Special (15/20)
Title: Special (15/20)
Pairings: Well so far we have Winters/Guarnere and Webster/Liebgott. All the others are either past, implied, past AND implied or haven’t developed to the point of being in the pairings section. They’ll get there.
Summary: All over the world, people are waking up with extraordinary abilities. Not knowing how they got them or what to do, they will soon discover that they are not alone. They are all connected. They are all special. Based on NBC’s Heroes. Various Pairings.
Cross posted to ihave_no_idea
Links to previous chapters inside.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
Part 8
Part 9
Part 10
Part 11
Part 12
Part 13
Part 14
Disclaimer: I’m not making any money off of writing this story. It’s entirely fictional and based on the performances given in the HBO miniseries Band of Brothers and not the actual soldiers. Any ideas or phrases borrowed from the NBC show Heroes belong to the writers of that show, not me. I don’t own anything…so please don’t sue me. I wrote it for your enjoyment so…enjoy!
Philadelphia, PA
Apparently the best place to have a serious discussion was the Starbucks on the corner of the block Babe lived on. Not that there was really a preferred venue for such a thing to occur.
“So why were you following me?” Babe asked the young doctor who had supposedly ‘saved’ him from himself. They had retrieved their coffee in silence but the question had escaped the teenager’s lips the moment they had sat down at a secluded table.
Gene looked at the young man with a sigh. “I was hoping that since I wasn’t the one about to jump off a building I would get to ask the questions.”
“You thought wrong.” Babe told him bluntly as he crossed his arms, feeling suspicious and on edge now that the adrenaline was wearing off.
However Gene just stared at him coolly, pulling the top off of his coffee and blowing puffs of air across the liquid. “You answer my question and I’ll answer yours.” He told the young man finally.
Babe shook his head, “Bullshit. You answer mine or I walk out of here right now.”
Gene supposed he was impressed by the other man’s stubbornness, so he decided to simply be honest. One could catch more flies with honey after all…not that he was trying to...catch anyone.
“Me and my friends are supposed to be meeting someone over at your building. Only I didn’t realize it was your building ‘till I saw you on the street.” Gene told him truthfully, important details omitted of course. “I tried to call your name but I guess you didn’t hear me. I uh…well honestly I just wanted to see you again.”
The young man looked surprised by the answer. “Oh.”
“Oh?” Gene asked.
Babe shrugged, he hadn’t really thought that a guy like Gene, a freaking doctor, would have given him a spare thought after their rather dramatic first encounter. Not that their second meeting had gone much better.
“I suppose you want to know what I was doing on the rooftop don’t you?” Babe asked knowing full well that was indeed what Gene wanted to know. He just wasn’t sure how much to tell the other man. “The thing is…well it’s really kind of complicated. And you know…personal. But I can tell you that I was NOT trying to kill myself.”
Gene frowned, a doubtful expression on his face. “What outcome, other than death, did you hope to achieve by hurling yourself off the top of a cathedral?”
Babe opened his mouth to reply, but he couldn’t come up with an honest answer that didn’t make him look completely insane.
For his part, Gene was shocked by how afraid the other man was to simply talk. It certainly wasn’t defusing his suspicion that it had been a suicide attempt. But at the same time, the young man didn’t strike Gene as being suicidal- as a doctor he knew the type. It was quite the opposite in fact. In Babe Gene saw energy and exuberance. The young man, on both occasions that Gene had encountered him, hadn’t minded yelling his opinions.
He wasn’t sure why he was willing to open up about it, other than he felt a connection with Babe, but he did anyway. “I’m here…because well…my best friend was…Well she was killed a while back and I was trying to connect with her family.”
Babe looked up as Gene began to share the unexpected information, his attention successfully caught. Gene continued, “She hadn’t seen them in a long time and I knew she would have wanted them to know…certain things. But it turned out that her son…”
Here Gene let out a strangled laugh, “and I hadn’t even known she’d had a kid. But he…he’d been kidnapped and they think someone in this city knows where he is. I’m trying to find my dead friend’s missing son. And I put that on hold to try and talk to you.”
Babe stared at him for a while, not in pity or shock, but in some weird sort of understanding. Finally he said, “I was trying to fly.”
Gene shook his head, not sure he had heard right, “Wait…what?”
“That’s why I was about to jump off the roof. I’ve had the most insane week…you don’t even know. I’m…not normal. I can do weird shit like…like that.” Babe told him nervously hoping he didn’t sound like he was joking or mocking the other man.
Instead of laughing at him or humoring his insanity, like Babe had expected him to, Gene put a hand to his mouth to cover a shocked smile. “Of course you can.” He replied.
Babe looked at him in utter confusion. “Wait…you believe me? Or are you just stalling until the men in the white jackets come to cart me off?”
Gene shook his head. “No...no Babe…I believe you. I…”
The doctor’s right hand shot across the table to grip Babe’s left hand tightly. Babe froze at the contact, so personal and welcome. He looked up to see that Gene was staring directly into his eyes.
“Babe,” Gene told him, his voice soothing and his fingers warm on Babe’s palm, “You and I have something very important in common.”
Company Headquarters, Manhattan, NY
Skip now had David Webster’s number programmed under Ziggy on his phone, a little sci-fi joke that he knew Don would have appreciated. That way if there were any complications concerning the rescue plan then he could immediately text the time traveler and let him know.
And there was a complication…a big one. Through the grapevine he heard that two of the Company’s medical doctors were heading down to execute Don in the next few moments. With Dr. Jones out of the office Skip had placed a frantic call to their lab and told them that he had to perform one more quick test before they could proceed. They had been irritated, but agreed to wait a few minutes.
Knowing he had little time to lose, Skip rushed over to his corner desk and opened the right side drawer where he stashed the gun he had only the night before pointed at Liebgott.Placing the weapon under his shirt he texted only one word to David Webster: Now
Grabbing nothing at all that would give him a look of purpose, he threw caution to the wind and fled for the second to last floor, not bothering to take the elevators and opting for the stairs.
He rushed through the too bright hallways before reaching the guarded door where Don was kept. The guards looked intimidating as usual but had apparently been told he was coming and swiped a card to grant him access to the room.
When he entered there was only one doctor there waiting, the younger of the two he’d been expecting. He had ruffled brown hair, a needle in his hand and an impatient expression on his face. Skip couldn’t understand how he could look so impatient to kill someone, so begrudgingly bored by it all. As if Skip were preventing him from filing some droll and meaningless paperwork.
Skip didn’t think he could hate the man anymore…until he laid his eyes on Don. His Don. Who was always so happy and goofy just like Skip was. Don, who was normally so full of life and trust. Trust that had been wasted on these evil people.
He looked as though he were already dead. His skin wasn’t the pale complexion that had earned him sunburns and endless teasing from Skip…but the stark white color of a man whose blood was standing still. Don shouldn’t look like that…
Skip could barely hold himself up, even though he was propped up on the edges of the metal slab Don had been placed on. He could feel rage building inside of him and tears stinging at his eyes.
“Hey could you hurry it up already?” The doctor snapped at him. When Skip ignored him he let out a frustrated sigh. Skip felt a hand grip his arm and begin to pull him away from Don. “Seriously man would you hurry the hell up so I can do my job and get the fuck out of here?”
It was the last straw for Skip. He reached for the gun under his shirt, swiftly turned to face the doctor, and leveled the weapon at the man’s head.
“Go to Hell.” He told him before lowering the barrel and unloading a bullet into the man’s chest.
The shot triggered insanity.
The doors flew open and the two guards rushed in to investigate the noise. Skip got off a lucky shot that hit one of them in the shoulder and sent him to the ground.
Just as the other one was about to fire, there was no longer a weapon in his hand. Both Skip and the guard himself looked at his empty hands in confusion. Skip saw the guard’s eyes widen as he looked over Skip’s shoulders and Skip chanced a turn only to be greeted with the sight of a handsome yuppie type holding the guard’s gun.
“You must be Skip.”
“You must be Webster.”
The guard began to call for assistance on a radio. Skip watched in fascination as David disappeared from one side of the room only to reappear not even a breath later behind the remaining guard. With a swift uppercut of the gun to his chin, the guard fell unconscious to the ground.
Webster looked at Skip in alarm. “I’ve never hit anyone that hard before.”
“Maybe you can revel in the feeling later when we’re fucking out of here!” Skip snapped at him.
David turned when he heard footsteps heading their way. A lot of them. “No time.” He told the lab assistant.
He was going to have to freeze time to dispose of all these guards.
With a determined expression, he got to work.
Dick Winters and Lewis Nixon, Seattle, WA
Dick smiled over at the now merely sleeping man next to him, who had found a pair of sunglasses stowed in the vehicle’s glove compartment, put them on, and proceeded to fall asleep with his mouth wide open, only waking every so often to ask where they were or criticize Dick’s taste in music.
In the few hours they had been driving together the two had formed a fast, and sarcasm laden, friendship. Dick took a moment to find it refreshing before he turned his eyes to the house he was now getting closer to. He had followed Sink’s instructions and they had brought him to a large Victorian styled home off the beaten path.
As Dick drew nearer, he realized both the house and its surrounding property were gated in by a wrought iron fence over 15 feet high. He pulled to a slow stop and rolled down his window to send a curious look at the security camera that was staring down at him from the top of the gate.
Suddenly a voice floated to him as a red light on the camera lit. It was the smooth voice of a woman.
“Dick Winters.”
He raised an eyebrow, and though he felt silly for talking to a camera, he asked, “You know me?”
“Indeed I do. I’ve been expecting you….and your charge.”
Suddenly the gates rumbled to life and parted before him.
“I’ll greet you at the front door, Dick.”
The red light went off and Dick figured there was nothing left to do but drive forward. After all, Sink trusted this woman to help Nixon and keep him safe and hidden. And Dick trusted Robert Sink.
