before Solomon had delivered the final shock. Even so, he couldn’t force his hands to detangle from the machine. Surely, if he just tried one more time—.

His eyes burned.

Solomon couldn’t hesitate. He needed to continue administering treatment. Luck had always been on their side. It couldn’t ignore them now when they needed it the most. That wasn’t fair. Zak had done nothing to earn an early grave. He was a good boy. Gentle and kind in the way Drew thought Solomon could be. No one, not monsters, thugs, or scientists could say otherwise. Not when his son looked at their wrongly directed anger and fear and blamed himself.

That was what made Solomon’s blood boil the most.

Somewhere along the line their closest friends had become the greatest threat to his son. Their peers had taken one look at the boy they’d known since infancy and thought he was capable of world-wide warfare. They had ignored nearly two decades worth of trust and association over a myth generated hundreds of years ago. A myth that Drew and Solomon had propagated themselves.

A decade of searching for Kur. A year of denying that they ever existed. A day to kill them.

‘Kur’ was twelve when he died.

Awfully young for a legend.

Solomon inhaled.

Funny how fast twelve years seemed to fly by. Solomon wondered why he didn’t cherish the time when he’d had it. He’d become so accustomed to Zak being around that he’d never imagined a time without him. Zak was a known, safe constant. An extroverted soul that warmed what was left of Solomon’s social reluctance. Certainly, he could always depend on Zak to be running amuck underfoot. Didn’t matter if it was by handing him tools in the lab or assisting in cryptid rehabilitation halfway across the equator. He could never understand how much goodness could fit into someone so small.

Small.

 Zak had been so small when Solomon first held him. His barely developed lungs had more than overcompensated for the fragile form Solomon got to cradle in his palms. Those first wails had struck a chord in him that had never been replicated. His heart ached from the sheer amount of love he held for the child he created. And then—and then, those little squinted eyes looked at him like Solomon was something great. Like he was the center of the universe and the stars and everything that reached beyond what his brain was capable of comprehending. That’s when Solomon knew that he’d never be the same. He could tell that even from such a young age his Zak would be something special. A bravehearted and surefooted boy. Solomon’s greatest achievement.

He had been so sure that Zak would grow into something great. Extraordinary. 

Zak would never get that chance, now.

His hold on the defibrillator faltered. The device clattered against the cool tile beneath his feet. Solomon didn’t hear when it shattered. It was hard to hear anything over the rush of blood in his ears. Or the shrill scream of the machine connected to his son. Then again, it wasn’t the only thing screaming.

Solomon felt tired as he glanced back at his wife. She was half curled against her brother. Her face completely hidden away in his tangled hair. Drew couldn’t have been closer to him if she tried. Doyle didn’t seem to mind it. Then again, Doyle didn’t seem entirely present, either. His hands were loosely placed around her back and hip. His arms twitched and flexed but his face remained stiff. Solomon wondered where he tried to escape to. Something close to pity bloomed in Solomon’s chest. Grief had almost made Doyle look young.

The eerie screech generated from the heart monitor flatlining continued. No one wanted to unplug the machine. Solomon dug his fingers into the bridge of his nose. The room was captured in limbo. There were no words exchanged.

Solomon glanced at the clock.

Time of death— 9:45 p.m.

Just a little after bedtime. Wasn’t that something?

He pressed the palm of his hand into his lame eye. Solomon pretended that he wasn’t on the verge of tears. How was he supposed to move on from a grief so fresh, so all-encompassing it felt like he died too?

His son was dead at twelve years old.

Zakariah Saturday died at 9:45 on a Thursday night and Solomon would never recover from it.

Chapter Text

Death greeted Zak Saturday like an old friend.

It felt akin to being swaddled. He’d been plucked out of his fleshy container and freed from the burrowing cold that had frozen him slowly from the inside out. Zak welcomed the feeling.

Fire cradled his torn and battered body. The flames were harsh but radiant. They scorched him down to the marrow. It was refreshing. Rejuvenating. He was being burned away. A fresh slate for new growth.

It was a familiar sensation. He felt surprisingly tethered. Not adrift for the first time in—

Too much. He didn’t want to think about that.

The fire exhaled. Zak opened his lungs. Orange. Spicy on his tongue. He wasn’t alone; he’d never been alone.

There was something— someone, there with him. They lived inside of his ribcage. Tender fingers had held his heart while it beat. Strong breath had fueled his own.

Breathing, living, coexisting. One individual. Fractured but always with him. Never apart. Always unknown.

They made him feel strong. Whole. Complete.

Zak knew who it was. It was him. The Saturday boy. The monster. The scourge.

The individual he tried to kill for the subjective greater good.

He’d done the right thing, hadn’t he? It was necessary. For the better he was gone. And yet—

They were mourning their own death.

They didn’t want to die.

Chapter Text

Recycled air was stale. It tasted just a little bit sweeter than normal too. Not all that dissimilar to Fruit Loops. That was the first thing he’d thought about when he woke up. His nostrils flared as his first instinct was to greedily drink down as much of the stuff as possible. To his unresponsive systems it was pure concentrated gasoline rushing down his raw esophagus. He surged forward. Pain lit up every nerve and synapse in his body. Clumsy, near unresponsive fingers had wrapped around his throat out of their own volition. It was too much. The air was too sterile for his dried-out mouth to cope with. It stung his chapped lips and burned against his cracked tongue. A coughing fit like he’d never experienced wracked through his diaphragm and left a thick mixture pooling in his mouth.

Pennies.

The taste of copper coated the back of his teeth. It stuck like a film and made the sides of his mouth feel rubbery. Death concentrated in the back of his throat. The stench was vile. Had he escaped death, or had it followed him back? Did it really matter in the end? No, he decided as his diaphragm spasmed. The action had let off sparks of pain that traveled down to his feet. They were numb. Freezing, too.

Zak felt sick all over again. That clinging, putrid taste was magnified by reawakening tastebuds. Sickness rolled and tumbled throughout his digestive system just thinking about it. He gagged. There was nothing in his stomach available for regurgitating. Even if there was, he doubted the digestive fluids would have made it past his constricted throat. Soft, steady inhales and long exhales made sickness subside even if only momentarily. Unfortunately, the underlying migraine didn’t get the memo. It stayed pulsating at the base of his skull and left him squeezing his eyes shut tight. Blinking tear coated lashes did little good to help him out. The world around him was engulfed in bright fluorescent lighting. Fresh tears sprung along his waterline as he scrambled to get his bearings. Which was easier said than done. The room around him refracted oddly due to the fluid draining from his eyes. It made it look kaleidoscopic. Distant, but consistently spiraling. Not to mention that everything felt like it was cranked up by a million. Kind of like his brain was waking up— just really, really fast. Much faster than he could keep up with.

