NOTE: The events in this story take place near the beginning of Forte 2000 #147. Read that portion before beginning this tale.

 

The big meeting was finally starting to break up, and much to the relief of some, since it was now past two in the morning. The mystics and the Brotherhood and Rainier could have gone on all night, Dyna Girl was sure, but some of the others weren’t so enraptured by ancient texts and prophesies as them. Some of them did eventually plan to go to bed.

Leaving the shrinking (but still yammering) group in the area that passed for Tinker’s living room in her airplane hanger home, Holly wandered over to the kitchen, where the home’s owner, Lucy, was rinsing off some dishes in the sink.

“Wow,” she said, leaning her back against the counter and rubbing her neck. “I didn’t know learning could actually make you sore. I’ll take a good fist fight over this any day.”

Lucy grinned and washed out a glass. “Yeah, I know. A lot of information.”

“Understatement.”

“All important,” Lucy reminded her. “When this thing hits, we want to be ready for it. If this guy’s as badass and powerful and evil and Horus says he is, I don’t want to take any chances. I want to be there when he shows, and I want to take him down before he knows what hit him.”

“Now you’re speaking Holly,” Holly smiled. She looked across the room and watched the young Horus talking in his odd combination of animated and regal, going over things with his followers, and with Rainier and Stephen. For someone with such a big destiny—and such a long history—she could still see so much of the child in him. He was still just a kid, when you got right down to it, “god” or not.

“And,” she said carefully to Lucy, still watching Horus, “you’re kind of hoping that we can take care of business before Horus has to get into this big showdown he’s been planning on for thousands of years. Am I right?”

Lucy said nothing for a moment, continuing to wipe dishes with a sponge. She looked over her shoulder and over at Horus, then back to her sink quickly.

“He doesn’t have to face that, Holly,” she said, quietly, almost hard to hear over the running faucet. “I don’t care how powerful he is. We’ve got a room full of supers and sorcerers here, and stopping bad guys and saving the world is our job. He shouldn’t have to have this on his shoulders. I don’t care if it’s his brother and he thinks it’s some kind of birthright or something. He’s a kid. He deserves to be a kid. We do this, we do this right, he won’t have to. And then…I don’t know, then he’s got a chance at a real life with no blood debts or oaths or any of that crap. It’ll all be over. He can get on with living and growing up and being normal. You know, as normal as you can be for someone born before recorded history.”

“Let’s assume that happens. What’s going to happen to him?”

“I don’t know,” Lucy shrugged, turning off the water. “We get him some fake papers, like Jack and Phantasm did for Sam. He can go to school. He’ll love it, he’s so hungry to learn. And he’ll come off a little weird, but hey, we say he’s from Egypt. Kids are used to exchange students. Especially in this town. He’ll make friends, he’ll…I don’t know, get crushes on girls, go out for football, join the chess club. Which isn’t fair to the other kids, the way he plays chess, but it’s not his fault he’s brilliant. He’ll fit in. And he’ll feel different, but he’ll have all of us in his life, and come on, LOOK at this group. He won’t be alone in being different. He’ll be happy.”

Holly shifted uncomfortably and chose her words carefully. “So…we’re assuming he’s staying here, then?”

Lucy looked at her, and suddenly looked stung and more than a little vulnerable. Holly felt bad immediately, but there were things that had to be said.

“I…think he would, I mean, want to…” Lucy said, choosing to look down at the floor.

“It’s just that his family and his fellow ‘gods’,” Holly said, quietly, “they’re all up there on the Rock of Eternity. The only reason he’s not with him is that he chose to hang around Earth to take on Anubis. Are you sure he plans to stay on Earth after that’s over with?”

Lucy had no answer.

“Have you two talked about it?” Holly asked, kindly.

“No,” Lucy admitted. “I don’t think he’s thinking that far ahead. He’s too focused on Anubis. That’s his whole life. When the time comes, he’ll have to…make a decision, I guess.”

“You want him to stay?” Holly asked.

Lucy took a couple of breaths and watched Horus, watched as he went from serious oratory to bright smile in the span of the same sentence, watched his followers hang on his every word, watched Stephen and Davis listen and discuss with him, talking to him like he was one of them, like he was a grown-up, not like a kid with who shouldn’t have to think about things like avenging his father or facing evil sorcerers.

A tear spilled from one of Lucy’s eyes, and she wiped at it with her fingers, embarrassed. Without speaking, Holly reached over and softly took and held her hand.

“I think I do,” Lucy whispered. “Yeah.”

“You care about him a lot, don’t you?” Holly asked.

Lucy nodded, sniffling. “We’ve gotten close. I don’t know why he chose me to stay with that day, but he’s been…he’s become important to me. I’ve been telling myself it’s just temporary, but the more he’s in my life, the more I want him to stay in it. He’s such a neat kid, Holly. And he deserves so much more. I want him to have a life and I want to be a part of that life. My life is so… I just, I don’t want him to go.”

Holly put her weight on her hands behind her and slipped up onto the kitchen counter. Sliding her leg around, she scooted up behind her friend, put her arms around her and hugged her, putting her chin on Lucy’s shoulder. Lucy laughed, and sniffled more, the weight of the moment broken. She put her hand over one of Holly’s.

“Then maybe he won’t,” Holly smiled. “Maybe we’ll all get through this and we’ll have a new member of the family. I’d like that.”

“Yeah, me too,” Lucy sighed. “One step at a time, though, right?”

“Right,” Holly agreed. “Anubis goes down. God, I wish he’d hurry up and appear so I can just hit the son of a bitch and Davis can shut the hell up.”

They both laughed as Holly held her, while Horus and the others continued to speak of Armageddon.

 

---

“Smoke break?”

Moonspider looked down from his prolonged gaze at the stars. He was leaning against the west wall of Lucy’s hanger, standing alone in the shadows. There wasn’t anyone out in this part of town at this time of night, but one never knew who was sneaking around, so he was keeping out of sight.

