Baywatch fic: Like the Ocean Tide (3/14)

[faye_dartmouth]

PART ONE
PART TWO
PART THREE
PART FOUR
PART FIVE
PART SIX
PART SEVEN
PART EIGHT
PART NINE
PART TEN
PART ELEVEN
PART TWELVE
PART THIRTEEN
PART FOURTEEN



-o-

All Mitch had wanted was a little downtime. A second of privacy.

The minute he stepped into his bedroom, however, he found he couldn’t close the door. If he closed the door, he couldn’t hear what Matt was watching. And worse, he might not hear the front door open if Matt decided to try to sneak out. Kids did that, right? They snuck out of houses? Eight seemed awfully young for that, but what the hell did Mitch really know about eight year olds?

All he did know about was Matt Brody, and Matt Brody would always be enough of an idiot to leave the comfort and safety of Mitch’s home for, well, anything that seemed distracting at the time.

With the door ajar, Mitch turned and sat heavily on the bed, dropping his head into his hands as a wave of exhaustion swept over him.

This day had been surreal.

He’d woke up, ready to make sure that Brody hadn’t gone off the rails, and instead he’d found a kid. A kid with all of Brody’s problems and none of his limited capabilities. An actual little kid.

Lifting his head from his hands, Mitch stared balefully at the wall, listening to the sound of the TV through the cracked door. Why the hell was the kid watching an ad for fast food?

Why the hell did Mitch care?

How the hell was any of this even possible?

Brody was an adult. He wasn’t a little kid. There was no possible way any of this was actually happening. This was a dream, this had to be a dream.

God, Mitch wanted it to be a dream.

Shit, he’d settle for a nervous breakdown right about now.

Because he’d never asked for a roommate out of a former Olympian on probation with a reputation for puking in swimming pools. He hadn’t sought that out, okay? In fact, when Brody had first showed up on his beach, he’d been more than happy to humiliate him into leaving. He’d never expected to trust the kid, hire the kid and then let him live rent-free in his spare room indefinitely.

He’d accepted that, though. He’d even accepted the fact that Brody was going to screw up from time to time, and that Mitch had to be the adult in the relationship and take him back as necessary.

That didn’t mean he’d wanted a literal child.

A kid.

Mitch listened as Matt flipped the channels again, lingering on a commercial for erectile dysfunction.

What had actually happened? All he’d done was stay up, worrying and regretting how things had gone down. He’d fallen asleep outside, under the stars--

Mitch frowned, remembering.

A falling star.

He’d technically made a wish.

Of course, he’d stopped believing in wishes and falling stars when he was a kid. This would be reassuring if he didn’t somehow have a kid of his own in the other room watching vaguely inappropriate television commercials. So, clearly, weird shit could happen.

Getting to his feet again, he crept back toward the door. Peering out, he could see Matt lounging on the couch, remote still in his hand as he watched a new ad for sunscreen flash across the screen. There were girls on the beach, wearing bikinis, and Matt seemed quite content to keep the channel where it was.

With a sigh, Mitch shook his head and made his way back to his bathroom. He’d gone through the motions today, hoping that somehow this whole situation would fix itself. Or, at the very least, that he’d wake the hell up and find out that everything was back to normal.

Running some water, Mitch washed his face just for the sake of getting some clarity. This wasn’t a dream; this couldn’t be a dream. He’d never been this tired in a dream before.

Turning off the water, he grabbed a washcloth and patted his face dry, studying his own reflection. Maybe this was a curse of some sorts. There were all sorts of stories from his own culture, talking about curses and magic and shit like that. Mitch had liked those stories as a kid, and he was still proudly defensive of Polynesian culture, but he’d never heard of age regression.

And honestly, he’d never believed that stuff happened in real life. Because, well, it was real life.

Age regression wasn’t possible. It wasn’t real.

So who the hell was the kid in Mitch’s living room? What had Mitch actually been doing today?

These disconcerting thoughts were preoccupying, and when he heard the doorbell ring, he was too slow to make it out of the bathroom as he heard Matt get off the couch. He made it to the bedroom door when Matt opened the front door, and before Mitch could stop him, the kid had greeted Mitch’s unexpected guest.

“Hey,” Matt said, turning back toward him. “There’s some hot chick at the door.”

This was entirely inappropriate, and Mitch was torn between lecturing the kid about how to properly treat women and scolding the child for a lack of stranger awareness. Neither of these thoughts came to fruition when he saw Summer step inside, looking thoroughly confused.

“Uh, Mitch,” she said. “If this is a bad time…”

“No,” he said, even though he meant yes, this was the worst time ever. Hastily, he crossed the floor, pulling Summer inside and shutting the door behind him. “You’re fine.”

“Sure,” she said, looking from Mitch to Matt with confusion again. “But I thought you weren’t. Steph said you were sick.”

It had seemed like an easy enough lie at the time, but he should have known that no one would actually buy it. Mitch was a force of nature, a constant presence on the beach. He didn’t take sick days because, quite simply, he basically never got sick. For the first time in his life, he found himself wishing that his Baywatch family was a little less of, well, a family. “Uh, yeah,” he said. “About that.”

Matt was watching their exchange, raising his eyebrows curiously. Damn kid was picking up on more than he needed to, and the last thing Mitch needed was a precedent that allowed the kid to lie when he deemed it necessary.

Summer looked from Matt back to her again, more unnerved by the second.

“Why don’t we talk,” he said to Summer while giving Matt a purposeful look. “Outside.”

Matt nodded like he understood. “It’s cool, man,” he said, being far more reasonable than he usually was. Clearly, if Mitch had boobs, today would have gone better. “I’ll just be watching the TV. Can I have a snack?”

“Sure, help yourself to anything you find in the fridge,” Mitch called back distractedly as he ushered Summer toward the back door.

“Seriously?” Matt asked after him.

“Seriously,” Mitch said, opening the back door and leading Summer through.

Before he’d quite managed to close the door, Summer turned on him, her own face contorted. “Seriously?”