Ugh. It was all too bright. Too loud. Too much. The sensations came at him in waves. Once, but near incomprehensible. Twice, distant. On the third pass came vertigo. It was all very isolated. His brain experiencing everything his sluggish body was incapable of.

Even the blanket that had been thrown over the top of his thighs felt too heavy once he realized it was there. Itchy, too. Each individual fiber pricked against his palms. It grated against him in a way he could never remember feeling before.

The vertebrae of his spine groaned loud enough for Zak to pick up on when he exhaled. They sluggishly popped one by one as he rolled his shoulders. Everything felt sore. He’d be willing to bet his body had formed into one massive bruise. It was awful. Zak wanted nothing more than to lay back down on the firm mattress and go to sleep. Not that it would be hard. Heavy lids came closer to shutting for good with each blink. Just five more minutes would do him a world of good, surely.

Scratch that. Zak would never be able to get to sleep with that grotesque squealing. It sounded like a microwave or maybe a fire alarm. It made his brain squirm with each piercing shriek. He’d give anything for it stop. Anything to make the pain go away quicker.

“Uh, Professor?”

Zak winced. Noisy. Somebody needed to control their volume. Didn’t they understand his head was pounding? He reached up slowly. His fingertips lightly skimmed over his brows before burrowing into his hair. Pushing his palms into his temples was an act of patience. He moved slowly, gently to not invoke another blistering wave of pain. Slippery. The calloused pads of his fingers fumbled to grab at his lank, greasy hair. Something oozed over his skin. It didn’t slip past his hairline, but he felt the smaller, downy hairs knot.  

Through his closed eyes he could make out a shift in light intensity. Someone had got closer. Maybe they all had. Difficult to tell. Heat blossomed through his sinuses. The headache previously isolated at the back of his skull rolled until it sat prominently behind his eyes.

“I’m no doctor, but I don’t think that—.” What were they talking about? Zak couldn’t concentrate long enough to contextualize. “Should be possible.”  

“Who cares about what’s possible! Doc, he’s…” Zak hunched inward. It didn’t pacify him as much as he’d hoped. Being tucked so tightly into himself only served to amplify the frantic sound of his heartbeat. In his ears the whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, pounded irregularly. It echoed twice more. Flickered in time with each breath. Thick pressure from his shoulders dug into his jaw and cheek. He really wished they’d give him some space. He shouldn’t feel like his own skin was trying to suffocate him. It wasn’t normal. None of what he was experiencing was normal.

A smaller ruckus, “Wait, don’t—!” Warmth crushed against him. Thick rolling muscle gave him no chance to escape or break contact. Coarse fur brushed against the exposed skin of his chin and cheeks. The smell of ichor, wild pine, and fresh smoke ticked against his nose. It soothed him. Fisk. His rebooting brain provided. Fiskerton soothed him. Zak couldn’t resist the urge to bury himself in the matted pelage that cushioned him. Fisk had acted as a barrier against the abrasiveness of the infirmary. Just being close to his brother made him feel better. More alert, even. Before Fisk crushed him into a bone-shattering hug, he felt frayed. Only vaguely half aware of the aches and pains in his body. It had threatened to consume him. To drag him to the depths of unconsciousness once more, but Fisk… Fisk had taken some of the pain away. He had replaced it with the perception of another. Zak was reminded that he wasn’t alone. He was quick to tuck the connection they shared beneath his ribs where it would remain safe. It thawed the remaining chill clinging to his bones.

“I’m here, Fisk.” He murmured low into his brother’s fur. “I’m here.”

Fiskerton babbled nonsensically above him. A low rumble like purr vibrated from the Lemurians sternum and disappeared into the kinked hair on Zak’s head. Reluctantly they broke apart. Zak squinted at his family. The orange and black of their jumpsuits rendered slowly. He wasn’t sure what to say. He didn’t expect to see any of them again. When he followed Argost into the bowels of Weird World that was supposed to be the end of it. Zak had assumed that he’d have been too close to the disturbance caused by the joining of matter and anti-matter to even recover his body. Heh. It was really surprising he still had a body. Particle science was nasty stuff. Death was oddly kind in comparison. Not that he remembered dying. Just horrendous, soul crushing pain. Then nothing. Being revived had renewed the pain he felt before his death—even if only briefly. It had made him terribly anxious. Zak had almost believed he was still down there. Still writhing in the maw of Weird World desperately hoping his theory was correct. Hoping that nobody else would get hurt.

Of course, he had known what Argost intended to do. Zak had encouraged it, even. He had been connected to the Yeti the way he was connected to every other cryptid on the globe. Zak had known Argost almost intimately. His wants, his desires, and his sick, twisted, affections. Somewhere along the line the Yeti had genuinely grown fond of him. If he honestly thought about it—and, well, he really didn’t want to—maybe he’d have to admit something ugly about himself, too.

He was thankful that the connection between them had operated like a one-way street. Zak could feel Argost, but not vice versa. Those emotions, those feelings—they had to go somewhere. Originally, Zak had ignored them. He stuffed them down as far as he could and tried to pretend that he didn’t like the way Argost gave him a purpose. The façade quickly crumbled. They were locked in a constant push and pull. A struggle for power. Control. It felt exhilarating. The sheer force of his ability had become unruly in his excitement. It felt good to let loose. Too good. It made him feel like a fraud. Like he was just another V.V. Argost, parading around in a false skin and advertising himself as the good guy.

In the weeks leading up to The War his false righteousness had become all too apparent. He had pushed away the closest people he had to friends. He ignored everyone in favor of listening to the enemy. He had brought his own family to the brink of destruction. All because of his own ego. His pride, his arrogance, all of it!

Zak had become someone he hated. A leak had developed inside of him that allowed his miserable attitude to infect his family. For every step forward he took, the rest marched five steps back. Doyle had slunk back to those scummy, criminal underbellies just to get crumbs of information. Fisk had dealt with weeks of abuse towards his self-esteem as Zak had ignored both his advice and protection. Even his parents had felt the tension he’d bled out and acted in a way that tore Zak up from the inside out. They’d been running on fumes since Antarctica and never really got the chance to refill. Zak was their priority; everything else came second, themselves included. It really got to them. His mom especially.

Once the cat was out of the bag about Argost and what he’d done… it was like he didn’t even know her anymore. She had become so driven to inflict her justice onto the Yeti as a form of petty payback. She knew better than to think it would avenge his grandparents or erase what had happened to them. She was hurt and had looked for the simplest conclusion. Getting even wouldn’t have fixed anything, it would have been a temporary balm—the wound would have continued to fester underneath. If anything, it would have only hurt her more. The monks who raised her in the monastery had taught her that all life was precious. Even regarding creatures like Argost who proved to be wicked and cruel.