He brought the car up the circular and smooth driveway, past elaborate gardens and around a large water fountain placed in front of the beautiful home. The driveway curved past the front entrance of the house and Dick slowed it to a stop. He carefully got out of the car, not wanting to awaken Lewis before he had a chance to meet with this mysterious woman first.
Standing on the front porch of the house was not only a woman, but a large blonde man, chomping on a cigar-his arms crossed as though he dared anyone to raise a mean hand towards the woman he was beside.
Dick walked up the stone pathway that led to the stairs of the porch and looked up at his, hopefully, new ally.
She was a beautiful sight, sporting a delicate bone structure coupled with somewhat Asian features and long and soft black hair that wisped around her face as the wind blew it to and fro. She didn’t appear nervous even as she rubbed her small hands over her dark brown pants. She raised her dark eyes up slightly to meet his.
“You know my name.” Dick said to her as he stopped short of walking up to greet her. “What’s yours?”
“My name is Grace.”
Philadelphia, PA
Bill sat on the edge of his couch and watched his apparent ‘captors’ with a sharp gaze. They appeared to be arguing about whether or not the smaller of the two, George Luz, should maintain possession of the gun he had earlier relieved Bill of.
He certainly didn’t want the distraught father to have a gun in his hands if Babe showed up. He didn’t think that the other man would be unbalanced enough to intentionally hurt his brother for revenge, but in situations such as the one he found himself in, it was never smart to assume you knew anything.
Bill had other guns stowed throughout the house, but not anywhere as common place as the living room. He hid them in places where Babe couldn’t simply stumble upon them, and as of right now, they did him no good.
He volunteered nothing as he watched them speak in their hushed tones, knowing it was better to say nothing at all and see how much they knew. Whether or not they were certain he knew where Eli was, or merely suspected that he knew. If he was merely a suspect, a little misdirection should get them out of his home and on their way before Babe came back. He could have Luz picked up and the apparent FBI agent (Bill could smell feds) subdued in mere hours after their departure.
But then there was Dick’s voice in the back of his head, telling him that the work they did was evil, and he considered that maybe he should simply tell the man where his son was. But Bill didn’t want to raise any suspicion on himself. No…the best way to keep himself and Babe under the radar was to act like a good little soldier.
After what seemed like an hour, the FBI agent threw his hands up in frustration and hissed to Luz, “Fine. Keep the damned thing, but follow my lead.”
Luz rolled his eyes at the instructions, but nodded and Bill prepared himself as the two of them turned to face him. “Lover’s quarrel?” he asked them and took a moment to be proud as he saw how uncomfortable the comment had made them both.
“Look,” The agent began, “we know who you work for. And we know what it is you do for them. All we want is a little cooperation to help find someone that we’re fairly sure your Company…took.”
“Fucking kidnapped you mean.” Luz snapped.
The agent sighed, “George…shut up.”
Bill shook his head, “My company? I don’t know what you think I do…but I’m a paper salesmen.”
“All paper salesmen carry guns?” Luz asked as he held up the weapon in question.
Neither the attitude nor the line phased Bill, “I’m an American citizen and I have a permit to carry that gun.”
Luz let out a frustrated sound and the agent merely stared at Bill coolly. Fortunately it appeared that they only suspected he had some knowledge of Eli’s whereabouts. But he still wasn’t ready to admit anything, unless they had some sort of proof that he worked with the Co. If there was no escaping that truth then he would play caught and feed them another lie.
“So the name Eugene Roe doesn’t mean anything to you?” the fed asked him.
Bill froze…Roe. Was he running with the two of them? Webster had been the one who sprung Roe but the Co. knew that the man had apparently had ties with Luz’s deceased wife. It certainly wasn’t out of the realm of possibility for Roe to have contacted Luz.
“Should it?” He asked.
The agent just smiled softly, “Cut the bullshit. We know you abducted him, kept him somewhere in this city. All we want to know is where so that we can find someone.”
Bill shrugged and leaned back in the couch. “Let’s say I know what you’re talking about. What makes you think you’re going to be able to what? Stage a rescue?”
“You let us worry about that.” Luz answered, “We have ways of getting into a place, no matter how well shut.”
He couldn’t help but antagonize them a bit even though he felt for the man. It was, after all, the part he was playing. “Oh I know all about your ‘ways’ George.”
“Son of a bitch.” Luz cursed and took an angry stepped forward, “Is that why you took Eli? To study him too?”
The fed held out an arm to halt Luz’s path, “Calm down.”
Bill raised an eyebrow at them, “Is Eli the person you’re looking for? Cause I ain’t heard of him.”
“Like Hell you haven’t.” Luz hissed but retreated slightly.
The agent no longer looked as calm as he had before as he sent a heated glare Bill’s way. “I am not fucking playing games with you. There’s a child missing and if you don’t tell me what I want to know I’m going to have every FBI agent in Philadelphia up your ass- you hear me?”
Babe couldn’t seem to take his eyes off of Eugene as they walked back towards his apartment building, and it seemed to be an affliction that went both ways. It was a wonder that they didn’t get run over by a car, all the attention they were paying to where they were headed.
It felt like fate and all those other ridiculous things that Babe hadn’t believed in a day or so ago. But things in his life were rapidly changing or at least making themselves known to him. Somewhere in it all fit Gene, his knight in shining armor it seemed. Who was one of the few people that could understand Babe…at least somewhat.
Babe absentmindedly keyed in the code to let him into his building and the two headed to the elevator in silence. “What floor?” Babe asked him as the doors slid shut.
Gene told him with a small smile and Babe paused, “Me too.”
He pressed the button.
Company Headquarters, Manhattan, NY
When the alarms began to blare Joe knew something was up. Most likely the rescue was going down. And where was he? Sitting on the sidelines with an 8 year old. Not that he didn’t like Eli, but he hated feeling useless.
Apparently he wouldn’t have to wait around for long, as Dike suddenly flung open the door to their room. “Liebgott do you know how to use a gun?” he asked as a way of greeting.
“Uh…yeah.” Joe answered not sure how to respond, so simply going with the truth.
Not a moment later, Dike was tossing what looked like an automatic glock to him and motioning for him to follow. Liebgott stood quickly. “Stay here Eli.” He instructed the curious child as he followed the other man out.
They walked down the halls and into an already open elevator. “What’s going on?” He asked Dike.
The man checked his weapon’s ammunition before answering. “Your old classmate David Webster just took out all of our guards. They’re apparently all in Cleveland.”
Joe had to suppress a laugh. “What are we going to do?” he asked instead.
Dike flicked the safety off his weapon as the elevator doors opened. “I assembled the able recruits to step up to the plate. There are three targets holed up inside one room. Shoot to kill.”
He then walked off towards flashing lights and Liebgott rushed after him in a panic. The panic only increased when he got to the site of all the action to see at least ten other men and four women assembled and armed.
A blonde girl close to him looked him over quickly, “You’re the special right?”
He nodded dumbly. Apparently none of the other recruits had abilities.
“Well then would you mind kicking his ass or something?”
Had it been any other time he would have berated her idiotic assumption that he even could, but for now he could only creep further towards the room, gun drawn but aimed low.
He’d hardly set one foot inside before he felt a tight grip on his arm as he was spun around and another arm was placed around his neck to hold him still.
“You’re not very stealthy.” Webster whispered into his ear.
Joe resisted the urge to roll his eyes as he was dragged backwards to where Skip was crouched behind a bullet infested metal table and clutching Don in his arms. “Yeah well your plans suck. What? Are you using me as a shield?”
“Better to make you look like a hostage than an accomplice.” Webster whispered before he looked down at Skip. “Hold onto him and grab my ankle.” He instructed the blonde.
Skip obeyed and Joe growled out, “Are you planning on letting me go?”
There was a pause before David replied. “No. I think I’ll just kidnap you.”
“What? You can’t-”
But then the world was pressing in on him and the scenery around them changed from the chaos of the Manhattan building to the relative peace of Webster’s apartment.
“Damn it Webster!”
Lewis Nixon, Seattle, WA
Lewis felt as though he were going through the final transition. The beat down at the psych ward had been death, Winters had been the angel guiding his soul from Earth and now…had he ever believed for a second he would actually wind up there…he would call this heaven.
He was slowly waking from a generally peaceful sleep, face warm and mind feeling calm and at ease. He appeared to be lying atop a fluffy beige mattress comforter in a room of soft light colors and a sleek, wooden floor. The bit of sun shining through a white curtain clad window gave the room a warm glow and Nixon the feeling that he was safe.
He rolled over onto his side and was presented with the image of a young woman patiently sitting by his side in a wooden chair and adjacent to a small table bearing a tray with two mugs and a coffee pot. Coffee? This was heaven.
“I suppose that makes you God.” He mumbled to the women as he struggled to sit up. The woman smiled softly and tucked a strand of soft looking, jet black hair behind a delicate and small ear. She said nothing but leaned forward to pour coffee into both of the mugs. Nixon watched as the steam danced before her lovely face and wondered what he did to deserve being surrounded by all these attractive people.
Unhooking her ankles from where they had been tucked behind the leg of her chair, the newest mysterious person in his life leaned forward to transfer a warm mug of coffee from her gentle, two handed grasp to his pale and shaking hand.
When their fingers brushed Lewis was overcome by a feeling he’d never really experienced. Like the desire to curl up for a nap out in the sun on a Sunday afternoon. It was sudden, brief and precious and it freaked Nixon the Hell out.
He paused with the cup at his mouth. “This isn’t poisoned, is it?”
A smirk occupied the woman’s pink lips this time as she reached over, grabbed the spare mug and took a deep drink. It seemed this was a different type of angel than Winters.