Mitch drew a breath. “I can explain.”

She waited, expectant.

Mitch let out the breath. “Actually, I can’t explain.”

“Why didn’t you just tell Stephanie that you had to babysit today?” she asked, because she thought Mitch hiding a kid in his place and ly8ng about it was weird, but she had no idea just how weird it really was. “I mean, is he a nephew or something? A friend’s kid? A neighbor?”

She was going through the most logical conclusions, which he respected her for. Mitch wished it were that simple. “If I tell you, you’re not going to believe me.”

Being Summer, she took that as a challenge. “Well, you called in a lie to stay home with him,” she said, making the logical point. “Something’s weird about that. Who is that kid?”

He had to wonder if Summer didn’t have some idea. She was smart and logical, but intuitive too. He had to wonder if Summer couldn’t sense it. After all, Brody and Summer had been an item, though somewhat undefined. They’d spent a lot of time together, and Mitch knew for a fact that Brody had trusted her almost as much as he trusted Mitch. The kid was small, but he was still so Brody that it was impossible to overlook.

“Has he been around before?” she asked, still trying to put it together. “He seems familiar. And where the hell is Brody?”

This was Mitch’s last chance to lie. It was his last chance to act like everything was fine and normal and good. Part of him wanted to. To protect the kid. To protect his team. To protect himself. Maybe if he didn’t say it aloud, it wouldn’t be real. That was tempting, it was.

There was no way he could do it.

Resolved as he’d been to keep this quiet, having Summer here was a much needed breath of fresh air. This was why parents worked better with a partner. The burden of handling children full time was too much for one person. Especially when that child was supposed to be a pain in the ass adult.

He needed to say it, admit it, if only to himself.

Because, however this happened, this shit was real. Mitch couldn’t fight that anymore.

“The kid is Brody,” Mitch said finally.

Summer stared back at him, as if hoping she’d misheard him. “What?”

Mitch sighed, resigned to the admission now. “The kid in there, that’s Brody, our Brody.”

She let out a laugh, short and incredulous, clearly expecting a punchline. “You’re...kidding.”

“No,” Mitch said. “I wish I was.”

“Um, you must be sicker than you look, then,” she said. “Have you been to the doctor?”

“I feel fine,” Mitch said. “Well, except for the fact that I’ve been trying to deal with Matt Brody as a child all day.”

She backed up, both concerned and worried. “Mitch, this isn’t funny. Where’s Brody?”

“I know it’s not funny, trust me,” he said. He pointed to the door, where he could see Matt through the clear glass window, sprawled on the couch again. “But that is Brody.”

Disbelieving, she followed his gaze, looking at the kid again. He could see it in her eyes, the slow processing of facts and uncertainties. She was weighing the impossibility against the probability, and she was studying the kid for any sign of familiarity.

Finally, she shook her head. “I just saw Brody last night,” she said. “I banged him two nights ago. That’s a kid, Mitch.”

“I can’t explain it, not really,” Mitch admitted. “But that’s him. I swear.”

She gaped, torn between the two things she trusted most. That Mitch was an honest guy and that adults didn’t become children over night. When those two facts failed to parse, she settled for profanity instead. “How the hell?” was the only coherent part of her next sentence.

Mitch winced, wishing he had an answer. How the hell? He was still grappling with that one and coming up blank. “I don’t know,” he said, because for as much as he valued honesty, there wasn’t a lie that made any sense. “We fought last night, about him being hungover and late for work. Things got a little heated, and he left. I was pissed, but I didn’t want him out doing something stupid, so I stayed up as late as I could, waiting for him to come back. I fell asleep, and then when I woke up, there was a kid in Brody’s cot.”

She stared at him, waiting for more. She inclined her head, as if demanding more. “And?” she prompted in frustration.

“And nothing,” Mitch said, making a futile gesture with his hands. “The kid looks like Brody, talks like Brody, seems to have Brody’s backstory. He literally was sleeping in Brody’s bed and answered to Brody’s name. I’ve spent all day with him. It’s Brody.”

This conclusion now seemed inescapable to Mitch.

Summer was taking it a little harder.

Given that her boyfriend was now a child, he could understand that.

“You’re screwing with me, right?” she said, sounding like she was clinging to a hysterical sort of hope. “You and Brody. You found some kid, coached him on the right shit to say--”

“And what?” Mitch asked. “I didn’t know you were coming over. I went out of my way not to see people today.”

Summer fumbled through that thought process. She shook her head. “So you were still working on it,” she rambled. Then, she pointed to the door, where they could both see Matt on the couch in the distance. “Who is he? Where’s Brody?”

Having to defend the impossibility of this situation was a bit on the strange side. A few hours ago, he was having a hard time believing it himself. It certainly was a solidifying thing, having to justify it to Summer now. “I’m not shitting you, I promise. That kid is Brody,” he said, enunciating each word carefully. “I spent the whole day telling myself I was insane, but he’s still here. I don’t know how, I don’t know why. I just...I know that it’s true, somehow.”

“But -- what?” she asked, still not quite able to formulate her thoughts coherently. “Age regression? I mean, that doesn’t happen, you know that, right?”

Mitch drew a long breath. “Yeah, I do.”

“So, what, then?” she asked, flinging her hands out. “Too much sun exposure? Black magic? Dark arts? Genetic mutation?”

“Well, I have thought that Brody has some genetic quirks, but I don’t think that’s it,” Mitch said, considering the possibility more seriously than he would have under any other conditions.

“So, magic. We’re talking about magic,” Summer concluded, still sounding as though she didn’t quite believe it, as if she thought she might very well be going crazy. “Do you have, like, connections to the dark arts?”

“I don’t even know what the hell you mean by the dark arts,” Mitch snapped back.

“Voodoo, ancient rituals, I don’t know!” she exclaimed.

Mitch looked around self consciously, willfully dropping his voice to a hushed tone. “You really think I know weird ass voodoo magic?”