There was no judgment to be held against an individual if they were viewed with unkind eyes. Zak knew that much. His mom had been the one to educate him about it. She’d passed down the teachings she herself had been taught. It created a connection between the two of them and her childhood. One that filled the void of childhood homes and scrapbooks. He’d never regretted sitting in on a lesson. The past twenty-four hours only reaffirmed his opinion of that— though, to be fair, neither of them could have known he’d apply those lessons to a downright despicable individual like Argost. Still, those carefully hoarded afternoons tucked away in his mother’s library had served him well. Delivering a fair judgment against a wicked person like Argost was a difficult task. Zak had to be unbiased despite the scary situation. Despite the knowledge of all the damage he’d dealt. Any personal, lingering feelings would only serve to sway a focused hand. Everything had to be examined thoroughly. The good. The bad. The ugly. Neither his mother nor his uncle had the capability to do so. They had only ever known him as what he appeared to be.

But Zak…

Zak knew Argost first as an entertainer. Then as a rival. Soon after, a fraud. To call him a monster wouldn’t be ill-fitting, but it wasn’t suitable, either. A monster was only one word in a much longer list, really. He’d know. Personally. After all, despite the horror V.V. Argost dealt, he was still a living, breathing person. He had dreams. Ambitions both large and small. He was a capable mentor. The Yeti sought destruction—but he also had a steady hand. He carried a patience that many would never come to understand. He was able to nurture just as well as he could manipulate.

He was just as flawed as Zak himself.

In turn, he was just as revered, too.

His show Weird World had touched so many across the globe. Zak had enjoyed it himself. Argost captivated those intrigued by the bizarre. He provided comfort for so many. Maybe he’d even saved a few.

So, yeah. Maybe Zak didn’t intend to come back, but the decision wasn’t made lightly. They’d already lost Van Rook. Zak wouldn’t risk losing anyone else. Not when the ‘problem’ had such a simple, fair conclusion. It would be an equal trade. A life for a life. Kur for Kur. 

He didn’t know how to say that in a way that his family could understand.

“What a day, am I right?” Zak said lamely. His fingers flexed. He couldn’t unbend them.

Nothing. Not a peep. His attempt to break the ice faltering the moment his voice cracked. None of them looked conversation ready. None of them were okay. They looked devastated. Like he was still dead.

Zak was a ghost looking in on a moment that wasn’t his to witness.

It was wrong.

Anxiety-inducing.

“Guys? I’m—it’s okay! We won. Didn’t we?” And wasn’t that a thought. He talked a big game of sacrifice and the greater good but what if? He had come back. So, maybe Argost did, too. Maybe all the grief and soul searching were for nothing. Yeah, that would be just his luck.

A ragged inhale caught his ear. Mom. She’d been pressed against his uncle like he was the only thing real in the room. Even now her hand stayed fisted in the fabric of his vest. Zak was rendered speechless at the sight of her. She’d always been fair—her hair, her eyes, her skin—but in that moment she was near pallid. Almost corpse-like in her slow shambling. She was shaky on her feet and when she pitched forward it felt like she fell in slow motion. It took nearly every dreg of energy Zak recovered to catch her in time. Mom half-collapsed onto the gurney and held him hard enough to coax new bruises into existence.

Short puffs of hot air left his neck clammy. Tears soaked into his shirt. He resisted the urge to squirm out of her grip. Guilt saturated his tongue leaving it tied up. Thick. Useless. What do you even say to someone after waking up post-mortem?

“Mom? C’mon, say something will you? I’m freaking out here.” Speaking hurt. His jaw cracked audibly. Painfully. Even his teeth rattled. The vibrations sung out through his canines.

Zak didn’t want to feed into the atmosphere. Not when it made him feel so icky. It was fine. Everything was fine! He was supposed to be fine. He had just wanted to put the entire thing behind them. Because if they didn’t—

“Yeah. Yeah, we won. But you— You uh… you were gone for a second there, little-man.” Doyle scratched at his jaw looking terribly uncomfortable, “Three minutes, actually.” Zak inhaled sharply.

Stop. He didn’t want to hear about it. He didn’t want to think about it.

If they actually talked about it—

“We thought that we’d lost you. For good.” His dad said just barely loud enough to hear. He stood, hovering just beyond the edge of the bed. Zak avoided his eyes. He looked at him like he was trying to memorize every freckle and feature Zak owned.

—then that meant it was real.

Zak had been so scared when he followed Argost. He had only found the strength to do so because he knew— he knew— that his family could clean up the mess he left behind. It had been the right thing to do! But it had felt so wrong.

Even though his mind had been made up, his body continued to struggle. He had thrashed and fought off the influence of the flute for as long as he could. He had been hoping, praying, that someone—didn’t matter who, mom or dad, Beeman, Rani Naga—anyone would save him. That someone would come before it was all over. He didn’t want to die, but more so than that—

He didn’t want to die alone.

Pinpricks traveled up and down his spine. Every second the clock ticked down felt like borrowed time. No matter how hard he wished for it, time’s arrow wouldn’t stop. It marched on unsympathetically.

“It had to be done.” He shuddered, “Argost would never settle for a fair fight. He’d run, and run, and take out whatever or whoever was in his path.” Zak babbled. Words he wanted to admit on the edge of his tongue. They were too sour, too raw to disclose freely. “He had to be stopped. No matter what.”

Zak looked away from the unblinking faces. Jagged nails picked at a loose hangnail. Messy crescents cut into his palm. Grit sat packed beneath his fingernail and hung tightly around his cuticles. It would take forever to dig it all out. Zak flexed his hands. The left one was sore. Blistered, actually. A long stripe traveled from the plush of intuition to the coast of the headline. He never paid attention to palm readings before. He wondered if that meant anything. Zak bit his lip and carefully folded his hands back into the plush of the blanket. The grip around his torso lightened slightly. Zak held his breath.

“Not at the cost of you, baby.” His mom finally picked her head up. Red saturated her pale features. Her eyes, her cheeks, the bite in her lip. Splotchy came to mind. “Never you. That wasn’t a decision for you to make. I— Zak, what were you thinking? Did you know when you were following him—?”

Doyle recoiled, “Drew, he wouldn’t have—!”

“Wouldn’t he?” She bit back though her eyes never left Zaks’ own. “Zak, I don’t know when you started thinking that… I don’t know what we did to make you feel— I just don’t know what to say.” Zak couldn’t face her. Shame sat hot across his face. “Why would you ever think that was the solution?”

The conversation was everything he’d dreaded. To tell the truth—a paraphrased version at that—still felt like too much. Like cracking open floodgates. Once those opened, Zak didn’t know if he’d be able to close them. There was too much built up. They’d drown. But it was tempting. So, so tempting. Especially when his mom held him close enough to hear the frantic rhythm of her heartbeat. It was strong. A reminder that she was here, okay. No longer held at the length of her own sword. Not bent over the body of her first love. Alive and strong. Strong enough that Zak felt like she could take on all of his problems and then the world too. Would it really be that bad to be truthful? Just a little couldn’t hurt. Zak figured they’d deserved at least that much.