He nodded and took a drink himself, savoring the taste of it and trying hard not to think about how short a while ago it was that he’d had coffee, because that felt like another lifetime. “What’s your name?” he asked his companion.
“Grace.” She told him, hands folded in her lap as she watched him drink his coffee. Her voice was soft and yet strong. It soothed his troubled mind and steered it away from the path of regret it was headed towards.
“Does Grace have a last name?”
That got him a small laugh. “Would you believe it?” she asked, “I don’t know my last name.”
He paused and raised an eyebrow. “How could you not know that?”
She shrugged her small shoulders, clad in a loose green cardigan. “I was born and raised a prisoner of the Company that Dick Winters is actively shielding you from. Until I was 9 and Robert Sink took me out and raised me as his own.”
Everything came slowly back to him. Why he was here and where he could have been instead. And all because of Robert Sink, who had apparently rescued this woman when she was but a young girl. What the Hell didn’t that man do?
He had a lot of questions but he only asked. “So you have some sort of ability too? Like Dick’s? Or is he out in the hall or something? Because I noticed I haven’t gone psycho and started ripping people up.”
Grace nodded and sat her coffee down. “My ability is difficult to explain, but it isn’t like Mr. Winters. I don’t block your power. But my presence does have an effect on your mind.”
‘Does it make me happy?’ was what Nixon wondered.
“I put people at ease, calm and heal their mind over time. Enough exposure to me can repair even the most damaged of men and women. Sink saw in me a kindred spirit. A soul the repairs and mends.”
“You mean he…?”
“Has a healing ability.” Grace answered his unspoken question.
“I don’t understand though.” Nixon said, “You’re saying my ability isn’t what makes me crazy?”
The woman nodded, “Nope. I guess you were just lucky.”
Lewis laughed, “You have no idea.”
“Not to worry, if you’re with me or Winters you’ll be safe from any intruding personality in your head. Why don’t you come downstairs with me? I’ll make you something to eat and explain whatever you and Dick would like to know.”
She sprung up from her chair to prove that she was a petite little thing- maybe 5 feet and 4 inches tall. She plopped a hand out to him, palm up and fingers splayed like a child’s. But her stance was strong and her eyes knowing so Lewis took the hand she offered and allowed himself to be pulled up.
He stumbled close to her and gave her a charming smile. She returned it genuinely before leaning a bit closer and breathing deeply. “We’re also going to need to get you a shower. You smell like Death.”
She released his hand and walked to the door obviously trusting him enough to follow. He watched her go.
She smelled like Life.
Down in Grace’s kitchen, Dick was already waiting. In fact he was pacing in worry, running one hand along the countertop beside him, phone in the other. It was a nervous habit that he and Babe shared. He waited as the cell phone rang, and frowned when Bill didn’t pick up right away.
Dick needed to talk him, needed to hear his voice. Just plain needed him.
Why wasn’t he answering?
Philadelphia, PA
Guarnere and Christenson stared one another down, both refusing to speak, as Bill’s cell phone continued to vibrate on the coffee table in front of him.
Bill finally broke away from their intense glaring competition to glance at the name upon his cell’s caller id. He was careful to make no reaction when he saw it was Dick. Thank God…something he could finally use.
“Look,” he said to his two captors, “that’s my little brother. Please just let me tell him to not come home. If you don’t like something I say…just shoot me.”
Christenson opened his mouth, but Luz spoke first. “First tell us the truth.”
Bill cursed under his breath. He didn’t want to reveal anything. But if they were willing to let him make a phone call, then he could solve all his problems at once. No amount of information in the world would matter then.
“Fine.” He conceded. “I do work for the Company that you’re so familiar with. But I’m just a foot soldier alright? I have an idea about where your son could be. But I’ll only tell you if you let me answer this phone call.”
The two armed men exchanged a quick glance. Finally the taller of the two nodded. “Make it quick.” Christenson told him sternly. “But one wrong word gets you a bullet in your shoulder.”
Bill just leaned forward and snatched his cell phone.”Hey little brother.” He said by way of greeting.
He heard Dick take a breath on the line. “Bill what’s going on?”
“Look I’m sorry we didn’t hang out yesterday. I couldn’t get off work until 4:22. But I need you to do me a favor and not come home okay?” Bill spoke, knowing that Dick would understand the situation.
A 422 was the code the Company gave to a situation in which an agent was being interrogated. He also knew that Dick would understand that the situation was dangerous, taking place in his home, and that he needed back up and for Dick to call Babe and ask him not to go home.
He waited for Dick to say something. Finally the other man said, “Bill…I..I love you. I should have told you before and I’m sorry I’m telling you now but you needed to know.”
The unexpected words almost caused Bill to break his calm demeanor. There was so much he wanted to say to Dick that he simply couldn’t right now. “I love you too.”
He hung up, knowing that Dick would both handle the situation and, it seemed, was in love with him. That had been a damn good phone call. He sat the cell back in its original place.
“Okay you got your damn phone call now tell me where my son is.” Luz practically growled at him.
Bill knew he was going to have to stall them a bit before back up arrived. “The truth is that he could be in a few places. I’m assuming he has an ability just like his old man?”
“That’s none of your damned business.” The father snapped. As if Bill didn’t already know what Luz, Eli and Luz’s deceased wife could do.
Bill shrugged, “The Company wants certain abilities for certain things. I can help you if you tell me what it is he can do.”
Luz sighed, “He can predict the future.”
“How old is he?”
“What the Hell does that matter?”
However Bill didn’t bat an eye in the face of the other man’s hostility. “Believe it or not the Company is pretty good about treating kids.”
“Yeah they’re model kidnappers.” Agent Christenson spoke.
“Look,” Bill broke in, “if he’s a psychic, then they don’t have much cause to lock him up, because it’s not a physically dangerous ability.”
The statement caused Luz to roll his eyes. “Yeah because the ability to heal yourself is incredibly dangerous, that’s why you had to lock Gene Roe up.”
Bill gave him a sharp smile, “The fact that you think it isn’t shows just how little you know about your own kind.”
That caused a frown to take over Luz’s face. “Eli is 8 years old.” He snapped at Bill before asking, “How old is your little brother?”
Bill froze, “He’s sixteen.”
“What would you do if someone tried to take him away?”
The question triggered an event that Bill often tried to repress, but he answered the question honestly, “Anything…I’d do anything.”
One Year Ago, Philadelphia, PA
It is supposed to be a normal Friday afternoon. Bill always gets off of work with the Company then goes to his parent’s place to nag them for awhile and spend some time with his little brother. Of course when he says ‘nag’, he means he tries to get them to talk about anything real.
He hardly remembers what his parents are really like. Or if they ever for once in their life were actual parents or if all they had the capacity to be was agents for the Company. His childhood had been far from normal, seeing as his parents had prepped and trained him to be the perfect agent from birth. It turns out that they did fairly well on that end.
Bill was rising through the ranks at work, and after proving his loyalty by taking out a mole in the Company he had a new partner that he trusted with his life and so much more. Work was great...but he’d never felt like he’d had parents.
Until Babe, his little brother, had come into his life he had never even felt like he had a family. But he’s put all of those ill feelings behind him. Or at least he thinks he has. Because now he has a family in Babe, someone he loves who loves him for him and not for his potential or his work.
When he walks into his parent’s kitchen that afternoon it’s to the image of his father casually drinking a cup of coffee and his stern faced mother looking over what Bill recognizes as a Company medical file.
“Isn’t that Babe’s file from when he was a baby?” he asks his mother, who nods.
“We’ve got great news.” His dad says to him with a smirk.
Bill leans back against a kitchen counter, “That’s a first.”
His mother shoots him an irritated look. “Try to be serious William.”
That causes Bill to grimace. Never serious enough, never anything they want when they want it. Who the fuck are these people? Sometimes he wishes that he were Babe…with someone to tell him that he was adopted too.
“Fine, sorry.” He grumbles, “What’s this fantastic news?”
“Edward has finally developed an ability.”
Bill freezes in shock, “What? How do you know?”
“Your mother saw it with her own eyes a few days ago.” His father tells him, “At first we just thought he could fly.”
Bill is confused, “What do you mean JUST fly? He can fly?”
“He was of course tested for an ability before he was given to us,” his mother reminds him. “And his blood work suggested that he was a possible candidate for an empath. Something the Company has been hoping to come across for a long time. We had given up hope that he’d ever develop ANY ability, much less a comprehensive one.”
“But how do you know he’s an empath at all?” Bill asks, nervous and concerned about where the conversation is going.
“Flying was one of the first abilities he was ever exposed to. Your mother saw him hovering above his bed Tuesday morning but he doesn’t seem to know he did it.” His father tells him.
“Who the fuck has he been exposed to that can fly?” Bill asks. “And what do you mean by ‘one of the first’?”
“Watch your mouth.” His mother snaps at him. “Don’t worry about these things alright?”
“If it concerns my little brother then I think I have a right to know what the Hell is, or has been, going on.” Bill states as evenly as he can manage.
“He’s not you little brother, Bill.” His mothers says, “He’s an assignment and you of all people should understand that.”
Bill gapes at her, “What the Hell are you saying? That you’re going to hand him over to the Company?”
His father just stares at him, “Bill that’s why we took him in the first place. You knew this might happen. You weren’t supposed to get attached to him.”
“Attached?” Bill shouts, “He’s not some fucking stray we picked up at the pound! He’s family!”
He watches as his father straightens up and sets his coffee mug down. “No…he isn’t. It’s like your mother says, he’s an assignment. Now it’s sweet that you’ve taken a personal interest in him, but it’s time to do your job and let us do ours.”
Bill can’t believe what he’s hearing. Dick had told him this would happen. Hell even Toye had warned him all those years ago. The things Dick had shared with him about what he had seen the Company do, all they had come to despise about the people they worked for. All of it coming to a head in his parent’s kitchen.