He found the voice’s owner. Mist. She had snuck up on him, something not a lot of people could do. He was suitably impressed. She stood there in her familiar costume, the one she’d worn when she had been one of the founders of Forte back in ’87, a team which, fifteen years later, he had somehow found himself on.

“Nah,” he said, grinning (not that she could tell that through his mask). “Not one of my vices. Just taking a break.”

She leaned against the wall next to him and looked up at the stars as well. “I get you. Long night.”

“Heavy night,” he added. “Fate of the planet and all that. Wears a man down.”

“You get used to it,” she smiled, tiredly. “Somebody’s always either trying to rule it or end it.”

“You smoking, then?”

She laughed. “No. Things are starting to wind down in there. No new info, just going over the old again. I just thought I’d see how you were doing.”

He looked at her sideways. “Didn’t realize I was putting out a ‘see how I’m doing’ vibe.”

“You’re not. I didn’t mean that.”

“Was it an ‘I need a hug’ vibe? ‘Cause, frankly, while that would be pleasant, I’d feel weird with your husband right in there…”

“Allow me,” she said, cutting him off with amusement, “to rephrase. I just thought I’d say hello. We haven’t really gotten to talk much.”

“Fair enough,” he said. “Long as it’s just talk. Don’t go trying to nag me into the hugging. I’m holding ground on that.”

“Good God,” she laughed. “None of your teammates thought to tell me you were such a flirt.”

“That IS,” he said, smirking only to himself, “one of my vices.”

“Much safer than smoking,” she nodded. “Unless of course it’s with a lady whose husband can turn you into a toad.”

He raised his hands in surrender. “I’m staying safely on my side of the greasy abandoned engine part. No worries.”

She smiled and looked back up at the stars again, watching as they faded behind the veil of the rolling clouds. “Mainly, I just wanted to properly say thank you. For what you did with Jack.”

“All I did was pinch the man’s Questpad. Everyone’s making a fuss.”

“Yes, well, you probably saved his life by doing it. That was good, sharp thinking. Everyone else, I hear, was frazzled. You had the clear head.”

“They were watching someone they loved dying,” he said. “I didn’t know the man. Probably simple as that.”

“Regardless, thank you. He means a lot to me. More than I’ll ever tell the big dope. He’s still in my world because of you. So, thanks.”

Thinking it might be rude to protest further, Moonspider simply nodded to her and gazed back up at the sky himself.

After a few moments more of silence, Mist spoke.

“You’ve had a big month.”

“Yeah,” he agreed, thoughtfully. “There’s a mouthful.”

“You were sneaking around the rooftops solo at night, doing your own thing. Next thing you know, you’re in Forte.”

“Still trying to figure that out myself.”

“And then you discover Dr. Jackal’s really Jack Parker. And Knightsabre’s really Sabrina Knight-Parker. Then you find out Mist is Sydney Todd.”

“Hey,” he corrected. “I didn’t find out that last. You told me, remember?”

“I know,” she clarified. “Just figured since my husband and I were both going to be hanging out during all this, you’d figure it out anyway. My choice. Jack trusts you with his alter. Your teammates trust you with theirs. I figure that’s good enough for me.”

“Well, I appreciate the gesture. You only have my word, but it’s safe with me. All of it.”

She nodded. Another moment of pause followed.

“Of course,” she said, “your teammates don’t actually know YOUR secret identity yet, do they?”

He turned his head and studied her face. She kept looking up for a moment, then turned her eyes to him and met his glance, silently.

“No,” he said, and could hear the guilt in his own voice. “They don’t. Not yet.”

She nodded. “I’m sure you have your reasons.”

“I do. I’m breaking etiquette with that, I know. I’m sorry.”

“You have your reasons. You said so. That’s good enough for me.”

“Is it?” he asked.

“Hey, I’m not on your team. Not up to me to care about it one way or the other.”

“But you do.”

She stared at the sky again. “A little.”

“I understand. You’ve given me your trust, all of you, and I haven’t given mine.”

“That’s not so much what concerns me. Masks are funny things. People wear them for all kinds of reasons. Some to protect those they love. Some because they’ve got secrets. We’ve all got secrets, especially in this business. You have a right to keep yours. You’re just getting to know everyone. Trust takes time.”

She turned and looked at him again, leaning in and looking at his mask closely. She whispered, “That’s not you, is it, Vanguard?”

He laughed. Lady knew how to break a tense moment, he had to hand it to her.

“My concern,” she smiled, “is that you ARE on a team. I’ve had just a bit of experience with that.”

“I’d say.”

“Teamwork is essential is this game. It’s life or death out there. You’ve only got each other to count on. You have to know each other’s thoughts, moods, instincts. You all have to trust each other without hesitation. You keep secrets, it hurts trust. And it can come back to bite you. Twostep learned that. Anvil, too. Telesis. Jack kept his share and usually regretted it.”

“You think they don’t trust me?” he asked, honestly curious, referring to his newly-found partners in crime-fighting.

“Do you trust THEM?” she asked back. “I think that’s the question here.”

He blew out some misty breath through his mask. “I’m working on it,” he answered. “I am. I know you’re right.”

“Of course I’m right,” she grinned. “I’m the granny of Forte. Granny is wise.”

“Granny?” he asked. He leaned back deliberately and looked behind her, and her eyes widened a little in surprise that he was actually looking at her ass. “My granny should look so good.”

“I mentioned the toad thing, right?” she laughed. He held up his hands again and crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back against the wall.

“What I’m saying,” she said, getting back on track, while hoping that she hadn’t just blushed, “is that you’re really only hurting yourself. You’re missing out. There’s something special about being a part of a team. Of a family. It may be a mystery to you how it happened, but you ARE in the family now. You’re separating yourself from the people that are now going to be the most important people in your life. That you’ll ever know. You need to deal with whatever it is that’s making you do this and let it go. You owe it to them, you owe it to yourself. Let them in.”

He nodded. “I appreciate the candor. And the advice. I really do. As I said, I’m working on it.”