“I didn’t… I just thought—” Zak stuttered. His mouth opened and closed but he couldn’t bring himself to speak. He didn’t understand why speaking was so hard. It should be easy. Instead, he had to make do with the pain that lanced through his chest. The blanket across his lap blurred. Blue dimmed to gray. Zak couldn’t concentrate at all. He floated high above it all. False snow pelted his exposed skin. Airship, Antarctica. They felt the same. The phantom weight of the Kur Relic heavy in his sweaty palms. Zak wished Doyle never saw it. Hated that he insisted on relying on it. On putting it back together. Zak felt horrible. He wished he never got revived. The thought made him gasp aloud. When had he started wanting to stop existing? When did the easiest answer become the first solution? “I’m sorry.” He sobbed uncontrollably. Zak never thought like that before.

Fat tears blinded him. He was sure that he had to be vibrating the bed with the force of his tremors. It was embarrassing. All he had managed to do was make a fool of himself. No matter how hard he tried, the tears continued to fall. Zak wished they’d stop looking at him. All he wanted to do was curl up and disappear. Not that it was possible considering the fierce vice grip on his arms. Still, he could try. Bony knees climbed into his chest as he shoved his face as far into his hands as possible.

“Honey,” Pressure faded from his arms. Nimble fingers soothed strands of his hair away from the hold of his own hands. “Shh—shhh,” His mom cooed as she tucked him closer. She pulled him as far into her lap as she was able and began to rock. His left side became pinned against her body. Zak wasted no time in moving his face from his knee to her neck. It only made him cry harder. “Zak. I’m sorry. It’s okay.” She sighed. “We don’t have to talk about it right now. I’m sorry.” She whispered close to his ear, “I was so scared I’d lost you, baby. Just— not again, okay? Never again.”

Strong arms encompassed them both. The subtle scent of antiseptic burned his nose. Even so, it felt wonderful. Zak didn’t need to open his eyes to see that his father loomed over them. No one else could so fully surround them. Make them feel as safe. Zak leaned into it by pressing against the palm held firm against his back. Those hands were so big. So gentle. Those hands had protected him for so long. They had nursed him back to health on sick days and tucked him in when the nights got dark.

“Never again.” Dad agreed solemnly. A kiss was pressed on to his brow, “But… for what it’s worth, you did a very hard thing, Zak. I don’t condone what you did, but I am proud of you, son.”

Oddly enough, that made him cry harder.

“Yeah.” Doyle chimed in from his perch at the foot of the bed. His hands were clenched into tight fists and left tucked into his armpits. He looked askew. Like he wanted to come closer, but also vanish from sight at the same time. Zak related. “You were awesome today, kid. Really.” His uncle sighed before reaching over to ruffle his hair. What little of it he could. There wasn’t much real estate being as squished as he was between his parents. “Just, listen to your parents on this one. Okay?”

Zak managed to laugh as Fiskerton adamantly agreed with Doyle. He didn’t know how to feel about the last twenty-four hours. It was still a lot. And he was almost positive his parents would bring the whole… ‘Weird World' thing up again—but even so, just being around them made the whole thing seem a little more bearable. A little easier to swallow. Regardless, Zak wondered. He wondered about the Secret Scientists and their next move. He wondered about the invaded cities and what damage might have been dealt. He wondered about the second heart beating beneath his own.

It was almost unnoticeable. Maybe it didn’t even exist. Maybe he was just crazy.

For some reason he had the strangest thought that he didn’t come back alone. That he brought something back with him. Something scary. Something special. It had to be all in his head. What could he have even encountered? A ghost? Yeah right. Still, he couldn’t shake the feeling that something was off— out of place.

He blinked. Doyle had gotten closer. Pins and needles skated down his veins as his legs spasmed. While he wanted to assume that Doyle was gearing up to hug it out, it seemed increasingly unlikely. Instead, he gaped. His hand hovered over the exposed sliver of Zaks face.

“Hey, so are you going to put those eyes away or is there something I’m missing?” He smirked, “Clean up detail is already enroute. We don’t have to worry about Godzilla taking out Tokyo anymore.” A pause. His parents leaned back. Hands slim and thick alike caressed the sides of his face prying him further into their examination.

Sickness crawled back into his chest.

“What’s wrong with my eyes?”

Zak was ignored.

“Is he still using—?” His mom murmured as her thumb grazed his bottom lid. It was too close for his comfort, but he refrained from pulling away. He held onto the abating fuzzy feeling for as long as he could. It was his family. Not the Secret Scientists. Zak was still safe.

“No,” Dad replied. He pulled a penlight out of his utility belt, “I don’t think so. No glow, see? The pupil—”

“Dilating.” Doyle interrupted. “That’s, uh, probably not good. Right?”

Mom held him tighter. Her hair cascaded over his shoulder and tickled his ear, “It’s okay, honey. Nothing is wrong. Nothing is bad.” She glared at Doyle. “We just… we need to know what happened. Do you think you could tell us? Whatever you’re comfortable with. Okay?”

“A check-up may be more conclusive. Why don’t you go get him cleaned up while I take care of things here.” Dad reluctantly let them go. He never broke eye contact. “It’s okay, Zak. It’s over.” His dad spoke with finality. Zak wasn’t sure why.

Fear was still palpable in the air. They didn’t believe that. He didn’t believe that. They had spent too long preparing for the worst. Running from the worst. They weren’t ready to stop yet. Maybe they genuinely couldn’t. And, yet again, Zak found himself in the epicenter.

“I know.” He lied.

Chapter Text

Grief was an old friend. It was deceptive in her youth, stagnant and unyielding on its arrival. Rage was the shape it adapted. It became the hate that cultivated within Drew’s heart. She’d nurtured it when she was young and alone in that monastery. It was the only thing that kept her warm when she thought about the cold, unforgiving slopes of the Himalayas. Rage had been a wild thing once reared. Fickle and irrational. She wouldn’t deny that nasty, unkind feelings had spilled over occasionally. Her caretakers at the monastery bore the brunt of it, her rage—her— with patience. No matter how much she bawled, screamed, or lashed out they were sympathetic. The monks had held her hand after each tantrum and asked her to walk them through what she felt. In time, she learned that hate was exhausting. By then, grief had bypassed denial. It had burnt up anger. She was left directionless. The experience with the complex emotion tempered her.

