Fic: Malasada's H5Obigbang chapter 3
CHAPTER THREE: The Future Presents Past================================================================
“When are we going to get there?” his son asked with a long-suffering tone that had Sean and his wife sharing a small grin. It was the first smile in two days that felt even remotely real and it only lasted a few seconds before the worry seeped back in. Sean turned and leaned an arm over the back of his seat, the material creaking under the movement and his wife gave him another quick look before focusing back on the road. He could barely make out his boys features in the dark of the night but he didn’t need to see him to know that he had just awoken from a nap and that he was grumpy. He was so much like his mother in that regard, meanest morning person he ever had the pleasure of knowing.
“Just a few more hours kid,” he reached out and gave Danny’s knee a quick squeeze. Relieved when his boy didn’t flinch away from the contact, finally back to his normal self. Sean gently lay his free hand on his wife’s leg and giving her a little squeeze as well, glad when she wrapped her own fingers around his and held on.
“A few hours,” Danny sighed like it was the end of the world, and glared out the window, only to turn and glare back at his dad when he realized he couldn’t see anything because of the darkness and heavy rain. “That’s gonna take forever.”
“It’s not gonna kill you kid, so tough it out and then we’ll get a hotel room for the rest of the night.”
“I liked my old room,” Danny complained, waving one tiny arm around to accent his point and Sean felt the headache that had only just left beginning to return. Anna squeezed his hand a little more tightly. “I liked my old room and my old house and my old school,” his voice got a little louder and Sean could hear how tired his boy still was, the exhaustion from the last few days still with him despite the fact that he’d spent the last two days they’d been on the road sleeping. Despite the fact that he’d slept all through Sean and Anna’s frantic afternoon of packing up their most important belongings and stuffing them into the back of their station wagon.
“You feeling okay kiddo?” he asked gently, pushing aside his frustration for now because he knew how hard this was on the kid. It was just as hard on them. Danny focused on Sean again, a passing car on the nearly deserted road briefly illuminating his small, worried face. He still looked washed out and tired and Sean’s chest felt a little tighter was he waited for a response.
“Yeah,” Danny said meekly after a moment too long and Sean felt Anna’s leg shift and knew she wanted to check on her boy herself.
“Danny, you know that if something’s bothering you you need to tell us,” he said as gently and firmly as possible. After a long minute of stubborn silence Sean lifted his hand off his boys knee and rummaged in the bag sitting on the seat next to him. He pulled out a juice box and a banana and after fiddling in the dark he finally managed to get the straw into the damn box and passed it over to Danny without a word. Obediently his boy took the beverage, irritation clear in the stiff outline of his shoulders even as he started drinking from it. He was going to be a nightmare of stubbornness when he got older and when that happened Sean was going to let his wife deal with him. It was only fair as he was dead sure the boy got that personality trait from her.
Sean pulled out a few more drink boxes and passed one to Anna without a word. Somewhere beyond the sparse tree line lightning flashed and the rain seemed to come down even harder, beating a heavy staccato all around them. It made every sound within the car seem hollow.
He shifted a little in his seat, tucking his leg more comfortably under his knee so he could face Danny more easily and waited as the kid finished his drink and piece of fruit before obediently putting the garbage in the plastic bag at his feet.
“Feel better?” he asked softly and Danny shrugged. “I need to know Danny,” he added a little more sternly and Danny crossed his arms over his stomach.
“Yeah. I’m not tired,” he announced and Sean waited for the floodgates to open because he saw that Danny was settling, becoming comfortable again and that meant that he would be hard to shut-up soon which Sean would gladly have over the silence any day. “I don’t hurt anymore,” he looked up at his dad and relaxed a little more when Sean just nodded encouragingly. “I don’t mind if you touch me now,” Sean immediately put his hand back on his boys knee, giving it another squeeze and was relieved again when Danny didn’t flinch away. “I’m sorry,” he whispered almost too softly to be heard over the thrumming rain, the engine and the radio playing quietly. “I’m sorry,” he repeated, hiccupping a little and Sean took his hand off his wife’s leg and twisted more bodily to reach right over to Danny. He cupped the tiny face in his hand and pulled his head up so that Danny would look at him.
“Hey, hey now none of that apologizing you hear? This is not your fault Danny, it’s not,” he insisted when Danny tried to look away.
“If I hadn’t” he hiccupped, “hadn’t fixed him than we wouldn’t have to run again,” he sniffled loudly. “If I hadn’t than we could still have a house and friends and-”
“Danny,” Sean cut him off and gave his knee a little shake. “You listen to me very carefully okay,” he ordered and when Danny didn’t acknowledge him he patted his cheek gently. “Look at me Danny,” he said and did his very best to keep the fear out of his tone when his boy finally did meet his gaze. “We are not mad at you, okay? You didn’t do anything wrong, you just wanted to help your friend and we understand okay? We know you just wanted to help.”