“Well don’t work on it too long,” she said, seriously. “You were in there tonight. You know what we’re up against. We’ve already lost—”

She choked on her words and cleared her throat, looking away. He felt a pang of empathy, and remembered entering that musty room beneath Rome and finding the body of Shade, a man that Mist—Sydney—called a friend. He remembered the procession to the Passing, and the fallen hero’s body burning in the final ceremony, the epilogue of a life of selfless service to the world.

“I’ve lost friends,” she said, when she could. “Too many of them. Friends, hell. They were family. That’s the risk we take when we put on these god-awful costumes and choose this life. We can’t stop it. More of us are going to go. No one wants to think that, but it’s probably true. It’s just the nature of it. What matters is that we don’t waste a minute of the time we have with them. Don’t deny yourself that. Don’t deny yourself THEM. Trust them. They’re good people, Moonspider. I know some better than others, but they’re all amazing, wonderful people. Get to know them. Let them get to know you. Be a part of your team. For your own sake.”

He watched the sky and considered her words, weighing heavily the things in his life. The secrets. And how his new teammates would react if they knew them.

Mist put her hand on his shoulder. “And for what it’s worth?” she said. “I think you’re pretty amazing and wonderful, too. I’m glad you’re with us, Moonspider. I mean that.”

“It’s James,” he said.

She was silent, taken aback by the suddenness of that.

He turned his head to her. “You can call me James.”

Her face blossomed into a wide smile. “It’s a start,” she said. “But don’t tell ME.”

She cocked her head toward the building behind them.

“Tell them.”

“Working on it,” he said quietly. Without being able to see it, she could imagine his crooked, and cocky, smile.

She became intangible and stepped halfway through the wall behind them, heading back into the hanger. She smiled at him once more before she passed completely through.

“Welcome to the family, James.”

 

---

Vortex stepped through the teleportal, into a dark room that he didn’t recognize. This was not where he had expected to end up.

Nightsable stepped through behind him, and with a thought, closed the portal. It vanished, and the illumination it had cast went with it, leaving the silent living room they were in—and its mix of modern and classic décor—even darker, with the momentarily cloudless moonlight shining through the window the only light.

“This isn’t the base,” Paul said, verbalizing the obvious.

“It’s not?” Samantha whispered innocently, looking around. “Oh, my God, you’re right. My aim just stinks this late at night.”

He turned to her in the peaceful shadows and grinned. He hadn’t needed a teleport. With his super-speed he could have rocketed out of Tinker’s place and made it home without any civilians being the wiser. But Sam had insisted, saying they’d better play it safe, and had told the others, and him, she would teleport him back to the new Forte team’s base, and he could head home from there.

She smiled shyly back. Stepping forward, she put her arms around his neck and pressed her lips firmly into his. Without thought guiding him, only instinct, he wrapped his arms around her and kissed her back, passionately. They had kissed for the first time two days ago, atop St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. Neither had planned it. It had just happened, a moment of closeness that had become something else, the apex of an obvious building but unspoken longing in each of them. The day after, back in Seattle, they’d had a cell phone conversation about the moment, and their feelings, and the problems these feelings brought. But they hadn’t been alone again, nor kissed again, since, and the heat and urgency in them spoke to how much both had been longing to do it again.

He finally pulled away. “Wait,” he said, breathlessly, but keeping his arms around her. “Where are we?”

“My house,” she said.

“Your HOUSE?” he said, nervously, looking around. The house she shared, he knew, with her family…a family that included Forte legends Dr. Jackal and Knightsabre.

“The family’s staying at the old base, genius, remember?” she teased. “We’re alone.”

Something about those two words held so much weight and made him pulse with heat. She was so beautiful. Even in the slight light, her eyes seemed to sparkle. He had quietly yearned for her—even when he wasn’t admitting it to himself—since the first night they’d met, just three weeks before. Now that things were out in the open between them, and his feelings were reciprocated, new emotions in him seemed to ignite each moment he was with her.

His brain started to remind of something, but he hungrily kissed her, again, instead of listening to it. He wasn’t a smoker, but he imagined what he was feeling was what a smoker must feel after two days without a cigarette, finally able to light another after being able to think about little else since the last. He surrendered to all the sensations…the taste of her, the tiny noises escaping her nose, the feel of her pressed against him. And something about the fact that they were doing this in her parents’ living room, with them away, made him feel fifteen all over again. And that, he had to admit, added to the thrill.

But his brain started knocking again, and he remembered what it had been trying to tell him. He tried to stop, but, like that smoker, kept telling himself he’d put it out…but just one more puff. Maybe two.

Finally he stopped the kissing, closed his eyes, and held his forehead against hers as they breathed together.

“We were going to talk about this more,” he said, his mouth still dangerously close to hers.

“I know,” she answered, slightly trembling. “I didn’t mean to do that. I just wanted to be alone with you. Just to talk. I couldn’t help myself. I’m sorry.”

“I know,” he said, eyes still closed, licking his lips. “Me, too. We shouldn’t…I don’t know what we’re doing.”

“I know,” she whispered. “I don’t either.”

“I’ve been thinking about doing that since Rome. It’s almost all I’ve been thinking about. With all this going on, that’s what I’ve been thinking about.”

“Me, too.”

“Maybe us being alone together isn’t the safest thing right now.”

“Why do you think I didn’t teleport us into my room?”

He physically felt that sentence from her, and let out a moan of pain. This made her laugh, a very confidential laugh meant just for the two of them, and he adored the sound of it. He laughed back and pressed his nose against hers.

“Maybe we should sit down,” he said, running his hand across her cheek and looking into her eyes. She nodded, and they finally pulled away from each other and stepped through the dark to the Parker family sofa.

They sat down together and faced each other, with her pulling her legs up and under her. Paul felt he was starting to get a hold on his urges and was starting to calm down a bit. That was good.

Neither said anything for a pregnant moment, each waiting for the other to speak. When neither did, Sam started laughing. She shoved his leg with her boot.

“You start.”

Yeah, fifteen was about right.