Meditation helped. The easy affection of her caretakers helped too. Even so, she felt cursed. Happiness was fleeting for her in Tibet. Drew couldn’t find it in herself to be content. Not when grief continued to lurk around the corner. It loomed, really. Grief was as grand as Everest itself. It was just as biting as the cold that teased her cheeks and nipped her feet. Being in relative proximity to the mountain range was the greatest challenge for her as a teenager. She often wondered if she would have found her family if she’d just looked a little longer, a little harder.

When those thoughts had become self-destructive Drew buried herself in the limited studies available to her at the monastery. The library had been something of a sanctuary. Her grasp on Tibetan was conversational at best back then— it was rectified, eventually. It came at the cost of her mother language. With no one to share a conversation with, her native language slipped from her tongue like creek minnows escaped the twine net. It was a necessary loss. One that she understood but felt fearful over. She’d attempted to practice any language she came across following the startling realization.

She’d learned all she could and then some more.

The books that had piled from floor to ceiling explored a great many fantastic subjects that she wouldn’t have looked twice at before the ‘accident’. Tomes as thick as her torso and as tiny as the dormouse were devoured. Nothing was spared from her escapism. She learned about sprouting wells and geographical divide. She learned about herbology and tracking wild game. She even learned about the stars and the stories written within them. The latter were the books she’d dog-eared twice-over, snuck into her room, and guarded zealously. Entire civilizations were crafted out of stardust! They were universal, mostly, shifted slightly to the left, but chiefly alike all the same. It was comforting to learn about the mythological guardians that were immortalized within the heavens.

The tall tales were interesting enough to pass the time. Just not interesting enough to keep an anxious young adult preoccupied for long. She was lonely and the simple words in bound-books, looseleaf, and scrolls couldn’t fix the hunger for real flesh or conversation. There wasn’t much for her to relate to in that hidden-away sanctuary. Drew needed something more. Something intangible. Something that the devoted fellowship couldn’t provide.

The monks understood, bless them.

She’d never know how the brotherhood organized the funds to send her to America. They never told and they never accepted reimbursement. Drew was shipped off with little more than the second-hand tunic and ill-fitting male trousers she’d loaned from one of the brothers.

Grief returned to her then, fresh. Alone in a foreign country for the second time in her short life. It was awful at first. The English she’d studied in the months before her flight hadn’t prepared her for the odd ins-and-outs of a still developing language. Drew was deaf to the hip acronyms, the pop-culture references, and slang terms for everyday items. None of them made sense to her. And, unlike the temple, peace and quiet were a rarity. The dorms were rambunctious and envious. Establishing relationships was difficult and rife with misunderstanding. Most of her afternoons were spent crying.

None of that ever made it into the letters sent back home.

Time passed.

Drew adapted.

She excelled in her classes not because she was good at them, but because she couldn’t afford to lose her scholarships. They covered her residency and not much more. The part-time occupancy she picked up at the local convenient store covered a fraction of her external expenses. Drew could pay for the remaining balance of her semester with the money she made. Sometimes a little of the balance would transfer to the next quarter and she’d pay it off then. Sometimes she could pay it off immediately. The American payroll was weird. And fluctuating.

Tips helped, though not always. Drew remained grateful though because receiving tips meant that she could afford to rent secondhand textbooks. Or the use the quarter laundry. Or purchase fresh vegetables.

Vegetables were oddly expensive.

Prepackaged noodles and canned sausage were not.

Drew was told that was the standard college experience.

She felt guilty for hating it.

And then she met Leonidas during an odd graveyard shift. Leonidas was a man with a grease slick mullet and self-professed love of second-hand thrift stores. He understood her plight. Sympathized with her and cursed American merchant-capitalism with every breath. America was a fine place, he admitted. Not the kindest to foreigners or the poor, he’d told her between sips of a stale carbonated beverage. Most places weren’t though, he’d continue minutes later. Drew learned that he was an international student at the same college as her. Leonidas didn’t have a scholarship like she did. He told her earnestly that he sunk further into debt the longer he remained at their institution. It was unlikely that he’d be able to pay back the loan in a singular lifetime. That particular conversation took place over fast food at a restaurant called Burger King. It was the first time she’d eaten out in America. Leonidas paid for it.

Drew thought what they had was love. It had certainly felt like it when he walked her back to her dorm after their nice outing. He hadn’t held her hand or kissed her cheek like she’d seen some dates do from outside of her window, but she didn’t mind. His company meant the world and more. They’d spent hours talking to each other between classes. It was fun to cut her teeth practicing American sarcasm and innuendo with him. For the first time that she could remember, she had a meaningful connection. Not a fragment of a memory, or an obligated caretaker, but a friend. Potentially more.

In that regard, it wasn’t wrong to call him the great first love of her life. She’d never taken the leap to call him hers. It was just assumed. Between the two of them. And those around them. Drew waited for him after his classes ended and he walked her home after shifts. Following a few months of casual conversation, he’d been bold enough to wrap his arm around her waist. She’d taken to wearing his thread-bare coats not long after. What they had was good.

Good enough for Drew Blackwell.

Good enough for Leonidas.

Never enough for Van Rook.

Somewhere between late night rendezvous and her first tequila flavored kiss Van Rook appeared. He’d developed the habit of sneaking into her strictly female-exclusive dorm, tracking mud onto her simple linen sheet and hard wood floor. The smoke from his lovingly pocketed Swisher Sweets clung to her curtains and made her gag. Drew didn’t like it, but she hadn’t tried to curtail it, either. She’d been horribly complacent. Not just in his behavior, but in his delinquency, too. Initially, it was just petty-theft—something Drew could turn a blind, guilty eye to. It was obvious that he’d filch that stupid, cheap, crappy beer from the corner store during her shifts. Drew tried to repent for his actions by sacrificing her tips to the register. It didn’t cover even a fraction of what he stole in a single night, but it made her feel marginally better.

That’s when she knew she was ruined. She should have cut ties with him then, but she didn’t. Drew was utterly, hopelessly in love with crooked, no-good Leonidas Van Rook. She’d thought that it was just a phase, that his equally juvenile friends were the problem. Drew was a fool. She’d thought she could fix him. That they could go back to what they had if she showed him the extent of her love. She could pay forward the patience she’d been given from her caretakers.

It didn’t—

She should have known it wouldn’t have worked.

From there it had been a slippery slope. Cut classes became unwilling dine-and-dash dates. Secondhand textbooks turned into hastily covered cheap six packs. Invaded dorm room to crowded bar. He was everything she’d been taught to refrain from. But Drew couldn’t help herself. She was an enabler to his behavior. Again, and again, and again. It was easy to lose count of the nights he spent cross-faded strewn across her worn, twin-sized mattress. She wasted months on him. On that behavior. Drew ignored the worried looks of her professors and the advice of her dorm sisters to chase him around the nearby city.

