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The ship is quiet as Casey pilots them back to Earth, the mechanical hum of the inner workings is the only sound and Kay wishes she knew how to speak over it. It sounds too much like Cliff. The low, rumbling mechanics that are normally such a peaceful backdrop to her new world suddenly only remind her of Cliff’s nutrient tank.
Eventually Larry stands from the corner he’d claimed for himself, and maybe he hears the similarities too and can’t stand them either, because his feet seem to fall heavy as he paces a small circle around the living area.
“Nice place.” He remarks, and she tries to smile.
“Thanks.”
He looks at her, or maybe past her, it’s always hard to tell with his bandages and goggles exactly what he’s looking at.
“How’s Rama?” She asks, and hard to read as he may be, Kay knows a smile when she hears one.
“He’s good.” He says, “He’s sorry he couldn’t come. But, you know-”
“If his molecules are going to fall apart, with our luck, it would happen at Cliff’s funeral.” She finishes, and Larry chuckles, and for a moment she almost feels better.
Larry keeps pacing the living area, for a while. He asks her about her paintings and eventually Harry comes out of hiding, and so she tells Larry the story of where and how Casey picked up a kitten in space.
“I’m convinced it’s a trick.” She comments towards the end, scratching behind Harry’s ear. “I keep waiting to wake up one morning and find that he’s actually some weird tentacle creature in disguise.”
Larry laughs, “I wouldn’t be surprised.”
As Harry hops away and starts closer to the cockpit the humming is once again all Kay can hear.
“He was happy for you, you know?” Larry says, taking the seat next to her. “Cliff.”
“I know.” She hums, letting herself slouch against Larry’s side, her head on her shoulder. “I just wish I could see him again.”
Larry doesn’t say that she still might. With all they’ve seen, it’s a hope she knows is on his mind as much as it is hers. If they were going back to the manor then maybe she could acknowledge it. She smiles to herself, the idea of Cliff getting in a quick orgy with the sex ghosts before moving on to the afterlife so fitting for him that she wonders if he thought about it. She knows he’d realized he was still dying with enough time to get his affairs in order, and the burial in Daytona is his request. Still, she can picture him sitting up at night, sorting out his lasts requests, and thinking to himself “Or, I could become a sex ghost.”
Anyway, the manor is no stranger to the unnatural, and granted neither is Florida but that’s a different brand. She won’t go into this expecting the fortune they had with Rita; a chance to say goodbye.
“We’re approaching Earth’s exosphere.” Casey informs them, peeking out from the cockpit, and Kay nods and moves for a seat with restraints.
“You might want to strap in.” She tells Larry, “Her landings can be a little rough.”
The funeral is a small gathering, but honestly it’s more people than Kay had expected. There is her, Casey, Larry and Keeg, along with Vic and Rouge. There is also Dorothy and a few of the Dannyzins; including Flex and Maura-lee Karupt. Even Willoughby sneaks into the crowd at the cemetery and lingers in the back. Those people she all expected. Those she didn’t expect were the few familiar faces from Cloverton, or the small cluster of his old racing friends who definitely attended his first funeral. There is even a small number of friends he’d made in the past year living in Florida with his family.
His family.
Clara, Mel, and Rory. They’re standing right by the tombstone, Mel holding Rory in one arm and Clara in the other. All of a sudden Kay feels a fresh well of hot tears in her eyes and she has to look away.
She pushes down the anger, and scolds herself for feeling it. She pushes away all the thoughts of Nurnheim, and peanut butter sandwiches, and… and…
She takes a shuddering breath, looking now at the ground, and next to her Casey takes her hand.
“Hey,” She says softly, as if to ask if she’s ok, and next to them Kay can feel Larry watching her, sizing her up as if he’s debating whether or not she can stay here.
