September Surprise Story Week: Tristan continued: The Brotherhood Collection: 1214 words
See the beginning of this story here ( LJ link).
See the second part of this story here ( LJ link).
Tristan looked up at the pictures of Miriam, Conrad and the other children again. It wasn't hard to understand why the tragedy had happened. Gaining the sort of power Miriam had as a teenager or an adult would have been hard enough, but she'd been a ten-year-old girl who was thrown out of her home by her parents because she'd turned into an animal. All of the people in the house had been children when they'd first gained their powers and it had affected all of them. When Tristan looked at Kara, Lucas, or any one of the children he was attempting to bring up he could see it. He knew he hadn't been a good enough surrogate parent to any of them as he'd been twenty-three when the house had fallen under his control and he'd had no idea how to look after children.
Of course, Leonard hadn't either. That was easy enough to see when reading the notes that Leonard had written. To him those poor children had been nothing more than toys. Tristan couldn't help feeling relieved that Leonard hadn't had more time with the children because he could see each one of them being much more screwed up if they'd grown up with his grandfather for a surrogate parent. Kara was the only one who was affected by Leonard's teachings, and by what had happened, which was something he was thankful for.
Tristan thought back to the day he walked into the house to find Kara sitting in the hallway, curled up in a quilt, sobbing. Even then her first thought had been to attack him but she'd been too tired to do any real damage. It took her a long time to recognise him and an even longer time for him to convince her to tell him what had happened. He could never be sure if she'd told him the whole truth, but she'd stuck by the story ever since and the last thing he was going to do was push her about it. The poor child had been through hell, lost her best friends, and the only person she trusted was the man who had found her the morning after. After a while the nightmares had stopped but that night had damaged her in ways that Tristan wouldn't have wished on his enemies, let alone an eleven-year-old girl who had already been damaged by her parents throwing her out.
It had been just over ten years since that day. Ten very long years, during which more children arrived than Tristan ever thought possible. Lucas was the first new arrival, three days after it had happened, and he was quickly followed by more. With every year that passed the number of new arrivals increased. Tristan had no idea why it increased each year, any more than he knew why children were being born with powers, but it did, and he had no way of knowing if all the shapeshifters made it to the house. Sighing, he stared down at Leonard's notebook. Leonard hadn't understood the Millennium powers either but he'd thought it was exciting.
Tristan spent most of his time being terrified. He was scared of the house being found because he would never be able to explain why there were so many children without being diagnosed at mentally ill and he knew that some, including Kara, were listed as missing. As the only person in the house without powers Tristan was worried that someone would make the decision that he was useless and get rid of him. The lack of knowledge about the powers was really just the icing on the cake.
A knock on the door made him jump. After putting both notebooks away Tristan called, “Come in.”
The door opened and Kara stepped into the room. Normally it was her so Tristan wasn't surprised to see her. Neither was he surprised to see the tears streaming down her cheeks. He knew that being in the house was hard for Kara, especially as Conrad's room had been taken by someone else and that meant she couldn't sleep in his bed any more.
“What's wrong?” he asked, wishing that he could give her a hug.
Kara shrugged. “Everything and nothing,” she replied, and Tristan could hear the throb of loneliness in her voice. “I want to go somewhere.” After a long silence she continued, “Mim had a brother and I think I should tell him what happened to his sister.”
“Why, Kara?”
“It's the right thing to do.” She looked at Tristan for the first time. “I'd do the same for Conrad's siblings if he'd ever mentioned their existence.”
“Why now?”
“I wasn't ready before. The thought of talking about what happened before filled me with dread but I think I'm finally ready to talk about it.”
“You could start with the people here rather than travelling across the country to talk to someone you've never met before.”
Shaking her head, Kara sat in the chair on the other side of the desk. “It will be easier to tell someone I've never met before. Finding the right words to tell the people here, to tell Lucas, just isn't possible right now.” She wiped the tears off her cheeks but they didn't stop falling. “I screwed up here, Tristan, and I need some time away. Maybe then I try again.” She sighed. “Maybe then I can tell Lucas I'm sorry that I've treated him badly for the last ten years but it was because one of my closest friends were psycho and killed everyone but me in the house.” She shook her head. “It's such an awful excuse.”
“It's not an excuse. It's a reason.”
“It's not good enough.”
For a moment all Tristan could do was stare at Kara. “What...?” He ran a hand through his hair trying to find a way to express his total disbelief in words. “How can you say that?”
“He needed someone and I put myself first. Conrad taught me not to do that but I did it any way. I should have pushed everything that I was feeling to one side to look after the boy who had just lost his family.”
“Kara...”
“Don't, Tristan. I failed my best friend and I can't explain it away. Conrad would have been able to do it.”
“You don't know that.”
“I do know that.”
Tristan stared at Kara. “Why haven't you mentioned this before?”
She managed to smile. “I know it's totally illogical. I'm not Conrad so I shouldn't think that I was capable of doing the same things as him, but I can't help it. Every time I look at Lucas I see the little boy I failed.” She sighed again. “I see the two boys I failed and the girl. In him I see all the mistakes I made in not noticing that Mim was close to the edge, failing to teach Conrad how to keep someone out of his mind, and the way I pushed Lucas away when I shouldn't have done.”
“What happened with Miriam isn't your fault. She made her choice and you can't hold yourself responsible for it.”
Kara shrugged. “Maybe I could have talked her out of making that choice.”
“Or you could have made it worse.”
© K A Jones 2011
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.