It was a good thing that she never listened to any of them. If she had just kept her head down, let him run rampant then she’d have never known the depths of his deplorable conduct. Yes, she knew that he was a thug. That he wasn’t the upright, blue-collar worker that Leonidas originally presented himself to be. She didn’t know what to do about it. Drew wanted him to be better. To be the man she fell in love with. Drew didn’t want to hold him accountable. But maybe if she did, then she could’ve saved them both from the unnecessary heartache.

Because the truth of the matter was that Van Rook wasn’t Leonidas. Or maybe he was, and she had been too naïve to see it. It didn’t matter in the end. Van Rook wasn’t the optimistic, down on his luck immigrant she thought she’d known. He was a bitter man lashing out in a foreign, unfavorable environment.

An intervention might’ve saved him the night spent behind bars. 

Or the ten years that followed.

Too little, too late. As the saying went.

Because when Drew caught cutthroat Van Rook in the middle of a job she didn’t hesitate. She’d stumbled back from that fenced off alleyway and into the first store she saw—a Block Buster of all things, she remembered vividly— begging the employee to call for the authorities. Van Rook had been furious. He swore to Drew that it was a mistake. He tried to tell her she saw wrong. But she didn’t. The cops convinced her of that when they pulled an adolescent out of the graffitied dumpster. Mugged, the police told her. It was a good thing she was there they’d said to comfort her.

She’d felt numb as the kid was loaded into an ambulance. She’d vomited when Van Rook was tossed in the fenced-in back cab of the police cruiser.

He hadn’t said a word. Didn’t spit curses or fight incarceration. Leonidas went gracefully.

Their split was mutual. Or it wasn’t. Hard to determine behind bars. She hadn’t visited him. He hadn’t called for her. She’d never know if he felt sorry for what he did. To that kid and to them. And now— close to two decades later— that they were on better terms she’d never find out. Because he was dead, half burnt up due to a blow dealt by her own weapon. Dead like her only son had been mere moments prior.

Drew didn’t know how everything went so horribly wrong so quick.

Sixteen years. Two weeks. Half an hour. All of it was the same in the long run.

A groan broke her out of her moping. It was enough to bring a smile to her face. She’d never get tired of that sound. Ever. She’d treasure every huff, eyeroll, or sigh Zak would give her. They all felt precious considering…

Drew shook her head. Best not to occupy those thoughts.

“Sorry, kiddo. Don’t know where I drifted off to.” Drew hefted Zak a little higher. Her son didn’t weigh much. Never had, honestly. Even so, holding him made her arms feel like led. Her biceps trembled subtly at the exertion; it had been a long day that weathered on them all. Not that she’d drop him. Drew would rather collapse herself before she let him hit the ground. No, if she had it her way, he’d be stuck to her like glue until she was sure everything blew over. Drew bit her lip. God, she missed the days where Zak felt attached to her hip. It was much easier to keep him content then. To keep him safe.

Drew blinked back tears.

Little whistling breaths puffed weakly against the junction of her neck. She could feel his tiny chest struggling to rise against her own. There was a primal fear carving out space in her chest. What sort of internal damage could he be nurturing? Drew felt sick hoping that it was nothing more than a bruised or busted rib. It was more likely to be two, or four, considering the hunk of concrete Doc had pried from his sternum. She’d personally suspected he had some flavor of nerve damage. Had to have. She’d watched him struggling to control his hands. Drew messaged the first wave of contractions from his legs herself before they’d left the infirmary.

Three minutes was a long, long time for the brain to operate with limited oxygen.

Even a minute without rendered some cases unsalvageable. So, what were the chances that—?

She couldn’t make those assumptions. Drew wasn’t trained in healthcare. Not like Doc was. The few veterinary classes she’d audited in graduate school didn’t prepare her for resurrecting little boys. She didn’t know the extent of the damage that came with interrupted brain activity or cardiac failure. It couldn’t be good, though. Grimly, Drew knew she’d be grilling Doc the moment Zak was knocked out. It wouldn’t do her any good, but she needed to know. Felt like she had to, really. It was her recklessness that triggered the catastrophic downfall of Weird World. Something they’d dreamed of for years she’d inadvertently directed. Drew didn’t feel content with her so-called victory. She would have rebuilt the damn place brick by brick if it could have brought back Van Rook. If it would have spared her son. Instead, she had to live with the guilt.

“Just in and out,” She murmured as they approached Zaks’ room. “It’ll be nice to get the dust off, you’ll see.” Drew squeezed through the hydraulic door before it completely opened. She hummed briefly in appreciation of the spotless floor. She wasn’t terribly surprised that he listened to her request that he clean up the night before. He wasn’t one to give her unnecessary trouble over simple tasks. Doc often grumbled that Zak was a ‘momma’s boy’. Drew was inclined to agree. “I wonder if we can get the smoke out of your hair?”

Drew doubted it. After three rinses, maybe, but the smell was caked onto the both of them. It would be a long time before it faded, she figured. Either way, there was something natural—soothing— about fiddling with the tap in the attached bathroom. The soft pitter-patter of lukewarm to warm water droplets washed away some of the tension she carried in her jaw. Zak sat slumped awkwardly on the toilet. His back rested gingerly against the reservoir. He hadn’t removed his shirt, either.

“Honey?” He blinked slowly. Like he wasn’t really there with her. Dread steeled her lip. Maybe he wasn’t—maybe he was still there, under the rubble. Or maybe he was reliving the harsh words she’d spat in the infirmary. “Hey, its okay. I’ll…” She stepped away from the sink and dropped down to her knees in front of him. “Let me help.”

She peeled the layered shirts off gently. His orange tank top was ruined beyond repair. Tiny holes and scattered rips curved around the bottom hem. The left side seam looked like it was popped straight down to the navel. His black, reinforced turtleneck underneath wasn’t much better either. It was more brown than black due to the collapse of terracotta and brick. The thread-fiber stuck partially to his right arm and lower back making the removal arduous. “Almost done.” Drew promised before working her fingers under the scrunched-up hem. Zak winced as he attempted to wiggle away from her. She didn’t blame him. Her fingers weren’t the warmest and the slick gloves stretched over her fingers weren’t the best for heat conduction.

Drew bit her lip as the shirt finally went over his head. It was everything she expected to see—

And then a little extra.

She’d never felt like she’d failed as a mother more.

His torso was a mottled collection of colors. Fresh baby greens blossomed over the soft of his stomach before wilting into angry red. Purples and blues converged over the sharpest points of his hipbones and trailed the length of his arms. There were welts over his sternum, as she’d suspected. Tiny dips and swells that encouraged her concern over the bones beneath his skin. His shoulder looked off, too. It appeared lame, drooping further than its twin. Drew shuddered as the cut along his right forearm reopened.