“At this point I think it may be more plausible than my boyfriend randomly turning back into a kid!” she hissed back.

“Even if I did, why would I do this?” Mitch said, pointing furtively toward the window.

Summer was starting to look desperate. “Well, you said you were waiting up for him last night,” she conjectured. “What did you do? What did you say?”

“Nothing, really,” Mitch said, thinking back on it with a wince. “I mean, I wished he would come back, that’d he’d, I don’t know, grow up.”

“You wished he’d grow up?” she repeated.

“Yeah, but people make wishes all the time,” he continued, noticing that his neighbor was standing at her window, watching him. Mitch dropped his voice again, inching closer to Summer. “Wishes don’t come true by themselves, and this isn’t even what I wished for.”

It was probably a mistake, applying logic to a situation wherein logic so clearly did not apply. But Mitch didn’t know what else to do. Not when he had a freakin’ kid in his living room.

“Well, what kind of wish was it?” Summer said, still trying to find something that made sense.

Mitch felt his exasperation rise. It was some consolation that his neighbor had disappeared again, which at least meant he had one less thing to worry about for the moment. “The kind you make when you’re pissed and worried at three AM,” he said with a shrug. “I don’t know, shit.”

Sensing Mitch was serious, Summer drew a breath and tried to center herself. She knit her brows together, thoughtful “Okay, so you and Brody had a fight,” she reiterated, as if going over it again would somehow make it make more sense. “And then he left. And you waited up worrying?”

“It was heated, like I said,” Mitch said. “And I technically threw him out.”

“You threw him out?”

“Technically, maybe,” Mitch said. “He was being an asshole.”

“He’s an asshole with issues, Mitch,” she said, a little sharper than before.

“Still pretty sure that’s not important,” he said. “What’s important is that adult Brody left and kid Brody came back. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with that -- with him.”

Summer was still reeling. Badly. She shook her head. “I think maybe I need to take you to the doctor.”

“Sure, fine,” Mitch said. Then he gestured toward the window again, where Brody had kicked off his sandals and put his bare feet on the coffee table. “But what about him?”

“I don’t know, what about him?” Summer asked.

“He’s a kid,” Mitch reminded her. “It’s not like we can just leave him here.”

“But who the hell is he?” she demanded.

“He’s Brody,” Mitch said again, as emphatically as he could. If he’d doubted it before, he didn’t doubt it now. He’d made the declaration; he’d come to the inevitable conclusion. And now he had to stand by it.

Summer blinked a few times, clearly startled by Mitch’s vehemence and still struggling to make sense of what he was saying.

Seeing her jostled made Mitch remember himself. Whatever had happened, this wasn’t Summer’s fault. If anything, her skepticism was a necessary factor in this. That just meant he had to prove it to her that way Matt had proved it to him. “Look,” he said, much gentler now. “Stick around. Stay for dinner. Once you hang out with him, you’ll see it. I know you will.”

She remained stubbornly skeptical. “And if it’s just some kid you’ve coached?”

“I still have no idea why I’d want to do that,” Mitch said. “But trust me, you can’t coach someone to be Brody like this kid is Brody.”

There was part of Summer that still wanted to take him to the doctor, Mitch could see that. But she had trusted Mitch implicitly from the beginning. She trusted him, despite what he was claiming, even now. At the very least, that had earned him the benefit of the doubt. “Fine,” she said. “I’ll stay for dinner, but I swear to God, Mitch, if this is some kind of prank, I’m going to kick your ass.”

He held up his hands, accepting those terms. “Completely understood,” he said. He hesitated before reaching to open the door again. “Just...prepare yourself.”

She shrugged. “For what?”

Mitch sighed, shaking his head, looking to Matt again. “You’ll see.”

-o-

Inside, Matt barely acknowledged his presence. He did, however, smile broadly at Summer, lighting up so much that he looked like an entirely different little kid. This only served to make Summer more nervous, and she hung around Mitch in the kitchen while he threw something together for dinner.

By the time dinner was ready, there was more tension in the house than Mitch knew what to do with. The only person who didn’t seem to notice was Matt.

“I thought you said you didn’t have a wife,” Matt observed, completely unhelpfully as he took his seat at the table. He smiled at Summer. “Or a girlfriend.”

“I don’t,” Mitch said, laying out the last of the food as Summer poured waters for everyone. “This is Summer. She works with me.”

Matt took this information with obvious interested. “She’s a lifeguard, too?”

“Yeah,” Mitch said.

Matt was clearly visualizing this information now.

Mitch cleared his throat. “Summer, this Matt,” he said.

Startled, Summer took a moment to remember how to smile. “Hi,” she said.

“So, is lifeguarding, like, actually hard?” he asked, eyes on Summer while Mitch took his own seat.

“More than you’d probably imagine,” Mitch supplied, starting to serve the food.

Matt hardly seemed to hear him. Instead, he sat with his elbows on the table, gazing at Summer rapturously. “You must swim, like, really fast.”

“Oh,” Summer said, more uncomfortable with every word Matt spoke. “It’s, um, a variety of skills.”

“I’d love to see you in action,” Matt said.

Summer gave Mitch a quizzical look, and Mitch took pity on her and intervened. “Maybe someday you can come down and see what we do at the bay,” he said, speaking so pointedly that Matt had no choice but to look at him. “But Summer’s had a long day already. I’m sure she doesn’t want to talk about work.”

“Oh,” Matt said, and he noticed the food on his plate for the first time. As seemed to be typical for the child, he consumed his first several bites rapidly, downing most of his water in a single gulp. “That’s cool.”

Summer watched the display with something akin to shock. When she remembered herself, she wet her lips, picking up her own fork before speaking. “Mitch was telling me a little about you, too,” she said. “Where were you from again?”

“Iowa,” Matt said, stuffing another large bite into his mouth. He chewed rapidly, swallowing without missing a beat. “Cedar Rapids, actually. I think I was born there, but they don’t let me read my own paperwork.”