“You can’t turn him over. Do you have ANY idea what they’ll do to him?” Bill shouts.
His mother slaps the file closed and glares at him. “The Company needs him for a very important project, something that could change the world.”
“WHAT project?” Bill asks in frustration, “Do you even know? You’re following orders you don’t even understand!”
“You’re failing to see the bigger PICTURE William!” His mother shouts.
“All I see is you throwing your family away because you’ve been brainwashed into believing that it’s the right thing to do!” Bill counters.
“That’s enough.” His father intercedes. “When he gets home from school, we are taking him in and that’s final.”
Bill shakes his head, this can’t be happening. “Have you told anyone else?”
His mother is still glaring at him when she says, “No. We wanted you to be the first. We had hoped you would be happy. This is a very important development for our family.”
Time seems to stand still for a moment as the words sink in, as everything catches up to Bill and he knows, just knows, that he can’t let this happen. If they take his brother away…Bill will never see him again.
“You’re not my family, Babe is.” He hisses at them. “And you aren’t taking him anywhere.”
He’s pulling his gun out from underneath his jacket and before he can really think it through the trigger has been pulled twice and the scent of smoke and blood fills the air as his parents lie dead on the kitchen floor.
He stares in shock for a moment before lunging for the kitchen sink and emptying the contents of his stomach. He shakes as he runs the water to wash away his DNA before steeling his insides and straightening up the best that he can.
It was the only way…the only way to protect Babe.
Bill tries not to shake anymore as he scoops down and pulls Babe’s medical file out of the still warm hand of his now deceased mother…if he could ever really call her that.
He holsters his gun, makes a mental note to dispose of it, and then calls the only person he knows he can trust.
The phone rings for a moment before it is answered. “Hey Bill, what is it?”
“Dick? I…I need you to come to my parent’s place as soon as you can. I need you.”
Bill leveled another stare at Luz. “I’d do anything I had to.”
“Then tell me where my son is.”
It’s after reliving this memory that he knows he can’t. He didn’t go through all he had just to bring the Company to his door, suspicious of how he had sold them out, with no clout left to protect Babe.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He said.
“You lying son of a BITCH! Where is he!?” Luz shouted.
As the elevator came to a slow stop, Babe felt his phone vibrate on his hip. He managed to tear his eyes away from Gene long enough to check and see who had left him a message. It was from Dick.
“What is it?” The doctor asked.
Babe read the message.
Babe whatever you’re doing stay out of the apt. until I call and tell you otherwise. Don’t ask questions, just do it please.
Babe wasn’t sure how to explain the sense of dread that filled his stomach. Because now, thanks to Toye, he knows what Bill and Dick actually do for a living. And his brother, either of them, might be in trouble.
The moment the elevator doors opened, Babe took off down the hallway towards his apartment. He could hear Gene walking after him. The closer he got to their door, the louder the voices coming from inside the apartment became.
Gene heard them too and came to the sinking realization that Babe and he were headed to the same place. Babe began to run towards the door upon hearing the shouts and Gene, knowing it wasn’t safe, rushed to stop him.
“Babe, wait!”
Bill watched as Christenson and Luz turned at the sound of shouting in the outside hallway and took the moment to lunge off the couch, over the coffee table, and tackle Luz to the ground.
“Shit!” The small man cursed as he hit the floor. Bill immediately seized control of the hands Luz had wrapped around the gun. He could hear Agent Christenson shouting but knew that the man wouldn’t shoot as long as he and Luz continued to struggle on the floor for control of the weapon.
As they rolled over Bill barely registered the sound of the door to his apartment being flung open before Luz violently smashed their hands to the ground in an attempt to get Bill to let go. The only thing he succeeded in doing, however, was causing the gun to go off.
There was a shout, a gasp and everyone froze. Bill turned to see an image that he’d never even allowed to plague his worst nightmares.
Babe stood in the doorway, blood seeping through his shirt from the bullet wound to his chest, before he collapsed into the arms of a man right behind him.
If Bill had been thinking properly he would have recognized Eugene Roe, but he wasn’t and he didn’t.
“NO!” He shouted and quickly abandoned his struggle with Luz to propel himself over to his little brother. But he didn’t make it very far before he was pistol whipped in the face by a very pissed off FBI agent.
“Don’t fucking move!” Christenson shouted as he trained his gun on him.
“That’s my fucking brother you SON OF A BITCH!” Bill hollered before kicking his leg out and causing Christenson to fall to the floor. On the man’s way down Bill grabbed the gun and struck Christenson across the face, rendering his unconscious.
Gene stayed oblivious to the commotion as he held Babe in his arms. He could feel the tears threatening to fall. This couldn’t be happening.
“Babe, c’mon. Hold on please.” he pleaded with the young man, cradling him to his chest and whispering into his soft red hair. But he knew…
He was already dead.
“Nobody move!” Came a new voice and Luz froze when he saw a pale, dark haired man training a weapon on him. Great…now it was two guns to one, Christenson was unconscious and Gene was preoccupied with something that Luz could hardly wrap his head around.
“You alright Guarnere?” The man asked Bill, who was sitting motionless on the floor, bloodshot eyes staring as his dead brother was held by someone other than him.
He didn’t bother to answer the question.
“Drop the gun,” the newcomer instructed Luz,who knew that he would be no good to Eli dead and did as he was told.
An abrupt gasp caught all of their attentions and they watched Gene pull away from Babe in shock. The young man in his arms gasped for air desperately and Bill rushed over to him.
“Babe? It’s okay, calm down we’re going to save you.” He spewed assurances to his little brother as Eugene Roe (and when the fuck had he gotten there?) gently laid him on the floor.
Babe’s hand shot out wildly to grasp Gene’s shirt and the other man held onto his hand tightly. Bill didn’t know why his brother hadn’t reached out to him but he couldn’t wonder now.
They all watched in astonishment as Babe began to sit up on his own, coughing and beating at his chest. Bill watched as the hole the bullet had caused in Babe's chest began to close itself up, skin knitting itself together.
Babe coughed violently once more before pursing his lips and turning his head to the side to spit something out of his mouth and onto the floor. It made a metallic clink and Gene picked it up and held it before his eyes to see what it was.
It was the bullet.
He and Babe locked eyes…
“Holy sh-”
David Webster’s Apartment, San Francisco, CA
“You IDIOT!”
David winced at the cursing and shouting continued. “I was just trying to keep you safe-”
But Joe cut him off, “First of all- I told you to be careful and that was NOT FUCKING CAREFUL. Now how am I supposed to do what you told me to do if I’m not in the GODDAMN COMPANY?!”
“We don’t even know what it is I wanted you to do!”
Skip glanced up at the two of them in confusion. “What the Hell are you guys talking about?” He asked while he ran a hand through his unconscious boyfriend’s hair as Don lay on Webster’s couch.
“Future Me.” Webster said by way of explanation, as if that made any flipping sense to Skip.
“You have to take me back.” Joe told him.
Skip shook his head, “But they’ll be waiting for him. Then they’re going to wonder why he bothered to bring you back at all.”
Joe was about to speak but Skip cut him off by saying, “What you need is for him to have never taken you in the first place.”
The statement caused Joe to pause and he turned to look at David. Webster, knowing where his thoughts were going, shook his head. “No! No way! I’ve never time traveled before!”
“Last week you didn’t do a lot of things.” Joe countered. “Besides you obviously learn eventually, why not now?”
Webster sighed, “We have no idea how it works. Who’s to say I can get us back to RIGHT after we teleported away.”
“You! It’s your damn power!” Joe insisted. “You have to use it sometime.”
David reflected on his earlier realization that he just couldn’t say no to Joe, only now he realized it was going to get him killed one day. He sighed. “Damn it. Fine. We can try.”
“Thank you.” Joe sighed. “Now how do we do this?”
Webster shrugged. “The fuck if I know. We’ll just have to wing it.” He said before walking over to Joe and looping an arm around the other man’s thin waist. “Hold on to me.”
Joe frowned as he put his hands on Webster’s shoulders. “I don’t like this.”
“Well you’re the one who wanted to do it.”
“No I mean I don’t like this pose. It feels too Lois Lane.”
David rolled his eyes. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“All I’m saying is that-”
But Liebgott’s words fell short as a similar and yet foreign sensation took over him. The same feeling as teleportation-with the world seeming to press in on him- and yet something new. As if he were standing in the middle of a busy freeway with cars zipping right past him.
When the world began to right itself and he felt stable enough to release his grip on Webster, it was only so that he could give the man a slight shove. “Give me a freaking warning why don’t ya?”
“Sorry I just…wait where the fuck are we?” David asked as he began to look around.
Liebgott noticed that they were in a place that he didn’t recognize…at least not right away. He frowned as he surveyed the area. It looked like the Company building they’d been in…but it couldn’t be.
Dust was gathering on the few chairs and desks situated in the open and airy laboratory that Joe could have sworn he’d taken his physical in. He turned to look out the large window and stopped short.
“David.” He called to his companion, who was poking around the room.
“What?” Webster asked as he wandered over. But once he looked outside there was no explanation necessary.
It was Manhattan alright. Just not the one that Joe had been becoming accustomed to. There were no people bustling along the sidewalks. There were no taxis, no honking horns...
Buildings were laying in rubble on the ground and their position above the city allowed them to see several areas fenced off by barbed wire, cars moving through check points operated by armed guards that looked suspiciously like those trained by the Company.
There was a loud screech and blue flames burst to life near one of the cars on the street below. A siren sounded, loud even to their ears, before something shot past the window that looked as if it were a flying man.
Joe turned away from the bizarre and worrisome scene to gape at David. “What did you do?”
A/N: Sorry about the lack of Lipton and Speirs! Both they and Cobb will get plenty of attention next time around!