“I’m sorry.” Drew sobbed. It didn’t feel like enough. “Zak, honey, I’m so, so sorry.” Her legs shook as she forced herself back up. Back to the sink. Water had filled the basin precariously close to overflowing. It was hard to navigate the cabinet as she reached blinded by tears for a rag. She had to clean him up. She could manage that much.

His wheezing stilled. From the corner of her eye, she could see him shifting to look at her. Drew focused on submerging the cloth. She was too cowardly to face him. How could she? Each injury he bore told the story of her incompetence as a government agent, a scientist, and more importantly, a mother.

“What for?” He asked. “You didn’t bring down the mansion.”

“No, but I let it happen!” Drew bit out. “If I had just killed that creep when I had the chance—!”

“Mom.”

Drew stilled. Awful. She felt awful. Venting about it to her injured son wouldn’t solve that. Especially when he still looked at her with puppy eyes he’d never quite grown out of. Pout aside, he was tired. She was tired. They all were. Wasting precious time on mood swings wasn’t getting them anywhere. It certainly wasn’t getting Zak the medical attention he needed.

“Shh. I know, I’m sorry. I’m here.” She reassured, “It’s handled and you… goodness, honey. When’d you get so wise, huh?” Drew joked half-heartedly. Excess water sloughed out of the rag as she wrung it between her palms. It was orange. Like most of their custom ordered goods.

Like the color of Zaks eyes.

“I learned from you.” He grinned back at her, the little suck up.

Drew let herself smile back before she got down to business. The rag was lukewarm at best and despite her warning Zak still flinched when it touched his skin. Little circles were scrubbed from his cheeks and forehead. Dust caked the rag before she finished her first pass. Another dunk and pass left his face clean but no less pale than an hour prior.

Drew did her best to keep a feather-light touch while operating as thoroughly as possible. Even with her caution it was a painful chore. Zak’s skin was hypersensitive in certain areas while being utterly unresponsive in others. It was a touch-and-go game of adjusting and re-adjusting the pressure she applied to the hitch of his breathing. She’d had to run fresh water and get a new washcloth altogether to clean his back. The laceration across his lower back would need stitches. With due diligence and carefully honed precision she managed to avoid disturbing the clotted blood. They’d have to clean it later when they returned to the lab.

 There wasn’t much she could do for the dirt trapped under his nails. He didn’t carry a manicure set in his bathroom and Drew wasn’t keen on leaving him to find one. Regardless, the sponge bath had seemed to ground him enough that he could help her remove his equally trashed slacks. He’d insisted on keeping his boxers on in a fit of typical teenage embarrassment.

“Its nothing I haven’t seen before.” She jabbed good naturedly as she released the murky water in the sink.

“Mom!”

She’d laughed as she hefted him into the bathtub. The water gushing from the tap quickly swiped away the awkward line of grime left behind from the barrier of his socks. He’d insisted on wiping down his legs himself. To the best of his limited ability. She was thankful that his pride still allowed her to assist him between his toes, with the soles of his feet, and the back of his knees. Once finished, he’d braced his arms against the lip of the tub and gave her full control to tame his hair.

It wouldn’t have been washing day for another week and a half. His curl pattern would suffer for it, but she reasoned with enough conditioner and product it would be salvageable. Really, she should be lucky his hair was as manageable as it was. It had relaxed increasingly since he was an infant. Drew still missed those tight coils. She didn’t miss the upkeep though. Doc hadn’t let her touch his hair for the longest, she recalled fondly. For most of Zaks childhood Doc had been the one to detangle and wash Zaks hair, but then again, it hadn’t been all that long ago when he stopped. She had sworn Doc had wept real, genuine tears the day Zak stepped foot onto the air ship with fully relaxed hair. It hadn’t lasted long, four months at most before his hair regained most of its texture. A trim or two later and Doc could almost forget the experience had ever happened.

“What are you smiling about?” Zak asked. His eyes were half lidded as she brought the detachable showerhead closer to his scalp. He all but melted under the warm spray.

“You. Your hair. Doc, mostly.” She admitted easily. The first round of shampoo hadn’t done much but removed miniscule chunks of cement. The second unleashed a wave of dirty water. It took a third and forth rinsing before the water ran clear. “He usually does this for you. It’s a nice change of pace, is all.”

“Oh.” He replied. While she coated his hair in the first round of conditioner, he’d taken to licking the water that had collected on his lip. “Yeah, guess so.” His head jerked when her finger caught in the scruff of his white forelocks. “I can wash it on my own though.” He added somewhat defensively after.

Drew laughed, “I’m not saying you can’t.”

Zak was silent as she managed to tease the knot apart. The companionable silence lasted a moment or two longer while she worked through his bangs. She’d made sure to curl each separated strand around her finger as she went. It made him look a little less drowned, a little more put back together.

His head followed her fingers when she pulled away to recoat her palm in conditioner. His lips thinned in a way that reminded her of Doyle, “It does feel better when you two do it.” He rolled his good arm, leaning more heavily onto the tub. He remained coherent, but drowsiness had returned to his eyes dulling the vivid orange into something more natural. That was okay. Good, even. She was almost done and if they could get away with running him through the MRI unconscious then so be it. He deserved every wink. And, she figured, he wouldn’t be asking to stay up later. A good thing considering the choice words they’d be sharing with the Secret Scientists later in the night.

Suds dribbled down her arm as she rinsed the last of the conditioner from the crown of his head.

The whole lot of her colleagues—her friends—had labeled Drew and her family as terrorists. Officially. Registered in nearly every criminal database across the globe. That was a harsh blow to recover from; betrayal like that couldn’t be fixed with halfhearted apologies and gift baskets. Truthfully, what hurt the most was that the Secret Scientists hadn’t even let them explain their side of the story. From the moment the goliath cryptid fell international authorities flooded the scene. Doyle narrowly had the opportunity to spirit himself and the kids away from the spotlight before Doc and Drew were surrounded by their academic peers and policemen. They’d recited the fight from start to finish more times than Drew had preferred. The authorities took their word for it. Their friends did not.

Albeit reluctantly, they shared the unabridged truth. Not all of it, not initially. They’d added in the missing pieces as they were interrogated. It was easy enough to spill about the planned ambush they’d experienced via Argost and his twisted machinations. Mentioning Doyles involvement was harder. Some of their colleagues—Paul, David, Odele— were accepting of his assistance. Paul had even requested that they pass along his regards. Others like Beeman, Epsilon, and Mizuki had vehemently scolded them for allowing a criminal to assist in ‘such a delicate operation’. Drew couldn’t help her laughter then. It felt like a bad joke. They were so concerned over the threat of the Kur and yet they hadn’t come to their aid when they attempted to secure the ancient cryptid trapped beneath the ice. The Secret Scientists had known the risk, had been aware of it since Drew and Doc decrypted the Sumerian texts. And yet, when Doc and Drew begged for their assistance, they were rejected. Their own research took priority. How dare they have the right to question what help they received?