Summer was chewing slowly, and she finally managed to swallow. “Mitch was saying, you’re in the foster care system?”

“Since I was born,” Matt said openly. “I had a long term placement until about a year ago, and now they’re still looking for the right fit. I don’t know why they thought this place was the best bet, but I’ve never been to the beach before.”

Mitch took a drink of his water before nodding along. “It was pretty unexpected for all of us,” he said, giving Summer a meaningful look.

Still reeling, Summer visibly tried to keep her focus. “That’s, um, pretty cool,” she said, searching for the words to say. “What do you like to do for fun?”

Matt shrugged, polishing off another large section of his plate. He swallowed and helped himself to more. “There’s not always a lot,” he said. “One of my placements, they had this cool dog that liked to sleep with me, and that was fun. Sometimes they have books, but I don’t know. Reading’s not so fun. I’m good at video games, though. And the Barnabys, they were members at a country club, so we went swimming, like, all the time. They told me that I’d get to be on the swim team someday, but, um...well, that didn’t work out.”

He trailed off awkwardly, no doubt because the Barnabys hadn’t kept their promise. If they had, Matt would be a happy and enthusiastic member of the swim team. Instead, he was a foul-mouthed brat in the system. Mitch knew there was two sides to the story, but honestly, this story got shittier the more he heard.

Next to him, Summer seemed to hate the story more than Mitch did.

When Matt finished the new helping on his plate, he burped loudly. Mitch glared at him, but Matt merely blushed at Summer. “Sorry,” he said, beaming at her. “I gotta to take a pee.”

He hesitated for a moment, and one might thing he was waiting for permission. But instead, he was looking intently at Summer, before remembering his bladder and scooting off toward the bathroom in a brisk jog.

When the door closed, Summer gaped at Mitch with renewed shock. “Was he staring at my boobs?”

Mitch gave her a sympathy look. “Probably,” he said. “But he did that as an adult, too.”

“Sure, but he’s, like, seven,” she said.

“Eight,” Mitch corrected.

Her look was horrified. “And that makes it better?”

“No,” Mitch said in commiseration. “But that does make it Brody.”

Summer swore with the inalienable conclusion. “It is Brody,” she half breathed. “Shit, the boobs did it.”

Mitch poured her another glass of water. “The boobs did it,” he agreed.

Freaking out now, Summer could barely keep her voice in check. “But what are we going to do with him?”

“That’s what I was telling you,” Mitch whispered. “I don’t know.”

“But he’s a kid, Mitch,” she hissed at him. “My boyfriend is eight years old!”

“Welcome to my day,” Mitch said back.

Her shoulders fell, her eyes widened. “We have to turn him back, Mitch.”

“I don’t know how,” Mitch reminded her.

“But what are we going to do?” she said, voice hitching in desperation.

“I’m working on that, I am,” Mitch said. “But until we know what to do, we have to keep him safe first and foremost. We need to keep him here, underwraps. No one can know.”

She shook her head. “The team could help--”

“Matt thinks I have paperwork or something. I don’t. We can’t keep a kid without any documentation; we’d be arrested and worse, they’d put him in the system for real this time.”

To that, she had no argument. “So what are we going to do?” she asked, her voice dropping even more as they heard the toilet flush.

“Keep him calm and happy until we can figure out how to reverse this,” he said, listening as the water ran.

“That’s not much of a plan, Mitch,” she said, and in the distance, they heard the door open.

“If you got a better plan,” he whispered back. “I’m all ears.”

There was no time to talk as Matt came bounding back in, bouncing like an eager puppy. He sat down, noticing that his plate was empty. “Can I have some more?” he asked.

“Sure,” Mitch said, forking over another portion. He gave Summer a purposeful look. “Have as much as you want.”

-o-

After dinner, Mitch poured Summer a drink. When Matt asked if he could have some, Mitch produced some chocolate ice cream instead. Matt seemed to think this was fair compensation, and as long as he got to sit near Summer, he seemed a little too happy to comply.

With the evening still young, Mitch had to admit, he wasn’t looking forward to Summer’s departure. Her presence had made things easier to say the least, and that was good for Mitch, but it was also good for Matt.

Therefore, when Mitch broke out Monopoly, which was the only board game he had, both Summer and Matt readily agreed to a round. To his surprised, Matt had never played before, but when he was motivated to learn, he actually seemed to be a quick learner. In no time, they were all vying for Park Place and Boardwalk, and Matt was cutting deals to keep the game going well into the night.

At nine, Mitch finally closed things down, and when Matt made to whine about it, Summer smiled at him and told him that she’d had a great time.

“We can do it again?” he asked, sounding more hopeful than he’d sounded all day. Even more hopeful than he’d been about the beach.

“Sure,” she said, and she sounded like she meant it. She paused, looking at Matt forlornly for a moment, before gathering her things. “We’ll do it again soon.”

“Okay,” he said, not taking his eyes off her. As an adult, Brody had never quite mastered subtlety. As a child, he didn’t even try.

Mitch took the chance to intervene. “Matt, you go back and get ready for bed,” he said. “You should have what you need in the bags we picked up earlier.”

Matt seemed to hardly hear him.

Purposefully, Mitch guided Summer to the door, although she seemed reluctant to leave suddenly. “I’ll just see Summer out,” he said, looking back at Matt with a nod.

He opened the door, Summer a step ahead of him. “Bye,” she called back, hesitating at the threshold. “Matt.”

“Bye,” he called back, smiling brightly. “Summer.”

Mitch barely managed to keep from rolling his eyes.

Barely.

-o-

Outside, the fresh air seemed to bring Summer back to her senses.

Which only meant that she looked worried and uncertain again. “This is just--” she stopped to shake her head. “Unreal.”

Mitch took a deep breath of his own, letting the scent of the ocean air remind him what the hell he was trying to do here. “Sometimes, he sounds so much like Brody--”

She laughed, strangled and in disbelief. “I banged him two nights ago,” she said. “And now he’s this, like, kid. I didn’t want to believe it, but there’s no way this is a trick. But what are we going to do?”