Pairings: Well so far we have Winters/Guarnere and Webster/Liebgott. All the others are either past, implied, past AND implied or haven’t developed to the point of being in the pairings section. They’ll get there.
Summary: All over the world, people are waking up with extraordinary abilities. Not knowing how they got them or what to do, they will soon discover that they are not alone. They are all connected. They are all special. Based on NBC’s Heroes. Various Pairings.
Cross posted to ihave_no_idea
Links to previous chapters inside.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
Part 8
Part 9
Part 10
Part 11
Part 12
Part 13
Part 14
Disclaimer: I’m not making any money off of writing this story. It’s entirely fictional and based on the performances given in the HBO miniseries Band of Brothers and not the actual soldiers. Any ideas or phrases borrowed from the NBC show Heroes belong to the writers of that show, not me. I don’t own anything…so please don’t sue me. I wrote it for your enjoyment so…enjoy!
Philadelphia, PA
Apparently the best place to have a serious discussion was the Starbucks on the corner of the block Babe lived on. Not that there was really a preferred venue for such a thing to occur.
“So why were you following me?” Babe asked the young doctor who had supposedly ‘saved’ him from himself. They had retrieved their coffee in silence but the question had escaped the teenager’s lips the moment they had sat down at a secluded table.
Gene looked at the young man with a sigh. “I was hoping that since I wasn’t the one about to jump off a building I would get to ask the questions.”
“You thought wrong.” Babe told him bluntly as he crossed his arms, feeling suspicious and on edge now that the adrenaline was wearing off.
However Gene just stared at him coolly, pulling the top off of his coffee and blowing puffs of air across the liquid. “You answer my question and I’ll answer yours.” He told the young man finally.
Babe shook his head, “Bullshit. You answer mine or I walk out of here right now.”
Gene supposed he was impressed by the other man’s stubbornness, so he decided to simply be honest. One could catch more flies with honey after all…not that he was trying to...catch anyone.
“Me and my friends are supposed to be meeting someone over at your building. Only I didn’t realize it was your building ‘till I saw you on the street.” Gene told him truthfully, important details omitted of course. “I tried to call your name but I guess you didn’t hear me. I uh…well honestly I just wanted to see you again.”
The young man looked surprised by the answer. “Oh.”
“Oh?” Gene asked.
Babe shrugged, he hadn’t really thought that a guy like Gene, a freaking doctor, would have given him a spare thought after their rather dramatic first encounter. Not that their second meeting had gone much better.
“I suppose you want to know what I was doing on the rooftop don’t you?” Babe asked knowing full well that was indeed what Gene wanted to know. He just wasn’t sure how much to tell the other man. “The thing is…well it’s really kind of complicated. And you know…personal. But I can tell you that I was NOT trying to kill myself.”
Gene frowned, a doubtful expression on his face. “What outcome, other than death, did you hope to achieve by hurling yourself off the top of a cathedral?”
Babe opened his mouth to reply, but he couldn’t come up with an honest answer that didn’t make him look completely insane.
For his part, Gene was shocked by how afraid the other man was to simply talk. It certainly wasn’t defusing his suspicion that it had been a suicide attempt. But at the same time, the young man didn’t strike Gene as being suicidal- as a doctor he knew the type. It was quite the opposite in fact. In Babe Gene saw energy and exuberance. The young man, on both occasions that Gene had encountered him, hadn’t minded yelling his opinions.
He wasn’t sure why he was willing to open up about it, other than he felt a connection with Babe, but he did anyway. “I’m here…because well…my best friend was…Well she was killed a while back and I was trying to connect with her family.”
Babe looked up as Gene began to share the unexpected information, his attention successfully caught. Gene continued, “She hadn’t seen them in a long time and I knew she would have wanted them to know…certain things. But it turned out that her son…”
Here Gene let out a strangled laugh, “and I hadn’t even known she’d had a kid. But he…he’d been kidnapped and they think someone in this city knows where he is. I’m trying to find my dead friend’s missing son. And I put that on hold to try and talk to you.”
Babe stared at him for a while, not in pity or shock, but in some weird sort of understanding. Finally he said, “I was trying to fly.”
Gene shook his head, not sure he had heard right, “Wait…what?”
“That’s why I was about to jump off the roof. I’ve had the most insane week…you don’t even know. I’m…not normal. I can do weird shit like…like that.” Babe told him nervously hoping he didn’t sound like he was joking or mocking the other man.
Instead of laughing at him or humoring his insanity, like Babe had expected him to, Gene put a hand to his mouth to cover a shocked smile. “Of course you can.” He replied.
Babe looked at him in utter confusion. “Wait…you believe me? Or are you just stalling until the men in the white jackets come to cart me off?”
Gene shook his head. “No...no Babe…I believe you. I…”
The doctor’s right hand shot across the table to grip Babe’s left hand tightly. Babe froze at the contact, so personal and welcome. He looked up to see that Gene was staring directly into his eyes.
“Babe,” Gene told him, his voice soothing and his fingers warm on Babe’s palm, “You and I have something very important in common.”
Company Headquarters, Manhattan, NY
Skip now had David Webster’s number programmed under Ziggy on his phone, a little sci-fi joke that he knew Don would have appreciated. That way if there were any complications concerning the rescue plan then he could immediately text the time traveler and let him know.
And there was a complication…a big one. Through the grapevine he heard that two of the Company’s medical doctors were heading down to execute Don in the next few moments. With Dr. Jones out of the office Skip had placed a frantic call to their lab and told them that he had to perform one more quick test before they could proceed. They had been irritated, but agreed to wait a few minutes.
Knowing he had little time to lose, Skip rushed over to his corner desk and opened the right side drawer where he stashed the gun he had only the night before pointed at Liebgott.Placing the weapon under his shirt he texted only one word to David Webster: Now
Grabbing nothing at all that would give him a look of purpose, he threw caution to the wind and fled for the second to last floor, not bothering to take the elevators and opting for the stairs.
He rushed through the too bright hallways before reaching the guarded door where Don was kept. The guards looked intimidating as usual but had apparently been told he was coming and swiped a card to grant him access to the room.
When he entered there was only one doctor there waiting, the younger of the two he’d been expecting. He had ruffled brown hair, a needle in his hand and an impatient expression on his face. Skip couldn’t understand how he could look so impatient to kill someone, so begrudgingly bored by it all. As if Skip were preventing him from filing some droll and meaningless paperwork.
Skip didn’t think he could hate the man anymore…until he laid his eyes on Don. His Don. Who was always so happy and goofy just like Skip was. Don, who was normally so full of life and trust. Trust that had been wasted on these evil people.
He looked as though he were already dead. His skin wasn’t the pale complexion that had earned him sunburns and endless teasing from Skip…but the stark white color of a man whose blood was standing still. Don shouldn’t look like that…
Skip could barely hold himself up, even though he was propped up on the edges of the metal slab Don had been placed on. He could feel rage building inside of him and tears stinging at his eyes.
“Hey could you hurry it up already?” The doctor snapped at him. When Skip ignored him he let out a frustrated sigh. Skip felt a hand grip his arm and begin to pull him away from Don. “Seriously man would you hurry the hell up so I can do my job and get the fuck out of here?”
It was the last straw for Skip. He reached for the gun under his shirt, swiftly turned to face the doctor, and leveled the weapon at the man’s head.
“Go to Hell.” He told him before lowering the barrel and unloading a bullet into the man’s chest.
The shot triggered insanity.
The doors flew open and the two guards rushed in to investigate the noise. Skip got off a lucky shot that hit one of them in the shoulder and sent him to the ground.
Just as the other one was about to fire, there was no longer a weapon in his hand. Both Skip and the guard himself looked at his empty hands in confusion. Skip saw the guard’s eyes widen as he looked over Skip’s shoulders and Skip chanced a turn only to be greeted with the sight of a handsome yuppie type holding the guard’s gun.
“You must be Skip.”
“You must be Webster.”
The guard began to call for assistance on a radio. Skip watched in fascination as David disappeared from one side of the room only to reappear not even a breath later behind the remaining guard. With a swift uppercut of the gun to his chin, the guard fell unconscious to the ground.
Webster looked at Skip in alarm. “I’ve never hit anyone that hard before.”
“Maybe you can revel in the feeling later when we’re fucking out of here!” Skip snapped at him.
David turned when he heard footsteps heading their way. A lot of them. “No time.” He told the lab assistant.
He was going to have to freeze time to dispose of all these guards.
With a determined expression, he got to work.
Dick Winters and Lewis Nixon, Seattle, WA
Dick smiled over at the now merely sleeping man next to him, who had found a pair of sunglasses stowed in the vehicle’s glove compartment, put them on, and proceeded to fall asleep with his mouth wide open, only waking every so often to ask where they were or criticize Dick’s taste in music.
In the few hours they had been driving together the two had formed a fast, and sarcasm laden, friendship. Dick took a moment to find it refreshing before he turned his eyes to the house he was now getting closer to. He had followed Sink’s instructions and they had brought him to a large Victorian styled home off the beaten path.
As Dick drew nearer, he realized both the house and its surrounding property were gated in by a wrought iron fence over 15 feet high. He pulled to a slow stop and rolled down his window to send a curious look at the security camera that was staring down at him from the top of the gate.
Suddenly a voice floated to him as a red light on the camera lit. It was the smooth voice of a woman.
“Dick Winters.”
He raised an eyebrow, and though he felt silly for talking to a camera, he asked, “You know me?”
“Indeed I do. I’ve been expecting you….and your charge.”
Suddenly the gates rumbled to life and parted before him.
“I’ll greet you at the front door, Dick.”
The red light went off and Dick figured there was nothing left to do but drive forward. After all, Sink trusted this woman to help Nixon and keep him safe and hidden. And Dick trusted Robert Sink.