He doesn’t look at Vic like that, or Rouge. Only her, and that adds to her anger because why her? Hell, he knew Cliff longer than any of them. Why is he able to look on at the service and listen to Clara choke her way through a few short words and only feel sadness? They were friends. Him and Cliff, just like her and Cliff. She was his friend, and that is what she needs to keep in mind. She wasn’t…
She blinks away her tears, and forces herself to look back at Clara as Mel takes over the duty of speaking.
Clara takes half a step back, behind her wife, and she looks so small that along with all the anger Kay finds herself wishing she could do something. That she could be up there not just because of Cliff, but for Clara. She wishes she had a right to put her hand on her shoulder, to whether this storm together.
When Clara catches her eye she looks away.
The gathering after the cemetery is a little easier to face.
It’s a barbeque in Clara’s backyard, and it’s a happier affair. It’s people laughing and sharing stories about Cliff, and the neighborhood kids running around – Keeg flying along - with the sadness of the funeral already out of their minds. It’s the once-wanna-be Doom Patrol catching up and forgetting their problems for an afternoon; trading stories about their recent adventures and one-upping each other. It’s nice, and at some point Kay finds herself sitting alone on the edge of the back deck, watching it all and feeling a little less numb than she did this morning.
That’s when Rory comes toddling over to her.
She glances around, and while Clara is nowhere to be seen she does see Mel, who is mid-conversation with a neighbor only a few feet away and glances between her son and Kay before turning back to said conversation, apparently unworried.
She supposes that makes some sense. Everyone here is a friend, or family, and Mel is clearly easy going enough seeing as she rolled with her wife’s robot of a father with Parkinson’s moving in with them. Besides, she’s close. If anything happens to Rory she’s right there to come whisk him away from his poor choice in a new babysitter.
Speaking of which, he’s getting closer. He’s right at her feet, his arms held out ahead of him as he gets closer, and soon he’s next to her leaning his little hands on the step, trying to figure out how to climb up it.
“Um, hey there.” She says, attempting to sound friendly, and Rory looks up at her curiously. “Your um, I think your mom is over there.” She says, nodding in the direction which Rory came from, but if he hears her he pays no mind.
“He likes saying hi to people.” A sudden voice explains, and Kay looks up to see Clara approaching.
She tries to smile, though Clara is more focused on her son, coming over and scooping him up.
She kisses him as she does, and holds him probably a little tighter than she does normally. Kay watches on, waiting for her to return from wherever she came from. But, instead, Clara looks down at her.
“Mind if I join you?”
There’s a soft waver to her words, and dumbfounded for what else to do Kay shakes her head. Clara smiles, tightly, and Kay scoots to make room for her as she sits down with Rory still in her lap.
At first they’re quiet, and its tense, and Kay is searching the party for someone she knows and far enough away from this step that she can go to their side and-
“I’m really glad you all came.”
Clara’s words derail her thoughts, and Kay sucks in a breath.
“Of course.” She says, and slowly she lets go of that deep inhale. “I just wish I’d stopped by sooner.”
Clara hums, not arguing, but not agreeing either.
“You talked, didn’t you?” She asks, “He had that radio in his room-”
“Well yeah.” Kay grants her, “Yeah, we talked. When he told me he was still dying I said I’d come back but, he told me not to. He told me to have my adventures and that he’d see me when he’d see me.”
She blinks away more hot tears. She shouldn’t have listened. When he told her the Parkinson’s was back she’d been ready to turn the ship right around, but he’d told her to slow the fuck down. He wasn’t going to die tomorrow, or the next week. They already had plans set for this summer – two months from now. She and Casey were going to come visit and they were going to go see a demolition derby happening a town over. They were going to watch shit blow up and do other normal Florida things.
“It was quick.” Clara says, as she wipes away a tear of her own. “And… Shit, he died in that damn car. Do you have any idea how hard it is to drag a fucking robot body out of the driver’s seat of a car?”
She starts to laugh despite herself, and Kay laughs with her, imagining it. She can almost see Cliff’s ghost standing off to the side, watching Clara and Mel struggle to pull his body out of that car, kicking himself for dying there.
