Chapter Text
Chapter 1 – The Cost of Forever
The fluorescent lights buzzed overhead, casting a sterile glow across the hospital waiting room. Noah Christopher Foster sat hunched in a plastic chair, his fingers laced tightly together, knuckles pale. Over the past year, his frame had finally filled out—muscle replacing the thinness of boyhood. A closely trimmed beard and short brown hair made him look older than his twenty, soon-to-be twenty-one years. His brown eyes brimmed with tears he didn't bother to hide. The clock ticked with cruel indifference. Every second felt like a betrayal.
He hadn't slept. He hadn't eaten. He couldn't. Not while Ben—his big brother, his protector, his only family—lay somewhere behind those double doors, fighting for his life. Ben always knew how to fix things. Broken toys, broken hearts, broken days. But this? This was too big. Too final. And Noah had nothing left to trade for a miracle.
A nurse passed by, offering a sympathetic glance. Noah didn't return it. His eyes were fixed on the floor, but his mind was slipping to and thro. The antiseptic sting in the air reminded him of cinnamon. Not the real kind—just the memory of it, warm and sweet and safe. His mind drifted, unmoored by exhaustion.
Nine-year-old Noah slumped through the apartment door, backpack heavy, shoulders heavier. The new school was a minefield—wrong clothes, wrong accent, wrong everything. He didn't even bother calling out to say he was home. All he wanted to do was go to bed and hide underneath the covers and never come out again.
But the smell hit him first—cinnamon, garlic, something sweet. Then Ben's voice: "Hey, you're just in time."
Noah blinked. The table was set. His favorite pasta, garlic bread, and a chocolate cake with crooked frosting letters: Welcome Home. The chocolate cake was lopsided, the frosting letters smudged like they'd been written by a toddler. But it was perfect.
"What's going on?" he asked, wary.
His twenty-three-year-old brother who looked like an older version of Noah-though clean shaved and with dimples-grinned, his brown eyes shining. "It's official. The papers came through this morning. You're mine now. Forever. No one's ever going to separate us again."
Noah didn't speak. He just dropped his backpack and hugged Ben so hard the frosting smudged between them.
Ben had said "Forever." But forever was bleeding out behind those doors.
The doors opened. A doctor in teal scrubs stepped through the double doors, clipboard clutched tight, face mask dangling like an afterthought. His expression was carved from stone.
"Noah Foster?"
He stood, heart pounding.
"Your brother's condition is critical. His rib cage was crushed in the accident. It damaged his lungs severely. He's under heavy sedation and high-flow oxygen. If his lungs don't respond in the next 24 hours…"
The words hung in the air like a death sentence.
"…we'll have to remove life support and let nature take its course."
Noah's knees buckled slightly. "I need to see him."
"I recommend you eat something first. Gather yourself."
"No. I need to see him now!" The waiting room went silent. The words burst out as a yell, not the aching plea he'd meant.
Noah's gaze swept the room.
The Hispanic kids had stopped climbing, their mother frozen behind a magazine.
The white-haired veteran sat motionless, oxygenator humming in his lap, navy cap tilted just so.
And the woman by the vending machine—black pantsuit, sunglasses indoors—watched him like she'd been waiting. Her sunglasses reflected nothing. Not the vending machine. Not the fluorescent lights. Just black.
The doctor hesitated. "If you cause a disturbance, I'll have to call security."
Noah swallowed hard, forcing calm into his voice, and trying to speak as softly as he could while still being audible. "I'll behave."
He didn't know what he'd see behind those doors.
Machines. Tubes. Maybe nothing at all.
But he had to see Ben. Had to remind him he wasn't alone.
Machines beeped. Tubes snaked into Ben's body. His chest barely moved except when the high-flow oxygen wheezed in and out.
Noah broke. Tears streamed down his face as he clutched Ben's hand. Nurses tried to console him, but their words—"hospice," "end of life care," and "organ donor"—felt like knives. Their hands on his shoulder felt like talons, digging in, eagerly awaiting their portion of the roadkill.
"No," he snapped. He didn't shout. Didn't stamp his foot. Just stood there—oddly calm, fiercely insistent. "He's not gone. He's not a body to harvest. He's still here and he's still alive!"
"While he's on the high-flow," corrected a rather portly middle-aged nurse who looked as though she ran this department with a firm grip and no nonsense.
"I don't care, he's still alive, and I won't have anyone fill his ears with talk of death!"
"Hospice is not—"
Noah turned and stared straight at the young nurse who looked fresh into her field. His eyes met hers. "I said no."
"Come on, girls," the portly nurse said, her voice low and clinical. "He's only in stage two. Let him have the rest in peace."