“Okay,” he said, thinking about it. “Um…I was trying really hard not to stare at you at the meeting tonight.”

“I know!” she said. “Me too. I feel like everyone can tell.”

“But then I’d catch myself doing it anyway.”

“I know,” she said, quieter, poking him with her boot. “I caught it.”

“You’re really gorgeous, Sam.”

She blushed in the dark. “You are, too.”

And here came the suck part.

“Everything about you drives me crazy. I can’t stop thinking about you. But…”

He trailed off. She finally finished for him.

“But you have a girlfriend,” she said, the fun having left her voice. She wasn’t guessing this. They’d talked about it on their cell phone call. One he made from the top of a building, far from home and from Claire.

“I’ve never been one of those guys. You know?”

“I know. And believe me, I’ve been feeling terrible about that, too. I’m not one of ‘those girls’. If I’d known—“

“And if I’d known about you and Seahawk…” Again, something that had come out of their phone call, something that was a major shock to him. Nice of no one on the team to fill the new guy in on that piece of gossip before he decided to make out with a teammate’s girl.

“Well, that’s different. That’s complicated. I don’t know what Jared and I are.” They’d discussed this as well, the moment at the waterfront when Jared was half-crazed and about to murder the man who had crippled his son, Jared having pushed her away, Jared taking off for Boston and staying with his ex-wife, leaving her with no word, no idea where they stood or how he felt.

“So neither of us knew,” she continued.

“But we both knew about our own relationships.”

“We didn’t plan it, Paul. It just happened.”

“I still feel like an asshole.”

“Yeah,” she sighed. “I still feel like a ho.”

He laughed. “You’re not a ‘ho’. All we’ve done is kiss.”

“And we both know that doesn’t make it any better.”

“Yeah,” he had to agree. He looked out the window and they fell silent for a bit.

“Want to know something weird?” he said, finally.

“’Kay.”

“It’s like,” he said, readjusting his sitting position, “it’s like I have two lives. I haven’t been doing this hero thing long, so I don’t know if that’s normal or what. But Claire, she doesn’t know I’m Vortex. It’s like she’s with Paul. But I’m Vortex, too, and I keep feeling like Paul’s not lying to her. That Vortex has this amazing new girl in his life, and that’s his thing. That’s totally justifying, and it’s bullshit, and I know it. It’s just what I was thinking for a while to make myself feel better.”

“I don’t want to mess things up with you two,” she said. “That’s not fair to her. I’ve never been in this situation before. I don’t want to be in this situation. But I am.”

“I put you in it. And I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” she said. “I’m still glad it happened. And I’m not innocent here. Now you have to wonder if I didn’t let it happen just to get back at Jared. Which I didn’t. But you can’t know that for sure. That’s not fair to you.”

He blew breath between his lips. “So here we are. What do we do about it?”

“I don’t know,” she answered, quietly. “I can’t pretend I don’t feel this way about you. I mean, we can back off, if that’s the right thing to do here. If that’s what we want to do, I mean. But it’s not going to change how I feel.”

“I know. I feel the same.”

“Do you love her?” she had to ask.

Try though she wanted, she didn’t know him well enough to read the silence that followed.

“I don’t know if I can answer that.

“Do you love him?”

Silence of her own.

“I don’t think I can answer that, either.”

He nodded. “This really sucks, doesn’t it?”

“It does,” she agreed.

“So,” he said. “Where does that leave us?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know.”

He didn’t either.

“Either way?” he said. “I don’t want this to affect our work. We can’t afford that right now with all this going on.”

“Oh, of course,” she said, quickly. “It won’t. I promise. What we’re doing is so much more important. That’s priority one right now. This other thing? Us? We can deal with it. We don’t have to decide anything tonight. It can wait.”

“That’s good to hear. I don’t want to let the team down.”

“You won’t. I promise. Neither of us will.”

He reached over and took her gloved hand in his. She squeezed it, and they just looked at each other.

“Can I tell you something?” he asked.

“Of course,” she said, reassuringly.

“You know you just told me Seahawk’s real name is Jared, right?”

She looked at him, then raised her eyes upward in thought, thinking back.

“Shit,” she said.

 

---

 

Max wandered around the main hanger, absently checking out the handful of small aircraft Lucy was currently working on when she wasn’t doing her Tinker thing. A couple of them were her own, and she’d taken up him flying a couple of times, mostly in their early days when they were all still getting to know each other as teammates. That was coming up on three years ago. It seemed suddenly like a long time to him. So much had happened in his life since he'd met her and Jared at UNCLE that day. Most of them amazing, some he wished had never happened. He didn’t exactly feel old, because he didn’t think he’d ever feel old, no matter how many years he got under his belt. He still thought of himself as a kid, though he did his best to pretend otherwise when he was flying around being Max. But he couldn’t imagine ever feeling wise, feeling seasoned. He still felt like he had no idea what he was doing most of the time.

He was waiting for Sam to come back from teleporting Paul home. She was taking a lot longer than he’d thought. He hated to admit it, but all the time she was spending with the new guy was making him a little jealous. It was stupid. Not like anything would ever happen with him and her. Bobby was younger than her, and she was way too perfect to ever give a second glance to a guy like him. She was gorgeous, and sweet, and such a great person. And she’d been with Jared, anyway. Whether she still was was something no one seemed to want to talk about. But they’d become good friends and gotten close since that first time he met her at ChemaCo during that big fire. He enjoyed her hugs more than he should, and tried not to notice the smell of her hair when they happened. But she saw him as a little brother, he was sure. He was just Bobby, not some good-looking mysterious schoolteacher with super-speed and cool hair. He saw the way she looked at Vortex, how much they talked and laughed together at the base and out on patrol.

Yeah, he had a crush. Who wouldn’t, right? But she was too far above him. A real hero, and a beautiful one, too, that lots of guys thought about. At least he got to be her friend and watch movies with her and goof around with her. That’s more than most guys would ever get. So he felt kind of stupid complaining. No, she was his teammate. And his pal. Anything else was just too ridiculous the think about.

