John Locke - Now and then

I felt as though someone had drilled a hole in my chest.

"Dunno what the D was for," she murmured.

The room seemed to swirl around me. I tucked Rachel in again and let her sleep. I didn't have to ask her anything else. I knew exactly who the kid was, though I'd never known of his existence before that moment. D'Augie was named after his father, Augustus, and his father's best friend, Donovan Creed.

Donovan and Augustus: D'Augie.

Augustus Quinn had been my best friend for more than fifteen years. We'd killed together, worked together, and defended our country. He was a monster of a man, born with a rare disease that misshaped his head and facial features. About four years ago Augustus had fallen in love with a young con artist named Alison, whom I'd recruited to work for my agency at Homeland. Around that time I had a medical issue that put me in a coma for three years. When I recovered, I learned that Augustus had kidnapped Alison and was keeping her in a concrete cell in his warehouse in Philadelphia. It's a long story, but in order to rescue Alison I had to kill my best friend.

Fuck.

Augustus never told me he had a son.

Life's crazy sometimes, you know?

Wow.

Ah well, fuck it.

I mean, there's nothing I can do about it now, right?

Nothing to do but close that chapter of my life and move on.

THE LAND AROUND the little church was flat, the lot surrounded by pines. The church was two stories high, made entirely of flagstone, except for the corrugated red metal roofing, the wooden door, and the windows. There was a slate floor standing area in front of the church that was maybe twenty feet wide and twelve feet deep. To the right of the church were two flagstone columns that stood about fifteen feet high. The columns were connected at the top by a limestone cap. A few inches below the cap an old, cast-iron bell hung from a wooden beam. The rope for the bell clapper was long enough to reach the ground, but was tied off to a cleat so children couldn't reach it.

We parked Beth's car in the gravel area on the left side, and from that angle I could see a wooden balcony that extended from a small gable. Before exiting the car, Beth put her hand on my wrist, very gently. I looked down at it, and then raised my eyes to her face. She held my gaze a moment, then closed her eyes. I leaned over and lightly kissed her lips. She didn't kiss me back.

I kissed her again, and this time she opened her eyes and returned the kiss. I started moving closer, eager for more, but she said, "It's not our time yet."

"Are you sure?" I said. "Because to me, it really feels like it's our time."

She smiled and lifted her hand from my wrist, and placed it to my face. I'd never felt so much energy from a person's touch before, not even Kathleen Chapman, who I almost married.

"We're meant to be, and it will happen, but it's not our time yet."

"Can I have just fifteen minutes of it now with you, across the street, on the beach?"

She did that adorable pouty thing she sometimes did with her mouth, then sighed and said, "I'm not ready yet, and you're not ready. But when it's our time, you won't be disappointed. I promise."

"A rain check then."

"Let's call it a heart check," she said, placing her palm on my heart.

I looked past her, through her window, thinking of that gorgeous, deserted beach a scant two minutes away. "How about a quick ten minutes now, and when we're both ready, we can deduct it from eternity?"

"You drive a hard bargain," she said, "but no."

"Well, you've certainly put me off my game." I kissed her hand and we climbed out of the car. The second floor balcony above us looked to be about two feet deep, was covered, and appeared to be decorative. But once inside the church, I saw that it was attached to a small, hidden gable about six feet wide and eight feet deep. You reach that little room by descending into a trap door about four feet below the ante way and then crawling some twenty feet under the chapel until you reach a wooden ladder. That twenty foot crawl behind Beth was the toughest of my life. Being that close to her backside would have killed a lesser man. When we got to the ladder we climbed fifteen feet to a landing. Beyond the thick, locked, wooden door, stood the little gable room where I met Libby Vail.

Libby was thin, but appeared healthy. She was sitting on a window box, surrounded by stacks of old, moldy books and parchment.

"Hey Beth!" she said, brightly.

"Hi Libby. This is Donovan Creed."

Libby and Beth exchanged a knowing smile that was so obvious it almost embarrassed me. Beth blushed and lowered her eyes and cleared a small space on the window box and sat there. It happened to be the only place one could sit in the cramped little area.

"Hello, Mr. Creed."

I cocked my head to one side. "I notice you're missing a fingernail on your right index digit."

Libby laughed. "Do you always start conversations this way?"

"I do. Always."

She turned to Beth. "See? I told you he'd be funny!" To me, she said, "Seriously, why do you ask?"

"I found it in the picnic basket Beth brought you one day. I figured you broke it when you scratched your initials on the bottom of the basket."

Beth looked at her curiously. Libby thought a moment, then said, "Oh. I think that must have happened the night I was trying to channel Jack Hawley. I kept scratching my initials while saying my name."

"Why?"

She looked at me sheepishly. "I was hoping to somehow cross the space-time continuum, like they talk about in the movies. Maybe get him to send me a clue of some sort. Crazy, I know, but wow, you're really good. I mean, to find a fingernail and scratch marks and put all this together? I'm impressed."

Impressed or not, I had to ask the question, in spite of Beth.

"Are you being held here against your will?"

Libby laughed, heartily. "No, of course not. If I were, I could just open the door to the balcony and call for help."

I gestured at the tiny room, "Then what are you doing? Your parents and friends have been mourning you for nearly a year. The FBI came down…"

Libby held up a hand. "Please. Don't make me feel guilty, I know all that. I'm just giving back. Some people join the Peace Corps, I hide in a church."

"Except that your loved ones would know if you were in the Peace Corps."

"I won't be here much longer."

"You stay in this cramped room all the time?"

"It's more like a home base. I stay with different friends at different times. There's a schedule, but yes, I sleep here sometimes, and this is where I conduct my research."

"What are you researching?"

She gestured to the books and parchment paper. "The local churches and library have opened all their books to me. I've spent the past year filling in the details of my heritage. When I'm not reading, when the church is locked, I wander around the building. And when my friends come to visit, we go for walks. Beth and some of the day ladies drive me to parks or deserted parts of the beach. It's easy not to be recognized if I'm wearing a wig and trying to blend in. Sometimes a group of us go fishing." She pointed to a laptop. "Plus, I've got all the modern conveniences, iPod, iTouch, computer, TV…"

"I've heard some bullshit in my day," I said, "but this takes the cake."

She eyed me, curiously. "You don't believe I'm here for historical reasons?"

"Absolutely not."

"Why's that?"

I picked up one of the maps. "This is a terrain map." I gestured to some sheets she'd tacked to the wall. "And those look a lot like geological surveys."

"So?"

"So you might be researching your family history, but there's more to it. Otherwise you wouldn't need to keep your presence quiet."

She said nothing.