Getting Summer to believe him had been an important first step. Mitch just had no clue what the next step was. “Maybe you weren’t far off with the voodoo angle,” he said. He paused long enough to smile and wave as Mrs. Flores walked by with her dog. He continued in a lower voice. “Maybe something happened.”

“I was talking shit,” she said, taking Mitch’s cue and keeping her voice down, staying safely clustered next to him on the front stoop. “I thought you’d flipped your lid.”

“I just can’t think of another plausible explanation,” Mitch said, relaxing a little as Mrs. Flores disappeared up her own walk. “So I’m going to have to think about the implausible ones.”

Summer sighed, wearier now. “I guess it can’t hurt to look.”

“Do you think you can help watch him tomorrow?” Mitch asked. “I can do a little research, but he’s everywhere. Every time I turn around, he’s looking over my shoulder.”

“I only have a half shift tomorrow,” Summer said. “I can come by in the afternoon.”

“That’s good,” Mitch said. “Except both Brody and I are scheduled for the whole day.”

Summer bit her lip, thinking. “Well, everyone bought the line that you were out sick,” she said. “I can tell Steph that you were both bad off when I checked on you.”

“You think she won’t get suspicious?” he asked.

“Mitch, everyone loves you,” she said. “The Bay practically worships you. We all followed you blindly when you insisted Leeds was up to no good. If you told us the sky was purple, I think most of us would take you seriously.”

“You have to make sure no one else shows up to check on us,” Mitch warned her.

“Are you sure?” she asked, doubtful again. “This might be easier if we had the rest of the team to help.”

“Maybe, but it’s risky,” Mitch said. “Age regression doesn’t come with documentation. That kid in there isn’t mine, and even you knowing that he’s here makes you an accessory.”

“But you’re taking care of him,” Summer argued. “We all would.”

“And how would the cops see it?” Mitch asked her. “I don’t care a lot if they arrest me, but the more we take Matt out, the more we risk someone taking him away from us. We’d never get him back.”

Summer nodded, her mouth drawn into a fine line. He’d seen the full gamut of emotions from her tonight, and this quiet resolution seemed to eclipse them all. “And I don’t want to see him back in the system,” she said, almost like it was a promise. To herself, to Brody; maybe to them both. “He’d talked to me about it a little before, but he never told me stuff like he told me tonight. He said he’d been in three foster homes growing up.”

“Those must be the long term ones,” Mitch said, trying not to think about the look in Matt’s eyes when he’d told Mitch he’d been in eleven temporary placements in the last year alone. “I guess the short term ones are the ones he tries to forget about.”

“But that’s no way for a kid to grow up,” she said, a bit of indignation in her voice. “I’ve pestered him about his inability to commit, but I don’t know. If he was passed through families like this as a kid--”

“Then family would always seem expendable to him,” Mitch said, feeling the weight of that harder than he should. It wasn’t his fault, but it also wasn’t Brody’s. “What he’s done at Baywatch, in context, isn’t so bad.”

Summer smiled, sadly now. “We have to get him back, Mitch,” she said, imploring him now. “And we need to keep him safe until we do.”

“We’ll get there,” he said, making a promise he knew he had to keep as much for Summer’s sake as his own. Not to mention Brody’s. “I mean, he changed into a kid, so it has to be possible for him to change back. Right?”

His logic had sounded much more convincing in his own head. “But if he doesn’t?” Summer asked.

“Everyone can change,” Mitch tried instead. “Even Brody.”

She nodded, although not entirely convinced. “Well, let me handle things at work,” she said.

“And I’ll handle the kid,” Mitch agreed. “We’ll take care of all fronts, and we’ll figure this out. Together.”

She smiled weakly.

“Don’t worry,” Mitch told her, even though he’d been worrying the entire damn day. “Things will be back to normal in no time. Brody will be back to normal.”

She swallowed, her smile faded entirely. “And if he isn’t?”

Mitch let go of his own bravado, finding a somber determination instead. “He has to be,” he said. “We all do.”

It was a testament to Summer’s faith in Mitch that she conceded this point with a nod. “I hope you’re right.”

As he watched her go, he didn’t give voice to his own thoughts.

Me, too.

He looked up, inspecting the cloudy, starless sky, and let out a breath. Inside, Matt was waiting for him. Mitch had no choice, now. No choice but to keep on, no choice but to believe. No choice but to keep going, adult, child and everything in between.

Me, too.

-o-

Back inside, he was pleasantly surprised to find Matt in his pajamas, vigorously brushing his teeth. Apparently, the night with Summer had agreed with him. That was both expected and weird, but Mitch would take any advantage he could get.

“Come on,” Mitch said, motioning back to the spare room. “Let’s get you all squared away.”

Amiably, Matt spit out the toothpaste and gave his mouth a quick rinse. Curiously, he took the toothbrush with him, the toothpaste too as he half-skipped past Mitch to the spare room. Neatly, he tucked the toothbrush back in the bag from the store, and Mitch noticed that the kid had thrown his dirty clothes in one of the bags as well.

Mitch picked up the bags of clothes, and Matt stopped from pulling down the bedding from the cot, looking up at Mitch with dismay. “You’re taking them?”

“Just to wash,” Mitch promised him. “You shouldn’t put the old ones in with the new ones.”

For some reason, this seemed to bother Matt.

“I’ll have them back to you in the morning,” Mitch said, hoping to assuage whatever doubts the kid might have.

Though still tentative, Matt didn’t argue the point any further as he pulled back the sheets of the cot and climbed inside. When Mitch had first put up Brody for the night in the spare room, it had seemed adequate enough. A bed, clean sheets, a roof overhead. With Matt, Mitch had to admit, the whole thing seemed out of place. Mitch’s old shit lined the walls, and the CB squawked. It was no place for a kid.

Guiltily, he went over and turned of the CB for the night.

It was no place for anyone, not long term.

“You know, this isn’t so bad,” Matt said from the bed, settling himself back against the pillow. “For a temp placement.”