Of course, there was his crush on Holly, too…

“Alone with your thoughts?” a voice asked.

He turned and saw Hisham standing there, the soft-spoken Egyptian that had walked into their lives barely more than a couple of weeks ago. He was standing next to a Cesna, the sleeves of his white shirt rolled up.

“Huh? Oh, yeah, I guess,” Max grinned, not realizing he was so obvious, and that made him a little embarrassed, as if the man might be able to divine what he'd been thinking about.

“You wish to be alone?” Hisham asked, smiling.

“No, no. Just killing time, waiting for Nightsable. She’ll be back soon. I guess.”

Hisham strolled toward him. “I felt I should ask. There are times a man needs to be alone.”

“This isn’t one of them. I was just…you know, checking out the planes.”

Hisham nodded, looking at the aircraft around them. “This is good work Tinker has. Honest work. There’s nothing like working with your hands, fixing things. It’s good for the mind.”

“You fix things?” Max asked.

Hisham laughed. “Only when they break, my friend. It’s not a calling for me. I’m envious of Tinker. This would be a good life.”

“Yeah, I bet your life is kind of…complicated,” Max mused, awkwardly.

Hisham gave him a knowing, peaceful smile. “A good word. Yes, but very fulfilling. I would not trade it.”

“So you guys,” Max said, “this is your whole life. This Brotherhood thing.”

“For the most part, yes. We’ve been reared in it since birth. It is our calling. We serve a higher cause. We stand against the coming darkness, try to make the world a better place. Much like you.”

“Like me?” Max asked, perplexed.

Hisham laughed, but not cruelly. “You don’t think highly of yourself for a man who’s given his life to fighting for good, do you?”

“Uh…” Max said, kind of stumped by that. “I don’t know.”

“Do you know,” the man said, studying Max, “there are few stronger forces in this world than a man’s view of himself? It can change a man’s whole universe, alter the course of his life and his place in the world. I don’t pretend to know you, Max, but in the time we’ve shared, I’ve seen that at work in you.”

“Really?”

“Why is it,” he asked, “that a man with such amazing gifts, and with a such a brave and selfless heart, sees so much less in himself than those around him do?”

On the verge of blushing and feeling the need to shuffle his feet like a 10-year old, Max could only shrug. “I guess I don’t see myself that way.”

“Modesty is good. It’s good to know your place in greater scheme, to see your smallness in the universe. Pride has been the undoing, and shame, of many a man. But to deny what you are, to make yourself less, is a tragedy. And a waste of potential. You have much to learn about yourself, my friend. You have need to see what others see in you.”

Max considered this, and could only shrug again. “Yeah, I guess.”

Hisham laughed again and clapped him on the shoulder. “You have much to discover on this journey of yours, Max. I see great things ahead of you. I hope to stand against what is to come and live to see it.”

This statement made Max immediately uncomfortable. And he looked away.

Seeing this, Hisham smiled. “I have many weaknesses, but lying to myself is not one of them. I do not fear what is coming. My fate is what it is. I have faith. But to be a part of the Brotherhood is to accept the dangers. I am at peace with this.”

“How do you do it?” Max wondered, marveling a little. “You guys don’t have powers or anything, right?”

“Strength has never been the measure of a man’s heart. History has taught us this time and again. Ordinary men can change the fate of nations, and have.”

“You’re not afraid of dying?”

“It’s not something I would choose,” he grinned. “But when you’ve seen and learned what I have, you come to accept it as fair price for what you believe.” He paused and studied Max again. “Are you?”

Max thought about it. “Well…yeah.”

“You’ve come close to it, I’m sure, with all that you’ve done.”

“Yeah, more times than I’d like. Doesn’t make it any less scary.”

Hisham nodded, wisely. “And yet you go on. You keep doing what you do, facing it day in and out. That, my friend, is courage. That is what makes you a hero. Not your gifts, not your garb. You face your fear because it is what is right. And that is what makes you a hero, young Max.”

Max grinned sheepishly. “Man,” he said. “You can really talk.”

“When I know well what it is I’m talking about? Yes, I can.”

“You think we can take this guy?” Max asked.

“I have no doubt,” Hisham said, again with that sure peace. “He is the embodiment of all that is evil. And for generations we have waited to stand against him and his followers, alone. But now?” He put his hand on Max’s shoulder. “Now we have allies we had never imagined. I will admit, I, more than all of us, doubted your place in all this. I have come to learn that our paths were meant to cross, your comrades and mine. The time is upon us, and I have never felt more sure that we will win the day, and the world will never again know the fear of him. We will fight together. He will fall. And our grandchildren will speak of the day when their forebears stood strong and stopped the darkness. For all people. For all time.”

Just for a moment, Max was able to imagine what it would feel like to feel old. It wasn’t so bad. Not so bad at all.

 

---

“Are you coming to bed?”

Davis Alexander looked up from his computer’s flatscreen, the one that lit his desk and its books and notes and artifacts. Chelsea stood there in the doorway, lit from behind, wearing his “Archeologists Do It In The Dirt” tee shirt that he never, of course, would have bought for himself. Below the text was a drawing of two dinosaur skeletons engaged in prehistoric doggie-style.

“I just had a few more things to reference,” he said, pulling his head out of its frenzy of analysis and thought. They had been home perhaps half an hour, home to his loft downtown. “Stephen got me thinking that maybe we’re not—”

“Yeah, yeah,” she said, stepping into the room and crossing to him on her bare feet. She leaned down behind him and put her arms around his neck and pressed against him, kissing his cheek. He reached up and took her hand, feeling the warmth of her cheek on his.

“You’re going to break your brain,” she whispered. “After that it’s no more smart Davis. It’s all drooling and facial ticks and reality shows.”

He grinned, patient with her as ever. “There’s still so much to learn,” he said.

“And it will still be there in the morning,” she offered. “And by morning, I mean LATER this morning. You do realize what time it is.”

”I do,” he said, seriously. “And how little time we have. They’re counting on me, Chelsea.”

