Robert Crane - Family

Kat shrugged. “Once again…no one’s listening. They’re saying you slept with the guy from Omega, that you betrayed Zack and the Directorate and all for…uh…” She blushed. “…sexy time.”

I was beyond mortified. I wanted to cry right there, but part of me wanted to laugh at the utter absurdity of it all, that I would go through hell to try and make things better, and still the crap could not help but fall upon the fan and blow squarely back into my face.

Reed must have sensed my despair, because I felt his hand on my shoulder, and he gave me a supportive squeeze. “Sorry, uh…sis.”

I peaked from behind my fingers. “That’s just weird.”

“Oh, well,” he said, sounding mildly embarrassed, “I don’t have to say it anymore. I just thought—”

“No,” I said, “it’s fine. I like it; it’s just…” I took a deep breath. “It might take some getting used to.” I looked squarely at him. “Brother.” I felt a twinge of oddness as I said it, a feeling that settled as I rolled it over in my head again. “Brother.”

He broke into an easy smile. “I’ve been waiting to hear you say that for kind of a long while.”

“Maybe you should have told me earlier, then…like when I first climbed into your car and pointed a gun at you.”

“Are you kidding?” He raised an eyebrow as he smiled at me and took a bite of a chicken nugget. “You had a gun. You might have shot me.”

I laughed, somehow, in spite of it all, and I heard Kat and Scott join me a moment later. I held my head in my hands, felt the soft leather on them. It was comforting again, that old familiar feeling, but something different, too, and soothing in its own way. Surrounded by a bunch of hostile people in the cafeteria at large, but the ones close by weren’t hostile at all. I looked from Scott, his wide grin and face flushed red from laughing to Kat, her tanned and pretty cheerleader look, her eyes riveted on Scott as he let out another peel of laughter, and she joined him.

I turned then to Reed. He wore a grin of his own, his long dark hair hanging back in a ponytail, swept over his shoulder. I smiled at them, at the thought of them, actually, and I laughed again, against all odds. After a moment I stopped. “You’re going to tell me about him, right? About…Dad?”

“Absolutely,” Reed said with a nod and a half-smile of his own. “Anything you want to know.”

“Mind if I join you all?” I turned at the sound of the voice, and my jaw dropped more than slightly, my eyes fluttering in surprise. Zack walked up with his tray supported in his hands, a neutral look on his face.

I turned back to the table, and met the three of them looking to me, and realized that the decision was mine. “Have a seat,” I said, and nodded at him.

He turned and pulled an empty chair from a nearby table, and slid it up to sit next to me with a nod to everyone else. “How are you holding up?” he asked.

I thought about it. My mouth came open, and a million responses, both probable and improbable, threatened to fall out, every one of them carrying far more detail than was actually needed. “I’m…” I blinked, and a thousand more ran through my mind before I settled on one that came out. “I’m good,” I said, and I wondered if it was true. I thought for a second, and decided it was, or as close to it as was possible at this stage in my life. “I’m good. How are you?”

He chewed on a french fry, and averted his gaze. “Not as good as you, it sounds like.”

“Well,” I said, swallowing a bite of food, “it’s a tall order to fill, you know, what with all the awesome life events I’ve experienced lately…”

He broke a slight smile at that one. “Sure. Tons of fun stuff has happened, right?”

“Exactly,” I said, nodding. “Lots of big stuff. Crazy stuff. Like, I have a brother.” I reached back and slapped Reed on the shoulder. He looked up from his meal, surprise turning to annoyance from my slap.

“I heard about that. Well, I’m glad it’s all been going good,” Zack said, and paused, searching my eyes for something.

“Not all of it,” I amended. “There are some things that haven’t been so fun.” I lowered my voice a notch. “Some things I regret, if you know what I mean. Things I’m…sorry about.”

I caught the flicker in his expression, the subtle nod. “Yeah. I’ve…had one of those myself.” He cleared his throat. “I hate regrets.”

“Me too,” I agreed. I tried to smile, and did. “I don’t really like having regrets. I tend to like to…resolve things, if I can.”

“Me too,” he said with a shake of the head. “What do you do about something like that? You know, to resolve it?”

I took a deep breath and pretended to think about it. “You know…I think it depends on what the wronged party wants to do. For my part…I’m sorry.”

I thought I caught a little relief, and he nodded. “Me too. Things happened…that I wish had never happened. And…if I could have anything I wanted, it’d be to go back to the way things were before.”

“Really?” I raised an eyebrow at him. “Even after…everything?”

“Yeah,” he said finally, after clearing his throat again. “Because…’everything’…isn’t as bad as…what would happen if…” He looked up, as though trying to straighten out what he was trying to say in his head. “Oh, geez, I just…” He met my eyes, and his hand reached out for mine, and I felt his hands take mine, watched his bare skin stroke against the leather of my glove. “The physical isn’t everything to me. I just want to go back to the way things were.”

“You sure?” I waited, and he nodded. “I wouldn’t mind that either, because…you’re right. It’s not. But going back to the way things were is a better deal for me than you, so…yeah. I’ll take it. And…I really am sorry.”

“I know,” he said, and he looked me in the eye as he said it.

“Wait…” Kat said, staring at the two of us with squinted eyes, “did you two just get back together? Is that what that was?” She blinked twice. “No, really. I honestly have no idea.”

Reed laughed, followed by Scott, and then Zack. Kat finally let out a little guffaw of her own, and I started to join them but stopped. I was here, in my little oasis, hostile people all around, but my friends closest, surrounding me.

And yet Zollers’ last words, his warning, came back to me, and as they laughed, the sound was cold to my ears, and I was alone in the midst of them all. I felt those little hairs on the back of my neck tingle, the nerves firing off one by one, as the laughter grew at the table around me. I felt the feeling fade, and slowly, painfully slow, I let a smile spread across my face as I put that thought out of my mind.

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