He wondered, somehow painfully, if adult Brody had thought the same thing.

Mitch swallowed back those emotions, forcing himself to smile. “We’ll see how it goes tomorrow.”

“Can we go back to the beach?” Matt asked.

“Probably,” Mitch said. The he lifted a finger. “But only if you’re good.”

Matt nodded solemnly. “It’s still a deal.”

Mitch grinned, but found the moment lingered awkwardly. Adult Brody went to bed on his own terms without fuss. But Matt was eight. Was Mitch supposed to hug him? Tuck him in?

In the end, he settled for a nod of his head. “Well,” he said. “Goodnight.”

If it was awkward, Matt didn’t seem to notice. “Night.”

Turning off the light, Mitch shut the door behind him.

It had only been one day, but Matt’s presence was already all over the house. Mitch found himself picking up couch pillows, tidying stacks of papers, and putting books back on shelves. While he let a load of Matt’s laundry run, he had to dig the remote control out from the couch cushions, and he spent a good twenty minutes trying to get a mysterious stain out from the chair in the living room.

By the time he’d tidied up and done the dishes, the laundry was ready to be moved to the dryer. He put it in, peeking in on Matt as he did so. The kid was curled up on his side, sound asleep. Like this, he actually did look like an eight year old. Young. Innocent.

Mitch lingered, wondering how the hell it was actually possible that one little human being could be responsible for so much mess and stress. He wondered if all eight year olds were like that, or if it was just Brody.

Sighing, he shut the door again and turned back to his house. With the tasks done, he checked the lock on the front door and got himself a bottle of water from the fridge. Feeling weary, he let himself out onto his back porch. Only then, safely out of earshot from Matt, did he let himself well and truly breathe. A giant exhalation of exhaustion.

He’d survived the day.

Letting the night air wash over him, Mitch flopped back on the lounge chair and looked up at the hazy sky. The beach was quiet tonight, but Mrs. ??’s light was on. He liked it out here, but his purpose wasn’t merely to enjoy the weather.

No, Mitch wanted to recreate the previous night as best he could. If some sort of magic had happened, if Mitch had tapped into some extra-sensory force, then maybe he could do it again.

It had worked once.

He took a deep breath, studying the expanse above him, thinking about the way Brody had looked when Mitch had kicked him out. It was a far cry from the peaceful look on the little boy’s face sleeping in the spare room right now. He wanted the chance to make that right, to reconcile the two.

And that only happened if he got Brody back.

His Brody.

“I wish Brody would be back to normal tomorrow,” he said, willing it to be true, wishing with every fiber of his being.

It had worked before, he told himself again, garnering as much confidence as he could.

He closed his eyes, instantly feeling the pull of sleep. Mitch had never been so tired in his entire life.

As he drifted off, he thought maybe it would work again.

-o-

The next morning, Mitch woke up to the sound of Mrs. Flores watering her flowers. As she did this often, and often with much fuss, this seemed pretty normal to Mitch.

Until he realized it was morning.

Grunting, he opened his eyes, squinting up at the sun.

It was early morning.

He startled, when he realized the implications of this. He’d slept outside all night slept outside to make a wish. He’d slept outside so eight year old Matt Brody would be a full grown, fully annoying adult again.

Sitting up abruptly, Mrs. ?? gave him a long look down the point of her nose. Undoubtedly, she’d noticed that he’d slept outside. Again.

Undoubtedly, she thought it was weird.

Again.

“Hi, Mr. ??,” he said, determined not to let her skepticism of his behavior be validated. “You’re certainly up early this morning.

She made a harrumphing noise. “And you’re up late.”

Mrs. ?? had always been a finicky neighbor, but Mitch had lived in such an upstanding way that she’d never had cause to complain. Everything he did was responsible, straightforward and without deceit.

Until yesterday.

But today was a new day.

He’d made the wish.

It was morning.

He had every reason to be hopeful.

Besides, Mitch had learned that you could disarm most situations with a smile. “Just enjoying the fresh air. No sense owning beachfront property unless you take the time to enjoy it properly.”

This logic was actually pretty good.

It had absolutely no effect on her, except to possibly make her more suspicious. Mitch would normally say such suspicion was unfounded, but he had harbored an eight year old version of Brody yesterday, so she could have a point.

Not that he would tell her that.

Mitch smiled more broadly, his widest, most vibrant grin. It had an unparalleled effect on men and women of all genders and persuasions.

“And you do look lovely this morning,” he flattered. “Is that a new house dress?”

Her eyes darkened, and she harrumphed again before toddling back inside.

Well, that was that, anyway. He’d love to win over Mrs. ??, but her absence was enough. And really, she wasn’t his primary concern this morning. He looked anxiously at the house, allowing himself to hope again.

He’d done everything right last night. He’d stayed up as late as he could, he’d ruminated on Brody, and he’d made a wish, just like before. Then, he’d fallen asleep, enjoying his time in the fresh air.

Now, in the morning sun, everything seemed to indicate that today would hold good things. The sky had cleared, and the gentle breeze off the water felt amazing. He’d been exhausted last night, but the full night’s sleep had left him reinvigorated, restored.

Optimistic.

Yesterday had been an aberration. It’d be a screwed up anomaly. For all Mitch knew, the whole thing had been one really messed up dream. Maybe this was the good day he’d been counting on.

He’d made the wish, and Mitch was a good person. Good things happened to good people.

He had every reason -- every freakin’ reason -- to be hopeful.

With this in mind, Mitch opened the back door, sneaking in quietly. He paused in the kitchen, scanning through the living room, where the couch was noticeably vacant and nothing appeared to be moving or amiss. The front door was still locked, and everything was still and shut down tight.

Cautiously, Mitch began his way through the kitchen toward the spare room. When he got to the hallway, his heart skipped a beat; the door was open. Last night, when he’d put Matt to bed, he had made a point to close it. The night before, the night Brody had stormed out, it’d been open. Which meant…

Mitch crept forward, peeking inside. The cot was made up, but the bags from yesterday were still stacked neatly on the floor. There was no sign of the duffle, which Mitch had thrown at Brody to call his bluff.