The nurses retreated. When they had gone, Noah let go of a breath he hadn't been aware he had been holding and collapsed against the edge of Ben's bed.
They talked like Ben was already gone. Like he was a checklist. A shell. But Ben was more than lungs and vitals.
He was cinnamon and garlic and crooked frosting letters.
He was the red shiny bicycle with no training wheels, the sharp cut under his chin from his first razer, and the biggest bear hug that could squeeze the breath out of you.
He was the warmth that beat back the cold, and now his hands were freezing.
He gathered himself, then leaned close to Ben's ear. A faint scent—clean, metallic, unfamiliar—drifted in from the hallway.
Noah didn't notice. But someone had already begun to move.
"You're gonna make it, Ben. We've got beers to drink on my birthday. You raised me. Now it's my turn to pay you back."
He heard a knock. Noah turned.
The woman from the vending machine stood in the doorway, dressed in a charcoal pantsuit, sunglasses in hand. Her black bobbed hair fell to her chin like a curtain, with a few streaks of gray mixed in. She looked like she had stepped out of a thriller.
"I asked to be alone," Noah said.
"I'm not medical staff," she replied. "I'm with the government."
She flashed a badge—official-looking, but vague. The photo was younger, but unmistakably her. Agent Margaret Faust. Then it vanished back into her coat.
Noah blinked, wary. "Why would the government care about my brother?"
"I heard what you said. About paying him back."
She stepped closer. "Did you mean it?"
"Of course I meant it."
She leaned in close, her voice dropping as she asked, "Enough to rewrite the rules?"
The air felt colder now. Not from the vents. From her. Noah hesitated. The rules she spoke of—he didn't know what they were. But he knew Ben would move hell and high water for him.
So he nodded.
Agent Faust smiled. She drew the curtain closed, and suddenly the room felt smaller. Like the walls had leaned in to listen.
She scooched herself onto the vacant spot at the foot of the bed facing Noah.
"Your brother qualifies as a special case for a classified project we've been testing for several years. Now I'll need your word and a signed Non-Disclosure Agreement if we're to get into all the details with this conversation, but let's just say for now that there's a way you can save your brother's life and pay him back."
Ben's voice echoed in his head like a warning bell: "If it sounds too good to be true, it likely is."
"How much?" He asked.
"As I said he qualifies as a special case. The government is eager to continue tests on this project and it's willing to do it at no monetary expense upfront, nor any bills for services rendered later. All that the government cares about is the data they can collect from examinations and tests afterwards—that will be paid for completely by them."
So in exchange for being a lab rat, there wouldn't be any cost. Ben's words still echoed in his ears.
"You said no monetary expense, what other kind of expense is there?"
"Ho! You are a clever one, Mr. Foster. But we've reached the threshold. No further truths without your signature."
Noah hesitated. Ben's words still ringing loudly like sirens. But then he turned and looked at Ben. His once tall built like an ox brother was pale and weak. The high flow oxygen now causing his body to release what could almost be mistaken for a death rattle. In the background he heard the heart monitor weakly pulsing, each beat seeming to grow weaker than the last. The smell of ammonia almost made Noah choke, and Ben's freezing hands almost looked blue.
Noah squeezed Ben's hand, hoping to give some warmth back, but knowing it was hopeless. Hopeless without a miracle. Ben's body was failing. The machines were louder than hope. Noah had no prayers left—only choices. He drowned the sirens and turned back to Agent Faust.
"Did you bring a copy?" he asked.
She flashed a maniacal grin that sent a shiver down his spine. From the inside pocket of her jacket she pulled out a simple plain envelope with a pen.
"Always prepared—that's the Boy Scout motto, isn't it?"
"I wouldn't know. He was, I never was one." Noah said as he took the envelope from her.
"Pity, you would've made a good one, helping your brother like you are. Sign on the dotted line and I'll explain."
Noah skimmed the legalese. Dense. Clinical. But the message was clear: secrecy, consequences, and government ownership of whatever came next.
He signed.
She snatched the document away before his pen had left the page, and folded it back up into the envelope and returned it to her jacket. She crossed her legs and leaned more comfortably upon the foot of the bed as she explained.
"Project Rebirth uses stem cells, epigenetics, and CRISPR to revert the body to an earlier developmental state. It's experimental. But it works. The body forgets its damage. It washes the slate clean."
"What?" asked Noah, not understanding half of what she'd said.
"What don't you understand?" asked the Agent brusquely.
"Well, let's just say I only passed High School biology by the skin of my teeth, and only vaguely recall hearing some of those… words thrown around." Noah admitted.