“I know,” she whispered, and kissed his face again. “I know what you’re doing is important. For everybody. In case I haven’t told you, I’m very proud of you.”

That made him look away from his screen, and to her. “No,” he said, surprised. “You haven’t.”

She smiled at him below her big, dark eyes. “Well, now I have.”

She slinked around him and lowered herself onto his lap, her legs on either side of him and her elbows on his shoulders. He looked into her face and momentarily forgot his studies, not an easy thing for him. She worked her fingers into the back of his hair and kissed him tenderly, and his hands went to her back as he kissed her in return.

He forced himself to let go of everything on his mind and just sun himself in the moment, and her—her familiar weight on him, her scent that never needed perfume to enhance it. Her long black hair brushed his face and she made no attempt to pull it back, and he had no wish for her to do so.

After the long moment passed, she curled her arms around him and sighed heavily into his ear. It occurred to him that her shirt was still on, something that rarely ended up happening after a moment like that between them.

“There’s a lot of things I haven’t told you,” she said into his ear.

“Really?” he asked, still relaxed but tensing ever so slightly.

“Uh huh,” she purred, kissing his neck softly.

“You didn’t used to be a man or anything, did you?”

He felt her quiet laugh through her body. “No,” she said.

“That’s good,” he said, moving his hands to her hips beneath his tacky birthday gift tee shirt. “I was starting to wonder, much as you like to use my razor.”

She leaned back slowly, keeping her arms around his neck. She was smiling and looking at him with unmasked affection, and he found himself smiling at that, enjoying her mood. They stared into each other’s eyes, not saying anything. Soon the pause had gotten too long, and he started looking at her curiously as his hands slid to the smooth small of her back.

“I love you, Davis.”

His hands stopped moving. As did his breathing.

Her look of affection turned to an uncharacteristic uncertainty, perhaps fear.

“I’ve never said that to anyone before,” she said. “I’ve never had reason to. I didn’t think I could…that I’d ever…”

“Chelsea...” he said, all that he could manage at that moment.

“I know I don’t deserve someone like you. I know we’ve had bad times. I’ve said and done terrible things to you, and tried to push you away.”

The right thing to do would have been to protest, but they both would have known it was a lie, so he only continued to watch her, mutely.

“But you always took me back. No matter how hard I tried to screw it up because I was afraid. I never really knew what I wanted until I found it with you, and it scared me. It still scares me. I know I haven’t always been a good person. But I’m trying. I’m trying for you. Because you deserve better than I am. You’re wonderful, and you’re kind, and you’re everything I could ever want.

“I love you, Davis.”

He finally noticed she was trembling. When he was in his Rainier form, he walked around weighing at least a couple of tons. But right then, he had never felt so heavy in his life.

“I love you, too, Chelsea.

“I’ve never said that to anyone either. I never knew I could feel it. Feel this. I never knew there was someone out there who could…do what you’ve done to me. Make me what you’ve made me.”

He put his hands on both of her cheeks, and her hair draped over them.

“I’ve never really known what happy is. Not until I met you. You’re everything I never thought to dream of. And I can’t imagine my life without you in it.

“I love you.”

She wept. In truth, they both did. That night they made love under his skylight, with the moon that called her its champion bathing them, under the timeless watch of nearby Mount Rainier, the mountain that claimed him as its own. And it wasn’t violent, or frantic, as it often was with them. It was tender, and soft, and just for that night, nothing else in the world, nothing that stood ahead of them, mattered. All that mattered was each other.

 

---

 

“YOU are one sleepy little god,” Lucy smiled.

Horus, the boy from ages past, wrapped in a cloak of mystical slumber as history rolled past him while he waited for his time to rise and face his chosen fate, was yawning so widely that Lucy was afraid his teeth were going to fall out.

Blinking his eyes, Horus smiled his infectious, pure smile, the one that somehow always made Lucy’s heart lift a little higher.

“I told you we should have called it earlier,” she chided, putting an empty pizza box in a pile with the others next to the kitchen garbage (Nightsable Pizza. 30 seconds or less, or it’s free!) and starting across the living room toward him.

“There was too much to be said,” he said, stretching. “The hour is so near, and so much to be done.”

“The hour is so LATE,” she said, crouching down beside him at the recliner he rested on. “And you, my little pharaoh, need your sleep. You’re still a growing boy.”

He grinned, always enjoying it when she called him that, she knew. “You make me feel like I’m back at my palace, delving too long in my books, and my great mother Isis is scolding me again for it.”

“The great Isis was wise,” she smiled. “We have a saying in this era. ‘Mother knows best’. So does Lucy. Come on, you.”

She patted him on the knee and stood up, and he rose to meet her, looking even more tired when got vertical. She put her hands on his small shoulders and walked behind him, guiding him to the guest room that had become his royal chamber.

“The Brothers are strong and true,” he said, with no little measure of pride, as they walked. “I knew that the best of them would be saved for this time.”

“The Brothers are swell guys,” she agreed. “They’re good people. I’m glad they decided to trust us.”

“I trusted you,” he said, grinning up at her. “How could they not agree with the wisdom of their god?”

She yanked playfully on his thick, single braid of black hair that grew from the back of his head. “No wonder you’re tired, having to carry that big head around all day long.”

He laughed boyishly, always enjoying her teasing. For some reason the boy who had been worshipped by the pre-dynastic Egyptians, and still was by his latter-day followers, very much enjoyed the way Lucy treated him like a mere mortal. She walked him into his room and stepped back out, pulling the door handle to her as she did.

“Get your P.J.’s on,” she said. “Chop, chop.”

She closed the door and let him change, and leaned back against the wall as she waited, standing there in the now-silence of her home. Without warning, she felt a wave of emotion take her, and she leaned her head back and closed her eyes, fighting back tears and cursing herself for it. Thinking again of her little brother Daniel, and thinking how unfair it was to Horus to be doing so.

“All right,” he finally said through the door, and she entered his room to find him already in his bed, with the nightstand lamp reflecting off his bald little head. She sat on the bed next to him and rubbed that head and smiled at him.