He brought the car up the circular and smooth driveway, past elaborate gardens and around a large water fountain placed in front of the beautiful home. The driveway curved past the front entrance of the house and Dick slowed it to a stop. He carefully got out of the car, not wanting to awaken Lewis before he had a chance to meet with this mysterious woman first.
Standing on the front porch of the house was not only a woman, but a large blonde man, chomping on a cigar-his arms crossed as though he dared anyone to raise a mean hand towards the woman he was beside.
Dick walked up the stone pathway that led to the stairs of the porch and looked up at his, hopefully, new ally.
She was a beautiful sight, sporting a delicate bone structure coupled with somewhat Asian features and long and soft black hair that wisped around her face as the wind blew it to and fro. She didn’t appear nervous even as she rubbed her small hands over her dark brown pants. She raised her dark eyes up slightly to meet his.
“You know my name.” Dick said to her as he stopped short of walking up to greet her. “What’s yours?”
“My name is Grace.”
Philadelphia, PA
Bill sat on the edge of his couch and watched his apparent ‘captors’ with a sharp gaze. They appeared to be arguing about whether or not the smaller of the two, George Luz, should maintain possession of the gun he had earlier relieved Bill of.
He certainly didn’t want the distraught father to have a gun in his hands if Babe showed up. He didn’t think that the other man would be unbalanced enough to intentionally hurt his brother for revenge, but in situations such as the one he found himself in, it was never smart to assume you knew anything.
Bill had other guns stowed throughout the house, but not anywhere as common place as the living room. He hid them in places where Babe couldn’t simply stumble upon them, and as of right now, they did him no good.
He volunteered nothing as he watched them speak in their hushed tones, knowing it was better to say nothing at all and see how much they knew. Whether or not they were certain he knew where Eli was, or merely suspected that he knew. If he was merely a suspect, a little misdirection should get them out of his home and on their way before Babe came back. He could have Luz picked up and the apparent FBI agent (Bill could smell feds) subdued in mere hours after their departure.
But then there was Dick’s voice in the back of his head, telling him that the work they did was evil, and he considered that maybe he should simply tell the man where his son was. But Bill didn’t want to raise any suspicion on himself. No…the best way to keep himself and Babe under the radar was to act like a good little soldier.
After what seemed like an hour, the FBI agent threw his hands up in frustration and hissed to Luz, “Fine. Keep the damned thing, but follow my lead.”
Luz rolled his eyes at the instructions, but nodded and Bill prepared himself as the two of them turned to face him. “Lover’s quarrel?” he asked them and took a moment to be proud as he saw how uncomfortable the comment had made them both.
“Look,” The agent began, “we know who you work for. And we know what it is you do for them. All we want is a little cooperation to help find someone that we’re fairly sure your Company…took.”
“Fucking kidnapped you mean.” Luz snapped.
The agent sighed, “George…shut up.”
Bill shook his head, “My company? I don’t know what you think I do…but I’m a paper salesmen.”
“All paper salesmen carry guns?” Luz asked as he held up the weapon in question.
Neither the attitude nor the line phased Bill, “I’m an American citizen and I have a permit to carry that gun.”
Luz let out a frustrated sound and the agent merely stared at Bill coolly. Fortunately it appeared that they only suspected he had some knowledge of Eli’s whereabouts. But he still wasn’t ready to admit anything, unless they had some sort of proof that he worked with the Co. If there was no escaping that truth then he would play caught and feed them another lie.
“So the name Eugene Roe doesn’t mean anything to you?” the fed asked him.
Bill froze…Roe. Was he running with the two of them? Webster had been the one who sprung Roe but the Co. knew that the man had apparently had ties with Luz’s deceased wife. It certainly wasn’t out of the realm of possibility for Roe to have contacted Luz.
“Should it?” He asked.
The agent just smiled softly, “Cut the bullshit. We know you abducted him, kept him somewhere in this city. All we want to know is where so that we can find someone.”
Bill shrugged and leaned back in the couch. “Let’s say I know what you’re talking about. What makes you think you’re going to be able to what? Stage a rescue?”
“You let us worry about that.” Luz answered, “We have ways of getting into a place, no matter how well shut.”
He couldn’t help but antagonize them a bit even though he felt for the man. It was, after all, the part he was playing. “Oh I know all about your ‘ways’ George.”
“Son of a bitch.” Luz cursed and took an angry stepped forward, “Is that why you took Eli? To study him too?”
The fed held out an arm to halt Luz’s path, “Calm down.”
Bill raised an eyebrow at them, “Is Eli the person you’re looking for? Cause I ain’t heard of him.”
“Like Hell you haven’t.” Luz hissed but retreated slightly.
The agent no longer looked as calm as he had before as he sent a heated glare Bill’s way. “I am not fucking playing games with you. There’s a child missing and if you don’t tell me what I want to know I’m going to have every FBI agent in Philadelphia up your ass- you hear me?”
Babe couldn’t seem to take his eyes off of Eugene as they walked back towards his apartment building, and it seemed to be an affliction that went both ways. It was a wonder that they didn’t get run over by a car, all the attention they were paying to where they were headed.
It felt like fate and all those other ridiculous things that Babe hadn’t believed in a day or so ago. But things in his life were rapidly changing or at least making themselves known to him. Somewhere in it all fit Gene, his knight in shining armor it seemed. Who was one of the few people that could understand Babe…at least somewhat.
Babe absentmindedly keyed in the code to let him into his building and the two headed to the elevator in silence. “What floor?” Babe asked him as the doors slid shut.
Gene told him with a small smile and Babe paused, “Me too.”
He pressed the button.
Company Headquarters, Manhattan, NY
When the alarms began to blare Joe knew something was up. Most likely the rescue was going down. And where was he? Sitting on the sidelines with an 8 year old. Not that he didn’t like Eli, but he hated feeling useless.
Apparently he wouldn’t have to wait around for long, as Dike suddenly flung open the door to their room. “Liebgott do you know how to use a gun?” he asked as a way of greeting.
“Uh…yeah.” Joe answered not sure how to respond, so simply going with the truth.
Not a moment later, Dike was tossing what looked like an automatic glock to him and motioning for him to follow. Liebgott stood quickly. “Stay here Eli.” He instructed the curious child as he followed the other man out.
They walked down the halls and into an already open elevator. “What’s going on?” He asked Dike.
The man checked his weapon’s ammunition before answering. “Your old classmate David Webster just took out all of our guards. They’re apparently all in Cleveland.”
Joe had to suppress a laugh. “What are we going to do?” he asked instead.
Dike flicked the safety off his weapon as the elevator doors opened. “I assembled the able recruits to step up to the plate. There are three targets holed up inside one room. Shoot to kill.”
He then walked off towards flashing lights and Liebgott rushed after him in a panic. The panic only increased when he got to the site of all the action to see at least ten other men and four women assembled and armed.
A blonde girl close to him looked him over quickly, “You’re the special right?”
He nodded dumbly. Apparently none of the other recruits had abilities.
“Well then would you mind kicking his ass or something?”
Had it been any other time he would have berated her idiotic assumption that he even could, but for now he could only creep further towards the room, gun drawn but aimed low.
He’d hardly set one foot inside before he felt a tight grip on his arm as he was spun around and another arm was placed around his neck to hold him still.
“You’re not very stealthy.” Webster whispered into his ear.
Joe resisted the urge to roll his eyes as he was dragged backwards to where Skip was crouched behind a bullet infested metal table and clutching Don in his arms. “Yeah well your plans suck. What? Are you using me as a shield?”
“Better to make you look like a hostage than an accomplice.” Webster whispered before he looked down at Skip. “Hold onto him and grab my ankle.” He instructed the blonde.
Skip obeyed and Joe growled out, “Are you planning on letting me go?”
There was a pause before David replied. “No. I think I’ll just kidnap you.”
“What? You can’t-”
But then the world was pressing in on him and the scenery around them changed from the chaos of the Manhattan building to the relative peace of Webster’s apartment.
“Damn it Webster!”
Lewis Nixon, Seattle, WA
Lewis felt as though he were going through the final transition. The beat down at the psych ward had been death, Winters had been the angel guiding his soul from Earth and now…had he ever believed for a second he would actually wind up there…he would call this heaven.
He was slowly waking from a generally peaceful sleep, face warm and mind feeling calm and at ease. He appeared to be lying atop a fluffy beige mattress comforter in a room of soft light colors and a sleek, wooden floor. The bit of sun shining through a white curtain clad window gave the room a warm glow and Nixon the feeling that he was safe.
He rolled over onto his side and was presented with the image of a young woman patiently sitting by his side in a wooden chair and adjacent to a small table bearing a tray with two mugs and a coffee pot. Coffee? This was heaven.
“I suppose that makes you God.” He mumbled to the women as he struggled to sit up. The woman smiled softly and tucked a strand of soft looking, jet black hair behind a delicate and small ear. She said nothing but leaned forward to pour coffee into both of the mugs. Nixon watched as the steam danced before her lovely face and wondered what he did to deserve being surrounded by all these attractive people.
Unhooking her ankles from where they had been tucked behind the leg of her chair, the newest mysterious person in his life leaned forward to transfer a warm mug of coffee from her gentle, two handed grasp to his pale and shaking hand.
When their fingers brushed Lewis was overcome by a feeling he’d never really experienced. Like the desire to curl up for a nap out in the sun on a Sunday afternoon. It was sudden, brief and precious and it freaked Nixon the Hell out.
He paused with the cup at his mouth. “This isn’t poisoned, is it?”
A smirk occupied the woman’s pink lips this time as she reached over, grabbed the spare mug and took a deep drink. It seemed this was a different type of angel than Winters.