Still, that was forgivable. She’d turned her cheek to harsher blows. No, they—Epsilon— had crossed a line when he’d questioned their son and his involvement. It was obvious that they’d allowed him into the field. The Secret Scientists were well aware of his ability. So, Drew hadn’t lied. She had told them that he was invaluable in the cryptid takedown. That should have been the end of it. But it wasn’t. It never was when Epsilon or his People were implicated. They had kept a close eye on them, on Zak following the Atmospheric Jellyfish incident. Her baby had intrigued his People with his unnatural gift. And, well, hindsight was fickle. Neither Doc nor Drew had contemplated Epsilons curiosity shifting into something malicious. The audio bugs they’d found on the ship following their publicly released arrest warrant almost seemed kind in comparison to his future actions.

Drew had months to come to terms with the unforeseen betrayal.

It still stung.

“Alright! All clean.” She huffed. Pops heralded her movement. Her knees weren’t as fresh as they used to be. “Any longer and Doc might sound the Amber Alert.” It was a bit of a struggle to maneuver Zak from the tub. He still couldn’t hold his own weight or keep his balance. Though she did suspect his balance issues were more a by-product of his drowsiness than anything else.  

“Fisk is worried.” Zak groaned before he leaned into her fully. “I can feel him pulling out his fur.” He paused before speaking decisively, “I’m not sweeping it up.”

“Wouldn’t dream of making you,” Drew placated. She groped for the towel she’d left out on the sink before she started the bath. She’d had fun wrapping him up. The cloth was long enough to wrap around him twice, pinning his arms to his torso and hiding him away from the returning chill.

She hadn’t had to step away for long. Zak had enough sense to keep a spare change of clothes in the bathroom. Drew helped him into a brown button up flannel and reluctantly turned around while he painstakingly removed and replaced his underwear. It was a tough minute and a half. At one point she’d heard a stifled curse. She pretended not to hear it. “All good?”

An awkward silence and then, “Decent. Uh, mostly.” And that was true. He’d gotten his boxer briefs up, but they were vaguely twisted in a way that looked uncomfortable. Acting quickly—as to not give him time to complain—Drew reached down and spun the waist band. “Mom!”

“Pants!” She sing-songed over his complaint. “Come on, up, up.” Drew had slipped his pants over his ankles and pulled him to his feet. She was careful enough to let him fold over her shoulder while she hiked his pants up to their proper position. “Now, was that so hard, mister?”

“Gah—no! But, I mean, warn a guy next time, will you?”

“Where would be the fun in that?”

Zak glowered. His pout was in full force, cheeks puffed and all. Adorable. Coughing to cover a snicker, Drew dug through the top drawers of the cabinet. She kept one hand wrapped loosely around Zaks waist as she snooped. It was a little difficult to remove a comb, a bonnet, and oil one handedly, but she’d dealt with worse. She glanced down at his sleepy little eyes, “I’ll be quick, I promise.”

Sinking down to the floor, she’d positioned Zak so that he sat in the lull between her crossed legs. He managed to remain upright long enough for her to drip oil over his scalp and message it through. His head bobbed intermittently as she worked. Between her nimble fingers and the combs teeth whatever tangles remained smoothly slipped away. The pleasant smell of coconut and argan oil drifted into the dissolving remains of steam fully cocooning the bathroom. Drew nearly found herself dozing off alongside Zak. It had been far too long since they’d engaged in a family-bonding activity that didn’t involve getting caught up in the jetsam and flotsam of spiteful, man-hunting intent.

Zak stirred as she placed the comb down. He had been holding onto his bonnet loosely, and didn’t seem too keen on giving it to her, “Zak?”

He fidgeted, “Do I have to wear it?” Peculiar.

Drew leaned forward, “Is there a reason why you don’t want to?”

Her son curled into himself. She didn’t like that either. Drew wasn’t sure when he started trying to hide himself from her. Antarctica, probably. Most of their problems started there. His first response was too low for her to hear. Upon prompting him to speak up again he’d said, “Doyle.”

“Doyle, what? What does he have to do with anything?” Sometimes Zak worked in ways she didn’t understand. Privately, Drew thought that even Zak didn’t understand himself sometimes. He was like her in that way.  Over the past year she’d watched him transform into something of a contrarian. Eager to help despite his potentially damaging actions. She’d chalked it up as boyish fumbling, but there was something else there.

Tonight proved it.

But there was a time and a place to address that.

“I don’t want him to see me wearing it.” He squeezed the protective covering tighter, “It’s embarrassing.”

Drew felt her face twitch. Taking a carefully measured breath to cool the humor on her tongue she attempted to sooth him. She slipped the bonnet from his fingers, “Is hygiene embarrassing?”

“What? No—”

She harrumphed, “Is self-care?” Another negative, “It’s true Doyle doesn’t need to wear a hair cap, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have ‘embarrassing’ routines either, Zak. Would you call his lotion and creams silly?”

Zak flung his hand outward indignantly, “Of course not! He can’t move right without using them. It hurts his hands too bad.”

Humming in agreement she went in for the final strike, “So why is your bonnet any different?”

He froze, “I don’t know.” She ran her hand up and down his back, “I guess I just didn’t want him to think its stupid.” She pressed a kiss to his temple. Silly boy.

“He’d never.” Tucking the front lip of the cap over his forehead, Drew carefully pushed his hair into the cloth before tying it off. All things considered the bonnet was a nicer one. Silk, obviously, and colored richly. She thought it suited him well. The vivid blue, peach, and tan contrasted extravagantly against his skin. Zak bore a significant resemblance to Doc with his hair pulled back. Without his bangs to hide his face the tiny bridge of his nose and thick upper lip became pronounced. The slant of his eyes still belonged to her, but the little signs of Doc made her feel joyful. Zak was theirs. A baby boy that was all star dust, mechanics, and spirituality. Special, even before his eyes could glow. There were days where she wished her parents were still alive just so she could show him off. To tell them to look at what she made and to bask in its goodness. To show them that she ended up okay. That their family was okay.

As she helped her son up from the floor Drew discarded the last bit of her nostalgia. It would do her no-good tonight. Undeniably, she was still that angry girl from the monastery. Would never stop being the naïve, lonely institute student. But now there was something else to be. A role she’d been playing for thirteen short years. One she’d guard ardently.

Drew propped Zak on her hip. Zak hadn’t outgrown that yet. He was still so tiny, so happy to be close to her. His arms wrapped around her neck, snuggling close. Whereas his miniscule weight had felt somewhat of a burden during their walk over, it now only felt empowering. He was where he needed to be and the same could be said about herself. Drew had just made it to the hydraulic door leading out into the hallway when he stopped her.

“Socks?” His toes curled into her thigh.

She offered him a smile, “How could I forget?”