“You’re going to sleep good,” she predicted. “You had a big day.”

“A fine day,” he said, smiling sleepily, which she felt was an odd point of view for a day spent talking about the end of all things and global genocide. “I feel strong. I feel destiny riding beside us all.”

“Yes, well,” she said, still rubbing his head. “There’s still a lot to do before we start thinking about that. Destiny will still be there in the morning. Right now you need some good, happy dreams and a good night’s sleep.”

“Dreams of victory,” he said, thickly and dreamily, closing his eyes.

She smiled, but it was a sad one. “How about dreams of baseball or something? I’ll have to explain what the phrase ‘one-track mind’ means to you sometime. Trust me, it’s not good to have one.”

He sniffed and rolled over on his back, his head sinking into his pillow, and looked up at her. “I have dreamed of baseball.”

“You have?” she said, smiling a little more genuinely.

“Yes. I enjoy baseball very much.”

“I know you do,” she said, rubbing her thumb over his forehead. “So does everyone who sat around you at that Mariners game.”

He laughed a little. “I would like to play baseball one day.”

“You would?” she asked, suddenly feeling very light at heart.

“I think I would be good. As a shortstop.”

“You’d be great,” she said, with maybe a little too much enthusiasm. “Bobby could really teach you some stuff. He played in high school before he switched over to football.”

“I like Bobby,” he smiled, his eyes heavily lidded. “He is mighty, but with the manner of a herdsman. His greatness is quiet. Like the mighty Shu. Master of the air, but friend to the lowliest below.”

“He likes you, too,” she said. “Everyone does. We really like having you around, you know?”

“This pleases me,” he smiled, more sleepily. “I’m blessed to call you all friends.”

“And you know,” she said, carefully, “we’d like to see a lot more of you around here. I think you’d be really happy here with us.”

“I would,” he said as his eyes fell closed.

“Maybe it’s something you could think about when this is all over,” she said. “I mean, you don’t have to decide now, but if you wanted to, you could—”

Halfway through the sales pitch she had forced herself into, she realized he was asleep.

She closed her eyes and shook her head at herself. She opened them again and watched the sleeping god, and admitted to herself that she loved him. It wasn’t just the idea of having a little brother in her life again, she insisted to herself. Of having family in her home. Uncle Max and Geoffrey were wonderful, and were all she’d ever needed after losing her parents and brother that terrible day. But Horus had brought back something she hadn’t thought for a long time about missing. Someone to watch over, to take care of. Someone she wanted so much to take care of.

Beast, her dog of a million breeds, padded into the room. He rounded the bed and lightly bounded onto it, and settled himself down with his head on the pillow next to Horus’, and grunted as he did. His usual spot. She wasn’t the only one who had grown used to Horus.

“No snoring,” she whispered to her long-time friend, and pet his hairy head. She looked down, then, at Horus, watching him again for a few more moments, looking so peaceful and childlike, like a boy without the whole of the world counting on him to be their savior.

She leaned down and kissed his head. “Good night, little pharaoh,” she whispered. With that, she clicked off the lamp and quietly left the boy and the dog to their dreams. Baseball, she hoped. And very slow rabbits.

She closed the door lightly and walked slowly to her kitchen, feeling suddenly so tired on so many levels. The cleanup was almost done. She’d had many offers of help with that—even, amusingly, from the Brothers—but it was late and she wanted everyone to get back to their lives. To their loved ones, if they had them. At a time like this, that was so much more important.

She dropped an empty bowl that had contained fruit into the sink and started the water heating. She looked up, and out through her kitchen window, and noticed a nondescript sedan parked across the way. Standard UNCLE issue. She felt a smile grow.

She walked out the kitchen exit into the cold night, shivering a little at the poor protection her tee shirt and sweats afforded. She stood there and watched the dark silhouette of the vehicle’s only occupant. After a moment, she waved him in.

Captain Jack McNeal, UNCLE Seattle’s STRIKE leader, stepped out of his car, wearing, to no surprise, a Hawaiian shirt under his worn bomber jacket. He clicked his alarm on and walked over to where she waited, already grinning before he got there.

“Hi,” she smiled, rubbing her goosed-up arms.

“Big secret meeting over?” he asked, raising his eyebrows knowingly.

“All done. Hey, come on in. It’s cold.”

He followed her into the kitchen and closed the door behind them, and she went back to her sink to finish up.

“The kid sleeping?” he asked quietly, looking around.

“Finally,” she sighed. “He was pretty wound up. He was in his element tonight.”

“I bet,” he grinned, leaning back against the counter near her. “Cocky little deity. Anything happen I’m allowed to know about? You know, not being in the club and all.”

“You could have come by,” she said, shaking her head at him. “You are kind of in the loop, you know. No one would have minded.”

“Ahhh,” he said, waving his hand dismissively. “I’m not big on meetings. Just ask Castillo. I’ll leave the battle planning to you spandex types. I’m more the gun you point at things when the planning’s done.”

“You’re more than a gun, Jack,” she said, looking at him over her shoulder disapprovingly. “You know that. You don’t get to lead an elite assault team by being a grunt.”

“Unless you’re really good at being a grunt,” he offered. “Gotta go with your strengths.”

“You have a lot more strengths,” she said, seriously.

“I do have a badass backswing,” he mused. “My short game needs work.”

She shook her head again and grinned at him, then finished with the bowl and turned off the water. Drying her hands with a towel, she said, “Hey, you want a beer?”

“One of my other strengths,” he said, raising a revelatory finger.

“I’d offer coffee,” she said, going to the fridge, “but then I’d be up all night. And I’m already pretty much up all night as it is. Hey,” she said, pulling out a couple of Red Hooks, “so are you. Don’t you ever sleep?”

“Nothing on cable,” he shrugged, taking a beer from her. He opened a drawer next to them and pulled out a church key. A testament to how much time he’d been spending at her place lately. He popped the cap off hers first for her, then opened his own.