He nodded and took a drink himself, savoring the taste of it and trying hard not to think about how short a while ago it was that he’d had coffee, because that felt like another lifetime. “What’s your name?” he asked his companion.
“Grace.” She told him, hands folded in her lap as she watched him drink his coffee. Her voice was soft and yet strong. It soothed his troubled mind and steered it away from the path of regret it was headed towards.
“Does Grace have a last name?”
That got him a small laugh. “Would you believe it?” she asked, “I don’t know my last name.”
He paused and raised an eyebrow. “How could you not know that?”
She shrugged her small shoulders, clad in a loose green cardigan. “I was born and raised a prisoner of the Company that Dick Winters is actively shielding you from. Until I was 9 and Robert Sink took me out and raised me as his own.”
Everything came slowly back to him. Why he was here and where he could have been instead. And all because of Robert Sink, who had apparently rescued this woman when she was but a young girl. What the Hell didn’t that man do?
He had a lot of questions but he only asked. “So you have some sort of ability too? Like Dick’s? Or is he out in the hall or something? Because I noticed I haven’t gone psycho and started ripping people up.”
Grace nodded and sat her coffee down. “My ability is difficult to explain, but it isn’t like Mr. Winters. I don’t block your power. But my presence does have an effect on your mind.”
‘Does it make me happy?’ was what Nixon wondered.
“I put people at ease, calm and heal their mind over time. Enough exposure to me can repair even the most damaged of men and women. Sink saw in me a kindred spirit. A soul the repairs and mends.”
“You mean he…?”
“Has a healing ability.” Grace answered his unspoken question.
“I don’t understand though.” Nixon said, “You’re saying my ability isn’t what makes me crazy?”
The woman nodded, “Nope. I guess you were just lucky.”
Lewis laughed, “You have no idea.”
“Not to worry, if you’re with me or Winters you’ll be safe from any intruding personality in your head. Why don’t you come downstairs with me? I’ll make you something to eat and explain whatever you and Dick would like to know.”
She sprung up from her chair to prove that she was a petite little thing- maybe 5 feet and 4 inches tall. She plopped a hand out to him, palm up and fingers splayed like a child’s. But her stance was strong and her eyes knowing so Lewis took the hand she offered and allowed himself to be pulled up.
He stumbled close to her and gave her a charming smile. She returned it genuinely before leaning a bit closer and breathing deeply. “We’re also going to need to get you a shower. You smell like Death.”
She released his hand and walked to the door obviously trusting him enough to follow. He watched her go.
She smelled like Life.
Down in Grace’s kitchen, Dick was already waiting. In fact he was pacing in worry, running one hand along the countertop beside him, phone in the other. It was a nervous habit that he and Babe shared. He waited as the cell phone rang, and frowned when Bill didn’t pick up right away.
Dick needed to talk him, needed to hear his voice. Just plain needed him.
Why wasn’t he answering?
Philadelphia, PA
Guarnere and Christenson stared one another down, both refusing to speak, as Bill’s cell phone continued to vibrate on the coffee table in front of him.
Bill finally broke away from their intense glaring competition to glance at the name upon his cell’s caller id. He was careful to make no reaction when he saw it was Dick. Thank God…something he could finally use.
“Look,” he said to his two captors, “that’s my little brother. Please just let me tell him to not come home. If you don’t like something I say…just shoot me.”
Christenson opened his mouth, but Luz spoke first. “First tell us the truth.”
Bill cursed under his breath. He didn’t want to reveal anything. But if they were willing to let him make a phone call, then he could solve all his problems at once. No amount of information in the world would matter then.
“Fine.” He conceded. “I do work for the Company that you’re so familiar with. But I’m just a foot soldier alright? I have an idea about where your son could be. But I’ll only tell you if you let me answer this phone call.”
The two armed men exchanged a quick glance. Finally the taller of the two nodded. “Make it quick.” Christenson told him sternly. “But one wrong word gets you a bullet in your shoulder.”
Bill just leaned forward and snatched his cell phone.”Hey little brother.” He said by way of greeting.
He heard Dick take a breath on the line. “Bill what’s going on?”
“Look I’m sorry we didn’t hang out yesterday. I couldn’t get off work until 4:22. But I need you to do me a favor and not come home okay?” Bill spoke, knowing that Dick would understand the situation.
A 422 was the code the Company gave to a situation in which an agent was being interrogated. He also knew that Dick would understand that the situation was dangerous, taking place in his home, and that he needed back up and for Dick to call Babe and ask him not to go home.
He waited for Dick to say something. Finally the other man said, “Bill…I..I love you. I should have told you before and I’m sorry I’m telling you now but you needed to know.”
The unexpected words almost caused Bill to break his calm demeanor. There was so much he wanted to say to Dick that he simply couldn’t right now. “I love you too.”
He hung up, knowing that Dick would both handle the situation and, it seemed, was in love with him. That had been a damn good phone call. He sat the cell back in its original place.
“Okay you got your damn phone call now tell me where my son is.” Luz practically growled at him.
Bill knew he was going to have to stall them a bit before back up arrived. “The truth is that he could be in a few places. I’m assuming he has an ability just like his old man?”
“That’s none of your damned business.” The father snapped. As if Bill didn’t already know what Luz, Eli and Luz’s deceased wife could do.
Bill shrugged, “The Company wants certain abilities for certain things. I can help you if you tell me what it is he can do.”
Luz sighed, “He can predict the future.”
“How old is he?”
“What the Hell does that matter?”
However Bill didn’t bat an eye in the face of the other man’s hostility. “Believe it or not the Company is pretty good about treating kids.”
“Yeah they’re model kidnappers.” Agent Christenson spoke.
“Look,” Bill broke in, “if he’s a psychic, then they don’t have much cause to lock him up, because it’s not a physically dangerous ability.”
The statement caused Luz to roll his eyes. “Yeah because the ability to heal yourself is incredibly dangerous, that’s why you had to lock Gene Roe up.”
Bill gave him a sharp smile, “The fact that you think it isn’t shows just how little you know about your own kind.”
That caused a frown to take over Luz’s face. “Eli is 8 years old.” He snapped at Bill before asking, “How old is your little brother?”
Bill froze, “He’s sixteen.”
“What would you do if someone tried to take him away?”
The question triggered an event that Bill often tried to repress, but he answered the question honestly, “Anything…I’d do anything.”
One Year Ago, Philadelphia, PA
It is supposed to be a normal Friday afternoon. Bill always gets off of work with the Company then goes to his parent’s place to nag them for awhile and spend some time with his little brother. Of course when he says ‘nag’, he means he tries to get them to talk about anything real.
He hardly remembers what his parents are really like. Or if they ever for once in their life were actual parents or if all they had the capacity to be was agents for the Company. His childhood had been far from normal, seeing as his parents had prepped and trained him to be the perfect agent from birth. It turns out that they did fairly well on that end.
Bill was rising through the ranks at work, and after proving his loyalty by taking out a mole in the Company he had a new partner that he trusted with his life and so much more. Work was great...but he’d never felt like he’d had parents.
Until Babe, his little brother, had come into his life he had never even felt like he had a family. But he’s put all of those ill feelings behind him. Or at least he thinks he has. Because now he has a family in Babe, someone he loves who loves him for him and not for his potential or his work.
When he walks into his parent’s kitchen that afternoon it’s to the image of his father casually drinking a cup of coffee and his stern faced mother looking over what Bill recognizes as a Company medical file.
“Isn’t that Babe’s file from when he was a baby?” he asks his mother, who nods.
“We’ve got great news.” His dad says to him with a smirk.
Bill leans back against a kitchen counter, “That’s a first.”
His mother shoots him an irritated look. “Try to be serious William.”
That causes Bill to grimace. Never serious enough, never anything they want when they want it. Who the fuck are these people? Sometimes he wishes that he were Babe…with someone to tell him that he was adopted too.
“Fine, sorry.” He grumbles, “What’s this fantastic news?”
“Edward has finally developed an ability.”
Bill freezes in shock, “What? How do you know?”
“Your mother saw it with her own eyes a few days ago.” His father tells him, “At first we just thought he could fly.”
Bill is confused, “What do you mean JUST fly? He can fly?”
“He was of course tested for an ability before he was given to us,” his mother reminds him. “And his blood work suggested that he was a possible candidate for an empath. Something the Company has been hoping to come across for a long time. We had given up hope that he’d ever develop ANY ability, much less a comprehensive one.”
“But how do you know he’s an empath at all?” Bill asks, nervous and concerned about where the conversation is going.
“Flying was one of the first abilities he was ever exposed to. Your mother saw him hovering above his bed Tuesday morning but he doesn’t seem to know he did it.” His father tells him.
“Who the fuck has he been exposed to that can fly?” Bill asks. “And what do you mean by ‘one of the first’?”
“Watch your mouth.” His mother snaps at him. “Don’t worry about these things alright?”
“If it concerns my little brother then I think I have a right to know what the Hell is, or has been, going on.” Bill states as evenly as he can manage.
“He’s not you little brother, Bill.” His mothers says, “He’s an assignment and you of all people should understand that.”
Bill gapes at her, “What the Hell are you saying? That you’re going to hand him over to the Company?”
His father just stares at him, “Bill that’s why we took him in the first place. You knew this might happen. You weren’t supposed to get attached to him.”
“Attached?” Bill shouts, “He’s not some fucking stray we picked up at the pound! He’s family!”
He watches as his father straightens up and sets his coffee mug down. “No…he isn’t. It’s like your mother says, he’s an assignment. Now it’s sweet that you’ve taken a personal interest in him, but it’s time to do your job and let us do ours.”
Bill can’t believe what he’s hearing. Dick had told him this would happen. Hell even Toye had warned him all those years ago. The things Dick had shared with him about what he had seen the Company do, all they had come to despise about the people they worked for. All of it coming to a head in his parent’s kitchen.