“But if I didn’t help Jimmy than we could still have a home,” Danny sniffed, “and we wouldn’t have to change our name again, or find a new school, or-”
“We’ll just have to be more careful this time,” Sean said, just like he had the other time they’d had to pack all their belongings and leave like this. Just like he would say next time. “Remember what your mom and I told you Danny? Remember that we love you no matter what, right?” Danny nodded and scrubbed at the first tear to fall and Sean could see how hard his boy was trying not to cry in front of him.
“If Jimmy hadn’t fallen into the fire” Danny started, and Sean cut him off, not willing to let him finish that sentence.
“It was an accident Danny, you know that.” It was the first night of a two-night class camping trip, and Danny had begged and begged to go. He wanted to hang out with his friends, he didn’t want to be left out, and Sean and Anna had decided that it would be okay so long as Danny promised to be on his best behaviour. It had been a hard decision to make but they had to let him do activities like this otherwise he’d grow resentful. They’d been in town for over a year now, they were establishing a new life under their new identities and were learning how to deal with Danny and his gift and it had felt like a good idea at the time. Anna had gone along to ‘chaperone’ so she could keep an eye on Danny. When she called Sean just after ten that first evening he had known without a doubt that something had gone very wrong, and when she’d told him to start packing he hadn’t questioned her.
“But it was so stupid dad, Mr. Long told them to stop running around the fire and then Jimmy fell into it and he was screaming and crying and his face and arms were all burnt and black and I didn’t mean too dad but I couldn’t help it and-”
“It’s okay Danny, it’s okay, you had to help your friend and that’s a really good thing kiddo, it really is.”
“But now we have to run again, and change our name and be new people because I was too dumb and forgot that I wasn’t supposed to help-”
“That’s enough Danny,” Anna finally spoke up, her voice a little rusty from hours of driving without saying a word, her eyes still fixed with heavy concentration on the road. Sean imagined he could see the cliffs beyond the trees shadows. “You know why we need to keep your gift hidden and why we are always so careful about it, but that does not mean that that you are dumb for helping your friend. It means that you did the right thing, and even though we have to find a new life again Jimmy is going to be able to grow up without any pain because you helped him. You helped save him Danny, and there will never be anything wrong with that. But you just need to be careful,” her voice cracked a little and Sean moved his hand to grip hers again.
“I will,” Danny’s little voice promised so earnestly. He was old enough to know why he needed to be careful but too young to truly understand why his parents were always so scared for him, for all the reasons they forced him to hide.
When Anna had called Sean at home two nights ago and told him to pack what he could she had been crying. He couldn’t even begin to describe the terror he’d felt at her sobs.
“A boy fell into the campfire,” she had choked out between breaths “Danny was up and helping him before I even knew what was going on Sean.”
“Is he okay? Anna? Tell me he’s okay?!” he’d demanded, frozen like a statue by the kitchen table, the phone hard and cold in his hand.
“He’s so pale Sean. I pulled him off the boy before he over did it but he’s been sleeping since I put him in the car and he’s so pale,” she repeated in a broken whisper, clearly picturing the weakened state Sean could only imagine Danny would be in right then, before she pulled herself together. “Everyone saw,” her voice had turned businesslike. “There were two teachers and three other parents and they all saw what Danny did to help Jimmy. I got him in the car and left before they really figured out what was going on but I don’t know how long it’s going to be before someone decides to report it or come and find Danny for themselves.”
“Okay,” Sean tried to adopt the same businesslike tone but his heart was hammering with worry for his boy and the realization that they didn’t have much time. “I’ll start packing. How long until you get here?”
“I’m still two hours away,” she had answered and it would have to be enough time.
“I’ll be ready,” he’d reassured her before asking more softly, “are you okay?”
“I’ve never been more scared in my life Sean. The looks they were giving Danny while they tried to figure out what he had done, if we didn’t already know why we need to keep him secret I would be more than convinced now. I’ve been on the road for an hour and if any of them decide to come after us we won’t have a lot of time to get out of town.”
“We’ll be fine,” he had said with closed eyes and a steadying hand on their cheap formica table. “I’ll call Don and get a meeting place arranged and we can go from there. Just get here safely okay?” he’d begged.
“We will,” she’d taken another steadying breath. “I love you.”
“Love you too, now get going,” he’d ordered and hung up. It had been a whirlwind of packing, grabbing their emergency money and fake id’s, pulling out all the food they could take with them, calling Don and arranging to meet two days later until finally the headlights of their station wagon pulled into the driveway. He grabbed the two closest suitcases by the door and rushed them out to the back of the car before grabbing his wife and giving her a hug that would have crushed a lesser woman.
“How is he?” he’d opened the door to the back seat and crouched down to where Danny was lying huddled beneath a heavy sleeping bag. The boy had looked sweaty in the porch’s light and he’d laid a gentle hand on his forehead. Danny flinched and groaned and Sean had jerked back instinctively.
