C. Adams: Version 2.0

“N-no… No, I don’t think I am,” Brian replied. “I… I think I…”

“Yeah, you did,” Reesy told him. “You died. Like a dumbass, I might add.”

“But you’re alive now,” Emmett told him. “It’s kind of a long story, and it’ll all be explained to you. But you’ve gotta trust us right now.”

“I need… I need to call Birdie,” Brian said, eyes searching the air in front of him. “She’ll be worried.”

“You can’t, baby,” Reesy told him. “You can’t talk to her again.”

Brian’s brows pinched together as he looked at her in confused anger. “I don’t know who you are, but you can’t tell me what to do. I’m calling her right now,” he pushed up off of the table and nearly collapsed to the floor. But Emmett caught him. “Let go of me!” he flailed out of his grasp and stumbled toward the door.

“Brian, please don’t make me sedate you!” Reesy called out as she and Emmett attempted to hold him down.

“You people are insane! Let go of me! Let me call her and let her know!”

“She saw you dead, Brian,” Reesy told him. “You can’t. You cannot contact her, do you understand?”

“You don’t understand!” he shouted, pulling away again as he felt a needle dig into his skin. “She’ll be so pissed off! She’ll be so mad…” the room started to fade from his vision. “Please…”

“Birdie!” Brian was suddenly thrust into motion, tearing out of the cafe in the direction his sister had taken off in. “Birdie, wait!” He’d lost sight of her, and now his insides were churning with the sick feeling of loss. But there were some people standing at the corner of a nearby street with their dog, and they looked at him and pointed down one particular dirt road. He turned his head to look where they directed, just in time to see Birdie rounding the corner around another building. “Birdie!” he called out again, and pushed himself to run faster…

Birdie found herself hurdling over a short fence, and then trying not to punt-kick chickens as she continued to run through. She somehow ended up running into a barn-like structure. As she came to the dead end that was the other side of it, she panicked. She chided herself, internally. She should have known better, after all. But the logical part of her brain started to shout back at her. Birdie wasn’t a fugitive. She wasn’t in danger. What the hell was she running from? Why was she so terrified? Why did her chest hurt so badly that it was getting seriously difficult to breathe?

“Birdie, please stop!” Brian sounded behind her.

Oh right. That. “No no… no,” she shook her head, unwilling to turn around. Unwilling to allow herself to think that this was real. Not even for a second. Birdie couldn’t survive losing him again. She couldn’t handle it if she let herself believe, and it turned out not to be real.

“I’m so sorry, Birdie,” Brian’s voice cracked with emotion as he slowly, cautiously began to walk toward her from the entrance.

“No,” she shook her head again, still not turning around.

“I’m so sorry,” he repeated, unable to stop a tear tracking down his face at the sight of his sister’s shaking form in front of him. He was sorry for everything. Sorry for not listening to her. For dying the way he did. For leaving her alone, suffering, taking the guilt upon herself… He was sorry for hurting her. “Please, Birdie,” he said more quietly as he came into arm’s reach.

“I can’t,” a tear-filled whisper broke from her voice, and his hands were suddenly turning her around at her shoulders.

“I’m sorry… I couldn’t tell you. I couldn’t—” Brian’s sentence was cut short when Birdie launched herself at him, pulling him into a bone-crushing hug as she sobbed. His arms enveloped around her, squeezing her just as tightly, and joined her in her happy tears.

Birdie was only marginally aware of them lowering to the ground. She was torn between wanting to look at him, and not wanting to let go of him. She was now in his lap, unable to tear herself away, in fear that this might not be real; that it might only be a dream, and she never wanted to wake up from it.

The entire ride home, or rather to Brian’s apartment which she was told was also hers now for the time being, she was still too stunned to speak. It wasn’t until they were at the front door, that Birdie turned to Emmett and Reesy.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” there was anger laced in her tone, and Emmett could tell that she was holding back from slapping one of them.

“We couldn’t,” he explained. “Not until you were briefed and ready to leave rehab.”

“You would’ve been too impatient to get out,” Reesy added. “You wouldn’t have gotten what you needed.”

“You could’ve brought him to me,” Birdie replied.

“We didn’t tell him, either,” Emmett told her, glancing past her to see Brian setting his computer down in the kitchen, out of earshot. “You’ve gotta understand why on some level, honey. The line of work you were in; you know we were in a difficult position.”

“What matters is that now you know,” Reesy said. “You’ve got him back, and that’s more than anyone could dream for.” Birdie swallowed, letting both of her friends’ words sink in. She knew they were right, but it was difficult to judge whether or not she was ready to let go of the anger she felt. “Please don’t hate us, Birdie,” Reesy pleaded.

Birdie looked up at her, then. Reesy had never really asked for forgiveness for anything; not from her, anyway. It somehow managed to make any hard feelings leave her. “I don’t hate you,” Birdie assured them both. “I’m still mad,” she said, unconvincingly. “Might take a few more housewarming presents for me to get over it completely.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Emmett stepped forward and placed a kiss on her cheek. “We’ll see you tomorrow.”

“You will?”

“Well, I’m kinda tied down to this shopping trip, now,” he shrugged.

“I forgot about that,” Birdie looked to Reesy.

“It’s okay,” she assured her. “We’ll do it tomorrow. I wanted to do it before your reunion with Brian, so you’d have something besides those rehab clothes to greet him in. But Em insisted we not wait any longer.”

“Well, then,” Birdie turned back to Emmett and grabbed his hand, “Looks like I don’t really have anything to be mad at you for, after all.” She pulled him back to her and planted a kiss on his cheek.

“No love for Reesy?” Reesy made puppy-dog eyes.

“I can’t believe that’s why you two were fighting this morning. You go home and get your love from Jodie,” Birdie made a smug face, but then let it melt into a grin. “I’ll see you two tomorrow.”

She went into the apartment as her friends headed back to the car, and closed the door behind her. “I should take a swing at you,” she said to Brian as she made her way towards him where he was sitting on a stool at the bar that separated the kitchen from the living room. “But I’m waiting for the surreal feeling to fade away, so I can use my entire upper-body strength when I do it.”

“As long as you still love me,” he glanced at her with a bit of a grin.

Glancing at the closed laptop on the counter in front of him, she shook her head and huffed a breath of laughter. “If you only knew how absolutely insane it made me when I found out that thing was missing,” she told him. “All of my law enforcement experience, and I had zero ability to figure out what happened to it.”

“In my defense, I wasn’t the one who took it,” Brian told her. “I was glad when they gave it to me. But I would have dealt with the loss, had it given you some peace of mind.”