“You can’t turn him over. Do you have ANY idea what they’ll do to him?” Bill shouts.
His mother slaps the file closed and glares at him. “The Company needs him for a very important project, something that could change the world.”
“WHAT project?” Bill asks in frustration, “Do you even know? You’re following orders you don’t even understand!”
“You’re failing to see the bigger PICTURE William!” His mother shouts.
“All I see is you throwing your family away because you’ve been brainwashed into believing that it’s the right thing to do!” Bill counters.
“That’s enough.” His father intercedes. “When he gets home from school, we are taking him in and that’s final.”
Bill shakes his head, this can’t be happening. “Have you told anyone else?”
His mother is still glaring at him when she says, “No. We wanted you to be the first. We had hoped you would be happy. This is a very important development for our family.”
Time seems to stand still for a moment as the words sink in, as everything catches up to Bill and he knows, just knows, that he can’t let this happen. If they take his brother away…Bill will never see him again.
“You’re not my family, Babe is.” He hisses at them. “And you aren’t taking him anywhere.”
He’s pulling his gun out from underneath his jacket and before he can really think it through the trigger has been pulled twice and the scent of smoke and blood fills the air as his parents lie dead on the kitchen floor.
He stares in shock for a moment before lunging for the kitchen sink and emptying the contents of his stomach. He shakes as he runs the water to wash away his DNA before steeling his insides and straightening up the best that he can.
It was the only way…the only way to protect Babe.
Bill tries not to shake anymore as he scoops down and pulls Babe’s medical file out of the still warm hand of his now deceased mother…if he could ever really call her that.
He holsters his gun, makes a mental note to dispose of it, and then calls the only person he knows he can trust.
The phone rings for a moment before it is answered. “Hey Bill, what is it?”
“Dick? I…I need you to come to my parent’s place as soon as you can. I need you.”
Bill leveled another stare at Luz. “I’d do anything I had to.”
“Then tell me where my son is.”
It’s after reliving this memory that he knows he can’t. He didn’t go through all he had just to bring the Company to his door, suspicious of how he had sold them out, with no clout left to protect Babe.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He said.
“You lying son of a BITCH! Where is he!?” Luz shouted.
As the elevator came to a slow stop, Babe felt his phone vibrate on his hip. He managed to tear his eyes away from Gene long enough to check and see who had left him a message. It was from Dick.
“What is it?” The doctor asked.
Babe read the message.
Babe whatever you’re doing stay out of the apt. until I call and tell you otherwise. Don’t ask questions, just do it please.
Babe wasn’t sure how to explain the sense of dread that filled his stomach. Because now, thanks to Toye, he knows what Bill and Dick actually do for a living. And his brother, either of them, might be in trouble.
The moment the elevator doors opened, Babe took off down the hallway towards his apartment. He could hear Gene walking after him. The closer he got to their door, the louder the voices coming from inside the apartment became.
Gene heard them too and came to the sinking realization that Babe and he were headed to the same place. Babe began to run towards the door upon hearing the shouts and Gene, knowing it wasn’t safe, rushed to stop him.
“Babe, wait!”
Bill watched as Christenson and Luz turned at the sound of shouting in the outside hallway and took the moment to lunge off the couch, over the coffee table, and tackle Luz to the ground.
“Shit!” The small man cursed as he hit the floor. Bill immediately seized control of the hands Luz had wrapped around the gun. He could hear Agent Christenson shouting but knew that the man wouldn’t shoot as long as he and Luz continued to struggle on the floor for control of the weapon.
As they rolled over Bill barely registered the sound of the door to his apartment being flung open before Luz violently smashed their hands to the ground in an attempt to get Bill to let go. The only thing he succeeded in doing, however, was causing the gun to go off.
There was a shout, a gasp and everyone froze. Bill turned to see an image that he’d never even allowed to plague his worst nightmares.
Babe stood in the doorway, blood seeping through his shirt from the bullet wound to his chest, before he collapsed into the arms of a man right behind him.
If Bill had been thinking properly he would have recognized Eugene Roe, but he wasn’t and he didn’t.
“NO!” He shouted and quickly abandoned his struggle with Luz to propel himself over to his little brother. But he didn’t make it very far before he was pistol whipped in the face by a very pissed off FBI agent.
“Don’t fucking move!” Christenson shouted as he trained his gun on him.
“That’s my fucking brother you SON OF A BITCH!” Bill hollered before kicking his leg out and causing Christenson to fall to the floor. On the man’s way down Bill grabbed the gun and struck Christenson across the face, rendering his unconscious.
Gene stayed oblivious to the commotion as he held Babe in his arms. He could feel the tears threatening to fall. This couldn’t be happening.
“Babe, c’mon. Hold on please.” he pleaded with the young man, cradling him to his chest and whispering into his soft red hair. But he knew…
He was already dead.
“Nobody move!” Came a new voice and Luz froze when he saw a pale, dark haired man training a weapon on him. Great…now it was two guns to one, Christenson was unconscious and Gene was preoccupied with something that Luz could hardly wrap his head around.
“You alright Guarnere?” The man asked Bill, who was sitting motionless on the floor, bloodshot eyes staring as his dead brother was held by someone other than him.
He didn’t bother to answer the question.
“Drop the gun,” the newcomer instructed Luz,who knew that he would be no good to Eli dead and did as he was told.
An abrupt gasp caught all of their attentions and they watched Gene pull away from Babe in shock. The young man in his arms gasped for air desperately and Bill rushed over to him.
“Babe? It’s okay, calm down we’re going to save you.” He spewed assurances to his little brother as Eugene Roe (and when the fuck had he gotten there?) gently laid him on the floor.
Babe’s hand shot out wildly to grasp Gene’s shirt and the other man held onto his hand tightly. Bill didn’t know why his brother hadn’t reached out to him but he couldn’t wonder now.
They all watched in astonishment as Babe began to sit up on his own, coughing and beating at his chest. Bill watched as the hole the bullet had caused in Babe's chest began to close itself up, skin knitting itself together.
Babe coughed violently once more before pursing his lips and turning his head to the side to spit something out of his mouth and onto the floor. It made a metallic clink and Gene picked it up and held it before his eyes to see what it was.
It was the bullet.
He and Babe locked eyes…
“Holy sh-”
David Webster’s Apartment, San Francisco, CA
“You IDIOT!”
David winced at the cursing and shouting continued. “I was just trying to keep you safe-”
But Joe cut him off, “First of all- I told you to be careful and that was NOT FUCKING CAREFUL. Now how am I supposed to do what you told me to do if I’m not in the GODDAMN COMPANY?!”
“We don’t even know what it is I wanted you to do!”
Skip glanced up at the two of them in confusion. “What the Hell are you guys talking about?” He asked while he ran a hand through his unconscious boyfriend’s hair as Don lay on Webster’s couch.
“Future Me.” Webster said by way of explanation, as if that made any flipping sense to Skip.
“You have to take me back.” Joe told him.
Skip shook his head, “But they’ll be waiting for him. Then they’re going to wonder why he bothered to bring you back at all.”
Joe was about to speak but Skip cut him off by saying, “What you need is for him to have never taken you in the first place.”
The statement caused Joe to pause and he turned to look at David. Webster, knowing where his thoughts were going, shook his head. “No! No way! I’ve never time traveled before!”
“Last week you didn’t do a lot of things.” Joe countered. “Besides you obviously learn eventually, why not now?”
Webster sighed, “We have no idea how it works. Who’s to say I can get us back to RIGHT after we teleported away.”
“You! It’s your damn power!” Joe insisted. “You have to use it sometime.”
David reflected on his earlier realization that he just couldn’t say no to Joe, only now he realized it was going to get him killed one day. He sighed. “Damn it. Fine. We can try.”
“Thank you.” Joe sighed. “Now how do we do this?”
Webster shrugged. “The fuck if I know. We’ll just have to wing it.” He said before walking over to Joe and looping an arm around the other man’s thin waist. “Hold on to me.”
Joe frowned as he put his hands on Webster’s shoulders. “I don’t like this.”
“Well you’re the one who wanted to do it.”
“No I mean I don’t like this pose. It feels too Lois Lane.”
David rolled his eyes. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“All I’m saying is that-”
But Liebgott’s words fell short as a similar and yet foreign sensation took over him. The same feeling as teleportation-with the world seeming to press in on him- and yet something new. As if he were standing in the middle of a busy freeway with cars zipping right past him.
When the world began to right itself and he felt stable enough to release his grip on Webster, it was only so that he could give the man a slight shove. “Give me a freaking warning why don’t ya?”
“Sorry I just…wait where the fuck are we?” David asked as he began to look around.
Liebgott noticed that they were in a place that he didn’t recognize…at least not right away. He frowned as he surveyed the area. It looked like the Company building they’d been in…but it couldn’t be.
Dust was gathering on the few chairs and desks situated in the open and airy laboratory that Joe could have sworn he’d taken his physical in. He turned to look out the large window and stopped short.
“David.” He called to his companion, who was poking around the room.
“What?” Webster asked as he wandered over. But once he looked outside there was no explanation necessary.
It was Manhattan alright. Just not the one that Joe had been becoming accustomed to. There were no people bustling along the sidewalks. There were no taxis, no honking horns...
Buildings were laying in rubble on the ground and their position above the city allowed them to see several areas fenced off by barbed wire, cars moving through check points operated by armed guards that looked suspiciously like those trained by the Company.
There was a loud screech and blue flames burst to life near one of the cars on the street below. A siren sounded, loud even to their ears, before something shot past the window that looked as if it were a flying man.
Joe turned away from the bizarre and worrisome scene to gape at David. “What did you do?”
A/N: Sorry about the lack of Lipton and Speirs! Both they and Cobb will get plenty of attention next time around!