“He hasn’t woken up properly yet but he came around enough to have a sip of water an hour ago,” Anna said as she had opened the back of the wagon and tossed the two bags full of clothes easily into the back. “He’s sensitive all over, doesn’t like to be touched, but it’s not as bad as last time.” He’d closed the door on Danny gently and followed Anna back into the house to grab the boxes of canned and boxed food and basic utensils they’d need.
“Was the boy that fell into the fire not as injured as the last woman Danny helped?”
“This boy was worse,” Anna paused and took a deep breath, “The smell of his burning skin Sean, it was horrible, but Danny was the first one to get to him after Tom pulled him out of the fire and he just…God Sean he just put his hand on Jimmy’s head and chest without even hesitating and before I knew it the black skin was falling off and the open wounds were healed. It couldn’t have been more then twenty seconds before Jimmy was fine.”
“And then Danny just fell asleep?”
“No, he still had enough energy to walk to the car by himself, insisted on it actually,” there had been a hint of pride beneath the worry in her voice. “He’s getting better at it, at healing.”
“He’s getting older, stronger, maybe that’s helping,” he’d suggested and she’d agreed. It wasn’t as though they had a book they could reference or a doctor that could explain to them what to expect from a son that could spontaneously heal living things with nothing more than a touch. They had no idea how it worked, only that whenever their boy used this gift it took enough out of him that it worried them to no end. “We’re going to have to start figuring out how this works Anna, we need to learn his limits so he doesn’t keep hurting himself when he does it,” he’d tried to keep the desperation out of his tone. This was a conversation they’d been having for years now, it was just beginning to change in urgency.
“Is this everything,” she got them back on track and he nodded. They couldn’t take much more, it wouldn’t fit in the car. “Just need the pillows and we can go,” five minutes later they had been on the road with their home of the last year firmly in the rearview mirror.
Now, looking at Danny’s pale outline with the thundering rain all around as they drove up the coast, he was allowing the entire last few days to sink in and it made Sean tired. Still…
“I’m proud of you Danny. It takes a lot of courage to put yourself in danger to help another person,” he smiled and knew Danny had at least seen it a little when he relaxed. For a nine year old Danny had a lot of pressure riding on his shoulders and Sean and Anna often lay awake for hours trying to find new ways to help their child be who he is without fear. “Also, the name William is very far from stupid,” he said in a light tone, giving his boy one more light smack to the knee before searching for something else to eat in the bag on the seat.
“It’s stupid,” Danny insisted, though now it was because he was looking for an amusing argument than really meaning it. This personality trait Sean was proud to brag he got from his old man, even if half the time Danny had no idea how to argue a point. That would come to him with practice.
“Is not. Your mom’s granddad was called William and he was very, very far from being stupid.”
“Why?” Danny’s interest was peaked and Sean began to relax for the first time in two days.
“Well, granddad William wasn’t what anybody would generously call a tall man. In fact he was so short that he had to sit on a telephone book at the dinner table just to see his food!”
“He was not, no adult is that short,” Danny argued even while Anna gently slapped Sean on the chest in reproach.
“Okay fine, he didn’t have to sit on a book, but he was short and he would never hear the end of it. His family, friends, the people he worked with, they couldn’t get enough out of making fun of him for being so naturally vertically challenged and he hated it! He was police officer you know, and that’s a tough job for anyone of average height to do so when you practically need stilts to look the criminals in the eyes you can only imagine how much trouble he had while working!”
“So why didn’t he get a new job if it was so hard?”
“Because he loved what he did, he loved chasing bad guys,” Sean explained. “And when you love doing something so much you do everything you can to keep doing it, no matter how hard it sometimes is. But let me tell you that even though he was barely taller than you are right now,” he could hear his wife rolling her eyes at him, “he was the loudest, boldest, strongest guy in the whole police force. Seriously, he would arm wrestle a man the size of your gym teacher-”
“Mr. Woodhams?! He’s bigger than Hulk Hogan!”
“Yes he is,” and Sean would never admit that one positive thing about moving away so suddenly was that he’d never have to shake that mans hand again. He was pretty sure he had broken a few bones the last time they’d met. “And Granddad William would win every time they arm wrestled, because every time people saw him they figured that because he was so short he was no challenge.”
“People should never make stupid assumptions like that,” Danny decided wisely and Sean relaxed a little more, the lightening still flashing around them intermittently.
“No they shouldn’t. You see, there was this one day when Grandpa William was going to the bank and he wasn’t wearing his police uniform, when a whole gang of bank robbers ran into the place” he began to warm up to the story, it was one of the few Anna’s dad had ever told him before Anna had become pregnant and their families had basically cut them out of their lives in shame. This was one of Anna’s favourite stories about her grandfather.
With his back to the road Sean never saw the massive stag that leapt into their cars path, he only heard the sudden screeching of tires and felt the vehicle twist and spin out of control until it was falling and tumbling and then nothing more.
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Chapter 4
Masterpost