“You’ve got a real job,” she laughed. “I’m sure they want you awake for it. You don’t have to make yourself sick watching out for me and Horus every night.”

“Maybe I enjoy the company,” he said. Lucy smiled at this, and tried not to look school-girly at the unexpected compliment. He simply grinned and raised his bottle. She tapped it lightly with her own, and they drank together.

They sat in her living room, on the couch in the quiet, and sipped their beers while she, cross-legged, told him about the evening, and what they learned, and what was coming next. He listened carefully, asking questions when he felt it necessary, and offered his thoughts. They talked comfortably, like it was now an old familiar rhythm.

At one point, while she sat there with her head lying on her arm as it rested on the couch back, she turned her gaze back toward the bedrooms.

“I’m scared for him, Jack,” she admitted.

“I know,” he said, looking back that way, too. “Me too. I like these Egyptian guys fine, but I don’t like the way they’re looking at him like the second coming.”

“Exactly,” she said, looking back to him, rubbing her cheek on her arm. “He’s a kid, Jack.”

“Not your average kid,” he allowed. “No doubt about that. But you don’t send kids into battle. I don’t care how many magical powers he's supposed to have. This isn’t right.”

“Everyone's treating it like it’s all normal,” she said, visibly upset. “He shows up and says he’s going to fight his all-powerful brother in mortal combat, and they’re like, oh, okay, guess that’s what’s going to happen. Why is that? Why can’t they see how wrong that is?”

“Don’t know,” he sighed. “This is new territory for me. I don’t know about all this saving the universe ancient prophecy crap. I just know he’s a great kid.”

She nodded.

“Cheats at poker,” he added. “But an otherwise great kid.”

Lucy laughed. “He really likes you, you know,” she told him.

“Feeling’s mutual,” he said, taking a drink from his near-empty beer. There was something sad in the way he said it.

“You have any kids, Jack?” she asked on impulse. “All this talking we’ve done, I’ve never asked that. I mean, I know you’re not married, but…were you, ever?”

“I was,” he said, cautiously. “And no. Not long enough for kids.”

“Ever want one?”

“Yeah, sure,” he shrugged. “Kids are great.”

“You’re great with him,” she said, studying him. “You’d be a great dad, I can tell.”

“That, I don’t know about. I’m kind of a big kid myself. I’m afraid we’d be fighting over the same video games. Probably fighting over the same girls.”

She laughed and shoved his shoulder lightly. “Come on. You’d be a natural.”

“Ahh,” he said in that way of his. “I think I kind of missed that boat, anyway.”

“Oh, you’re not going to plead old on me now, are you? Give me a break.”

“Lot of miles on me,” he said.

“You’re not old. Please.”

“I’m oldER,” he grinned.

“Older than what?” she asked with a laugh.

He was silent for a moment, and the silence suddenly got heavy as she realized there might be more stuffed into it.

“Older than most guys having kids,” he said, finally, steering things back. But there was no denying it—she was pretty sure, at least. It was possible a moment had just happened. Had it? Was she imagining it? Wishful thinking from a very tired airplane mechanic-slash-super-hero?

“A wise man once said that old is a state of mind,” she said, taking another sip of her beer, carefully.

“Well, there’s just certain rules with getting old. Ones you follow, or people look at you funny and talk behind your back.”

“You never struck me as a fan of rules,” she said, bending her elbow and resting her head on her hand.

“Didn’t say I had to like ‘em. But they keep makin’ ‘em.”

“I think,” she smiled, “that same wise man said something about rules being meant to be broken.”

“That guy had a lot to say,” he noted. “He ought to write a book or something.”

When they fell into silence, after that, one so long she ended up grinning and looking away for a moment, she started to think more that wishful thinking was not what was happening. Started to be pretty damned sure of it. And suddenly she felt a lot less tired.

He finished the last bit of his beer.

“You want another?” she asked, maybe a little too hopefully.

“I’d,” he said, drawing out the word, “better go.”

“No, come on,” she said, and this time maybe a little too desperately. “Have another. Hang out.” ‘Hang out’? What the hell was that?

“I do have muster in couple hours,” he said. “I probably should sleep a little. I’ll be handling heavy weaponry, it could get ugly.”

“You could crash here,” she offered. Oh, good, ‘hang out’ and ‘crash’. What was she, on TRL? This video RULES! “I’ve got extra rooms, you know.”

“Uniform’s at home,” he said, smiling apologetically. “And fish to feed. I should probably let you sleep, too. I’m keeping you up.”

“You’re not,” she said. “I…kind of like the company, too.”

He smiled and for a moment looked indecisive. But then he said, “Thanks. But I’m gonna…” He pointed his thumb in the general direction of the door. “I’d better. But, thanks.”

Deflated, she nodded, reluctantly. “Okay.”

“I just wanted to make sure you two were okay.”

“We are when you’re around,” she went ahead and said.

He smiled at this, and at her, and she smiled back.

“Okay,” he said, patting his legs and standing. “To the fish.”

“Tomorrow?” she asked, standing up, too.

He shrugged. “If you’re not off saving the world.”

“Tacos?” she asked.

“Sold,” he nodded.

“Poker?”

“Got to check my bank account first. I swear, I’m paying for that kid’s college.”

She laughed at this, he started for the door, and she followed.

“Tell him I said hi, okay?” he asked, crossing the kitchen.

“I will,” she said, walking behind him. “He’ll be sorry he missed you.”

He opened the door and turned and faced her. She stood there with probably a stupid-looking grin.

His face turned a bit more serious. “You watch your back, okay?”

“Okay,” she said, softly. “You too.”

“Another one of my strengths,” he grinned. Then he turned and walked out, raising the back of his hand in wave over his shoulder. Though he couldn’t see it, she waved back.

She stood at the half-opened door and watched him walk to his car, start it, and pull slowly away. When his taillights disappeared, she stepped back and gingerly closed the door. She put her forehead, and her palm, against it, and rubbed her left foot with her right. And smiled. And fought off the urge to call and wake up Holly.

END.

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