Not sure what to make of that, Mitch frowned. Then, he heard a noise in the living room.

Perplexed, Mitch made his way around. The couch was empty, but there, curled up in the chair, neatly tucked out of sight from Mitch’s position in the lounge chair, was Matt. His little legs were pulled close, and he was holding Mitch’s phone in front of his face.

Mitch couldn’t hide his disappointment. Brody wasn’t back. Matt was still a kid, and Mitch was still stuck with him. The quick fix would be a little longer coming, and Mitch had no idea what to do.

On a high level anyway.

Mitch’s other instincts kicked in and he glared, plucking the phone from Matt’s hands. When he looked at it, he realized that one way or another, Matt had managed to crack his code.

“How did you get into this?” he asked, not sure if he expected or wanted an answer.

Matt was wholly unapologetic. “Persistence builds character, too,” he parroted. He gave an indifferent shrug. “That’s another thing my caseworker likes to say.”

Mitch’s scowl deepened when he saw what the kid had been doing. The Youtube app was open, and there was a video of teenage girls in bikinis on the beach. The search bar bore the words “girls on beach,” which clearly indicated where Matt’s mind was.

“Dude,” Mitch said, quickly closing the app. “You’re too young to look up stuff like that.”

“You don’t have any parental controls on that thing,” Matt said solemnly. “You may want to fix that.”

Pocketing the phone, Mitch made a note to himself to change the password. “Or you could stop trying to use it without my permission.”

“But I didn’t think you’d actually give me permission,” Matt reasoned.

“That’s because you’re a kid who can’t be trusted with electronics,” Mitch told him sourly. “As you’ve just proven to me.”

If this was bothersome to Matt, he showed no indication of it. For all that Mitch had been hoping for a dramatic change today, Matt had clearly entered it expecting it to be the same as usual. For him, there was no disappointment or optimism. Just another day to muddle through.

In some ways, Mitch envied that. Kids were lucky like that, not having to think of the big picture.

Of course, most parents were parents by choice, having raised a child from birth.

Mitch wasn’t a parent at all. He’d just stumbled into some shitty version of it when he made a wish and his roommate turned into a damn child.

He hadn’t realized just how powerful his hope had been for the day. His undying optimism had always paid off before, but it had done jack shit for him this time. Matt was ready to face another day of the same old, same old, but was Mitch?

What the hell was the same old, same old with a kid anyway?

“Why were you sleeping outside?” Matt asked.

It was only then that Mitch realized that the kid had been watching him. “What?”

“You were sleeping outside,” Matt repeated. “I saw you out there when I got up this morning.”

It had seemed very natural to him last night, recreating the circumstances that led to this mess. Adult Brody wouldn’t have noticed, or at least he wouldn’t have made a point to ask about it, considering some of the off the wall choices he made in his own life.

Or, Mitch had to concede, maybe adult Brody had learned the smallest margins of discretion.

These margins did not exist to Matt.

“It was nice outside,” he said feebly. When he realized that this may inadvertently be an implicit endorsement of such behavior, he added, “I don’t make a habit of it.”

“Do I get to sleep outside?” Matt asked.

“You’re eight,” Mitch reminded him.

“I won’t make a habit of it, either,” Matt said, as though it might have been a promise.

“No,” Mitch said again, because he could already think of fifty ways in which Matt would be a pain in the ass outside all night. And he could think of fifty other ways in which Matt would be a danger to himself and others in such a context. Shit, Mitch couldn’t even trust him with his phone, must less the world outside.

“Please?” Matt asked.

“No,” Mitch said again, more strongly this time.

Matt, little dick head that he was, didn’t miss a beat. “Then why do you get to?”

“Because I’m an adult and you’re a punk,” he said. “Any other questions?”

Harsh as it was, Matt didn’t seem overly surprised. Instead, he sighed a little, as if sensing that his overtures were going to get him nowhere. “Sure,” he said finally. “What’s for breakfast?”

Mitch did his best not to audibly groan. He’d been up for five minutes, and Matt had already cracked his phone’s security code, pestered him incessantly with questions, and now he wanted food. Children, apparently, had no concept of taking it slow.

“Can we have pancakes again?” Matt pressed on. “And eggs? Do you have bacon?”

They also had no concept of moderation.

“I’m super hungry,” Matt added, a distinctive whine in his voice. “Please?”

This was going to be a really long day.

-o-

Weary as he was, Mitch didn’t have the heart ot make a full spread of breakfast. Instead, he pulled out everything he could find from his cabinets and fridge that marginally passed as a breakfast food. Matt ignored the fruit, pulling several granola bars from a box instead. Mitch considered reprimanding him about a balanced diet, but as the kid tore into the granola bars, he realized it was blissfully quiet.

“I have to make a phone call,” he said. “Just...stay there.”

Matt was already eating his second bar in reply.

Making his way to the bedroom, Mitch left the door open again, just in case Matt tried to do something stupid. He tried to remind himself that he’d planned on this contingency. He and Summer had talked about plans for the entire week. He had no reason to be so thoroughly disappointed.

That didn’t change the fact that he was. In the kitchen, he could hear Matt rustling through another box, and Mitch mentally wondered exactly how much time he had before Matt was left to his own devices again without food in front of him. Hastily, he shot off a text to Summer to confirm her plans involving Matt this afternoon, and then he pulled up Stephanie’s number and braced himself.

He hated missing work, and he hated lying to Stephanie.

As the phone rang, he peeked out, watching as Matt poured himself a generous cup of orange juice.

But what else was he supposed to do?

“Mitch,” Stephanie said, with a note of concern in her voice.

Turning away from the door, Mitch moved further inside his room, keeping his voice low. “Hey, Steph,” he said.

“Oh, man,” she said. “You sound horrible, worse than yesterday. Still under the weather?”