"All right, does a shot designed to trick your brother's body into reverting to an earlier point in time mean anything to you?"
"You mean like the Fountain of Youth?"
She almost looked offended. "Project Rebirth is breakthrough medical science, Mr. Foster, not childish superstition."
"Well, how much earlier are we talking about, then?"
She seemed to choose her words very carefully. "It depends upon the person. There haven't been many people who've agreed to the process."
He pressed for that answer. "How many?"
"A handful so far. But each case has successfully reverted the person to an earlier stage in their development. Most subjects revert to infancy. Between newborn and six months."
"Are you telling me that in order to save my brother's life… you want to turn him into a baby?"
It was ridiculous, some crazy science fiction scheme thought up by a pulp fiction printer. He almost laughed. Almost. But Ben's body was failing, and the machines didn't care.
"It's either that or the doctors unhook the high-flow oxygen and send him off to hospice, Mr. Foster."
"I haven't agreed to hospice," he countered.
She leaned in close. A sad surprisingly sympathetic look crossing her face. "Well, if you don't take the government's offer, I'd suggest enrolling him in hospice care. They worked wonders with my own father when the end came. They'll make sure that his passage is an easy one and as painless as possible-given the circumstances."
She said nothing else, her hand, warm, rested on his arm. He wanted to believe she was just a crank. A raving lunatic. Or maybe an undercover prank show host—but then if she was that, Ben would have to be in on the prank. And Ben wouldn't have gone along with all of this to prank him. Not after how Mom and Dad died.
He stared at Ben, and the years collapsed. Eight years old. A scraped knee and the bitter cold.
The water was rising fast—slick and brown, creeping up the basement steps like it had a mind of its own. The house groaned under the pressure. His father was shouting, voice cracking with panic. His mother was yelling over him, grabbing coats, grabbing Noah, saying they had to leave now.
She scooped him up, clutching him tight as they opened the front door. But the porch was already gone. A wall of river water—angry and sudden—rushed over the banks, swallowing the steps, the yard, everything. It hit them like a fist.
They were swept away.
Noah's scream vanished into the roar. His mother's arms slipped. Her hand—her warm, steady hand—slipped from his grasp. His father's voice was somewhere behind him, lost in the chaos.
The current dragged him under.
He kicked. Flailed. Something sharp scraped his leg. He surfaced just long enough to see a tree—bare branches reaching like fingers. He grabbed one. Held on. Climbed.
He didn't remember how he got up. Just that he did. Soaked. Shivering. The rain falling cold and hard. He curled into the crook of the branch, hugging it like it was the only thing left in the world. His teeth chattered. His fingers ached. He cried until he couldn't anymore and the world went black.
And then—arms.
Strong arms. Familiar arms. Ben's arms.
Hours had gone by, the torrent had past, but the water levels remained high. Ben was in a rescue boat, reaching out to scoop him up, soaked clothes and all. Ben held him close against his chest as he wrapped a wool blanket about his shivering body. His voice was low, steady, the only thing that made sense.
"I've got you, Noah. I've got you."
Noah squeezed Ben's hand and whispered, "I've got you, Ben." There was just one last thing that needed to be clear.
Agent Faust had already stood and looked ready to pull back the curtain and leave.
"Wait." He called to her. Her hand paused in its grasp.
"You never answered my question on what other kind of expense there is."
She turned, her face all sympathy. "The hardest expense that a person can ever pay, Mr. Foster: his memories."
She paused to breath before continuing.
"The brain develops and matures along with us. When the brain reverts, those memories have nowhere to go. Simply put, his brain will be too undeveloped to hold all his memories from his entire life. Some things, deep primal things have shown signs of being retained: faces, smells, and sounds; but the more complex memories, they seem to have been lost in the regression."
Noah felt the weight of it. Ben wouldn't remember the flood. The bicycle. The bear hugs. Cinnamon and garlic. He wouldn't remember Noah… except his face… maybe.
When he didn't answer, she continued taking a step closer, "Some of our researchers theorize that the memories aren't erased—just compressed, distorted, dormant. Waiting. But considering the oldest participant in Project Rebirth is five years old, it just remains a theory at this stage."
"But you're saying there's a chance that he might remember later, when he's older? That it's not a complete reset button?"
"A hope, Mr. Foster. Just a hope."
He could feel Ben wrapping the blanket around him, and hear him say, "I've got you, Noah… You're mine now. Forever. No one's ever going to separate us again."
"I owe you Ben... big time," Noah said quietly.
Noah turned to Agent Faust and asked hoarsely "Where do I sign him up?"
All that Noah could see was the Cheshire grin and kind eyes, the pair forever mismatched in his memory.
"Right on the line."