“He’s gonna give himself shit for eternity for that one.” She says, and next to her Clara look surprised, enough so that Kay thinks maybe she shouldn’t have said that out loud.
Rory squirms in Clara’s lap before she has any real chance to say anything, and so she sets him on his feet between her legs, though he doesn’t go anywhere. Instead he’s curious about the rips in her jeans, running his fingers over the white strings of fraying fabric.
“Probably.” Clara muses, her eyes a little lost. “But if that’s the worst regret he takes with him, that’s not so bad. Right?”
Kay hums, the smile finding its way back to her face.
With that, the two of them are quiet again, looking out at the barbeque. Mel’s moved on to another group, and over by the fence Casey has her arm around Dorothy’s shoulders. It’s nice.
After a minute, Clara shifts, “Mel gave me these this morning.” She explains, pulling two envelopes from her back pocket, one already opened.
“I guess after he found out what was happening, Dad had her write some stuff down for him. For after.”
She holds out the unopened envelope, and with some hesitance Kay takes it. She turns it over and the first thing she sees are two names written in pen. The first is Jane, with a big “X” crossed through the center of it. The second is Kay.
She smiles, though she isn’t sure what it could be, nor why Clara is watching her with this tense look on her face and her fingers toying with the chain around her neck. She isn’t sure-
“Sorry!” They both look up just in time to see Keeg fly back inside Larry, and the grill go up in flames.
“Shit.” Clara curses, “I’ll be back.”
All in one motion not only is she on her feet, but she’s also scooped up Rory and deposited him into Kay’s lap.
Kay gapes, and Rory isn’t exactly thrilled about the arrangement either. He starts crying right away but Clara is already striding closer to the fire and Larry across the yard, too far to hand Rory back and insist she can handle the mess made by her former teammates.
“Ok.” She whispers, mildly panicked, as she stands with Rory still in her arms.
She looks around, but Mel is coming from the garage with the fire extinguisher, and she isn’t sure who else exactly she could hand Rory to.
Probably anyone, but she isn’t certain. So, she stands there, lightly rocking her body and rubbing Rory gently on the back.
“It’s ok.” She whispers to him, unsure of what else to do. “It’s ok. Mommy will be back soon.”
Later, after the fire is put out, the barbeque has dispersed, and Kay has handed Rory back to Clara who didn’t even hurry to reclaim him, she’s back on the ship. She’s alone – with the exception of Harry – and mostly just waiting for the ice cream Casey promised to bring her back from her trip out with Dorothy. They’d invited her, but it’s been a long day. She wanted some alone time. She told them she might start a new painting while they’re gone.
She hasn’t done that, though. Instead she has been sitting on the bed for fifteen minutes, staring down at the envelope.
Finally, she tears it open, and the first thing she sees inside is a thin silver chain.
She takes it and holds it up, furrowing her brow as it twirls back and forth in front of her.
“The fuck?” She asks aloud. It’s a tacky tourist stand type necklace. The weirdest part is the pendant; a plastic white triangle and bumpy in texture. Three dimensional, and as she turns it over in her fingers she sees molded stripes of golden brown and purple on the inside; half of a crustless peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
She sets the necklace aside for now, and pulls out the paper also resting inside the envelope, unfolding it carefully.
Hey,
I hope I get to give you this in person, but if you’re reading this I probably don’t. I know you said you aren’t my daughter, and fathers are a touchy subject for you, but I just want you to know that I love you. I love you the same way I love Clara. I’m so proud of you, you were one of the best parts of my life. I know it’s corny as shit but fuck it, I’m dead, so deal with it. Anyway, I hope you two can have each other now that I’m gone. Thanks for letting me make you sandwiches.
Love,
Cliff.
She reads the letter twice, her fingers tracing over some words more than others. Words such as “daughter” and “fathers”, with a watery smile as opposed to the frown which usually accompanies those words for her.