“I’m afraid so,” Mitch said. He felt like shit, so it probably wasn’t surprising that he sounded like it. “Whatever bug Matt--” He caught himself quickly. “Brody and I have, it’s really put us out of the game.”

“Summer said you would probably need a few more days off,” Stephanie said. “I almost didn’t believe it, though. You haven’t taken a sick day in, what, years?”

It had been years, to be sure. And to think, Matt had only been with him one full day. It felt like Mitch had aged a decade in that time. Yesterday, he’d been fueled by shock and adrenaline. Today, the cold hard reality had set in, and he was taking it a lot harder than he expected. “Then I guess I’m due,” he quipped weakly. “You think you can handle it?”

“You’ve got us trained well,” Stephanie reassured him. “Take care of yourself. And Brody for that matter.”

Mitch crept back to the door, peering at Matt who was now eating a fourth granola bar. “I’m working on it,” he said, throat feeling tight and his stomach feeling heavy. “I’m doing the best I can.”

“Call if you need anything,” Stephanie added with a cheerful intonation. “We’ll miss you two!”

“Yeah,” Mitch said heavily. “Miss you guys, too.”

When he ended the call, he had to remind himself again. It had only been a day.

One day.

It didn’t just feel like a decade, though.

Mitch sank down to the bed and closed his eyes.

It felt like a lifetime.

-o-

There was no time to dwell, though.

Mitch wanted time to dwell, and he probably would have taken it, too.

But without minutes of ending the phone call, Matt was already at his door. “Hey, you’re out of granola bars!” he said.

Mitch rolled his eyes, opening the door. Matt was standing right behind him, looking up at him expectantly.

“Orange juice, too,” Matt reported.

“I just opened those granola bars,” Mitch said.

Matt was completely unabashed. “Do you have anything chocolate?”

Mitch stepped around him, moving toward the kitchen. “You don’t need chocolate for breakfast.”

Trailing behind him, Matt stayed on his heels. “I like chocolate.”

In the kitchen, Mitch surveyed the aftermath of breakfast. Granola bar wrappers were scattered across the table. One was on the floor. Crumbs littered the floor, trailing across the tile toward the refrigerator. The carton of orange juice was tipped on its side for some reason, maybe to prove it was truly empty, and there was an inexplicable puddle of juice next to Matt’s cup.

It made him appreciate adult Brody, if only a little. For all of Brody’s other questionable traits, he had learned to be quite tidy as an adult. When he wasn’t drunk, that was.

Gritting his teeth, Mitch gathered up the wrappers with one hand, throwing them into the trash can before finally turning back to Matt. “We’ll have to pick some food up,” he said. He snagged a banana, holding it out to Matt. “Or you could try some fruit.”

Matt made a face. “What are we going to do today?” he asked instead, completely ignoring the suggestion. “I’m bored.”

“You woke up like ten minutes ago,” Mitch pointed out, mopping up the spilled orange juice.

“But are we going somewhere?” Matt asked. He found a few papers on the counter, and he started shuffling them. “And what else do you have to do? I looked in the room, and I didn’t see anything cool. But you do have lots of food for your fish. Do you think fish food tastes good?”

“To fish, probably,” Mitch said, throwing the empty orange juice container in the recycling bin. “But you’re not a fish.”

“I still think your little guy in there is weird,” Matt said. “I think the fish like to shit on him.”

“Language,” Mitch said, retrieving the broom and dust pan to start on the floor.

“Can I play with the guy?” Matt asked.

Mitch paused, giving the kid a quizzical look. “You just said the fish crap on him.”

“Maybe they have a point,” Matt said, like that was some kind of rationale.

Mitch shook his head, starting his sweeping. “Leave the guy alone,” he said, though he half wondered if Little Mitch deserved to share some of this burden.

Matt flipped the papers over, back and forth, back and forth. “You also have, like, camping gear in there,” he said. “Can we go camping?”

“Not today,” Mitch said, sweeping the crumbs into the dustpan.

Next to the papers, Matt had somehow found a pen and a paperclip. He started using the pen to trace the paperclip on one of the papers. “Tomorrow?”

Dumping the crumbs in the trash, Mitch plucked the pen from Matt’s hand. Then, when he realized that Matt had found and doodled on his water bill, he snatched that away too. “I don’t know.”

“I’ve never been camping,” Matt told him, immediately finding a stray refrigerator magnet, which he used to pick up the paperclip.

Mitch liked to camp. But the thought of camping with an eight year old? Sounded like torture. “We’re not going camping,” he said again, more decisively this time.

This did not appear to surprise Matt in the least. “So what are we going to do then?” he asked. “Because I’m super, super bored.”

“Well,” Mitch said, striving for patience as he put away the broom and dustpan. “We have a few chores that need to be done.”

Matt’s mood immediately darkened. “Are you going to be one of those placements, then?”

“One of what placements?”

“One of the ones that think of foster kids as free labor,” Matt said. “Because I’ll break your dishwasher if you ask me to use. Not on purpose. Probably. And I’ll barf if you make me clean a toilet.”

“What?” Mitch asked, a little taken aback.

“You’re not supposed to use kids for labor,” Matt said again, a little more defensively this time.

Mitch shook his head, trying to walk back Matt’s perception of this situation. “No, I just meant that we have to do certain tasks in order to do anything,” he said.

Matt clearly had no idea what he was talking about.

Patiently, Mitch inhaled deeply. “For example, all your clothes are in the dryer,” he said. “If you want something to wear today, you’ll need to put them away.”

It was plain to see that this was not highly motivating for Matt.

Mitch tried again. “Otherwise you can sit around in your pajamas and do nothing all day,” he said. “Besides, you can wear those new shirts you liked so much.”

Whether it was the threat or the promise of good things, Matt seemed to accept this reasoning. “Fine,” he said. “Just the laundry, right?”

“Put the clothes away, get yourself dressed, and brush your teeth,” Mitch instructed. “Then we’ll figure the day out.”