Story: Fade Away Again, Chapter 16 of 18?

[willow_25]

Fade Away Again, Chapter 16

 

A/N: Look out, world; I’m posting this again. Please, let me know what you think.  Special thanks to draconin for advice & encouragement.

 

 

Wesley

 

 

We're all alive. It's a pleasant surprise, and something I very much doubt I'll ever be able to take for granted again. 

 

Every last one of us is exhausted, and at least slightly injured. Willow barely raised a weapon, but somehow she bruised herself badly falling over in a dead faint - again. Angel and Apple are barely connected to their dominant arms at the moment. Spike…Well, he'll be lucky not to lose both of his legs, from what I understand. Jezebel reopened her previous wounds, and got put to bed in her room under heavy sedation. The rest of us are cut, bruised, exhausted, and chilled. But we're all alive.

 

Ron and Lorne have everyone not in danger of losing a limb in their own rooms, so those of us not terribly injured and not yet passed out helped nurse the rest in shifts. I've been cleaning and bandaging minor scrapes, and I'm ready to move from Connor's room to Merry's, when Laurie pops in and tells me to get something to eat. With the limp she’s currently sporting, not to mention the broken ribs, I could likely overpower her and keep working; but I'm past the point of arguing, so I troupe off in the direction of the kitchen. 

 

There's no cook in sight when I get there, but there's a plate of sandwiches and a big pot of soup set out. I help myself to a couple of ham sandwiches and a bowl of the broccoli and cheddar soup. As I'm starting in on the second sandwich, Gunn limps into the room, walking with a cane to support himself. I help him onto a chair, and get him some soup of his own while he takes a sandwich.

 

For a moment after I settle back into my chair, we eat quietly. I watch Gunn's slow movements, and keep my eye on the fresh bandages he's sporting, just in case he starts bleeding again. When half the bowl of soup is gone, he leans back in the chair and flashes a tired grin at me. "Well, we're not dead yet." He deadpans.

 

"Indeed." I respond with my own dry understatement, and I'm sure my grin is equally tired looking. "Glad your head's not cracked open." I tell him, for lack of anything else to say.

 

"Yeah, English. Glad that hole in your side doesn't go all the way through." He retorts. Then he picks up his spoon again, and I do the same. There'll be plenty of time later to go over what happened, to step back and truly evaluate what's happened here today. To worry about what's to come. For now, we're just too tired.

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Connor

 

By the time I drop Willow onto an empty bed and get an ice pack onto that big knot on her skull, I'm too tired to walk straight. Thankfully, some nice person put signs on the doors with our names on them, so I lean against the wall to stay upright and stumble along the hallway to the door posted with my name. I fall into bed without even removing my shoes, and don't remember my head hitting the pillow before I'm gone.

 

The ringing of my cell phone wakes me, and I fumble around for it with my eyes closed, amazed the damn thing still works after several days in my pocket in the rain. By the time I find it the ringing’s stopped, and I'm forced to open my eyes and check the display to see who called. My parents. Great. What the hell am I gonna say to them?

 

I roll over, groaning as the pain from three days of pitched battle is suddenly incredibly obvious. And, did I mention painful? The ceiling I'm now staring at is cracked, but mostly in one piece. I feel damp and clammy still, so I couldn't have slept too long. A shower sounds like the first order of business, I decide. Provided I can sit up.

 

I get myself into a seated position, leaning heavily on my left arm. My right feels like I pulled some muscles. Must not be used to sword-fighting anymore. Though, who is used to fighting, like, almost nonstop for three days?

 

Once I get my bearings, I take an inventory of the room. It's pretty bare bones: The bed I'm on and a dresser with a big mirror are the only pieces of furniture. The dresser has a bundle of white fabric on it, and the duffle bag I threw in the car when I was leaving campus. Wonder who dug my keys out of my pocket and grabbed my bag? Wait; I left my car near Wolfram & Hart. No clue how they even found the car, now that I'm thinking about it.

 

Sunlight is streaming in through the windows, and it's like as soon as I see that I'm hit with a wave of relief. We did it. We totally kicked those demons back to their own dimension! I helped save the world! It's a damn good feeling, even with the aches and pains. It also makes me realize that I’ve been asleep for much longer than I’d first thought, and the fact that I’m still wet is kind of gross. Can skin mold?

 

As I drag myself out of bed in the direction of two doors across the room, one of which must be the bathroom, I notice fresh bandages on my arms. Whoever came and got my car keys also bandaged me up some. Good, that probably helped.

 

The fabric on the dresser turns out to be a clean set of sheets and a couple of towels. I grab a towel and make for the nearest door, but before I get far there's a knock on the hall door. "Come in," I call, hoping this whatever will be, like, quick. Now that I'm all awake and moving, I feel even worse in my still-damp clothes. Kind of itchy, actually.

 

"Hey!" The little redheaded Slayer peeks around the door, waving. Her hair's been chopped about a foot since I saw her last, and there are bandages peeking out from beneath her sweater, but she's smiling. "I'm Laurie, you're Connor, right? It says so on the door, anyway. Just checking to see if you were up yet. Oh, you gonna take a shower?"

 

"Yeah, I was about to." I shrug, and hope that I'm not blushing. Why do the girls all have to be cute? Is that, like, some kind of Slayer pre-requisite?

 

"Cool, you'll feel better after. Just wanted to let you know, breakfast is gonna be in the kitchen downstairs, if you'd like to pop down. Or, I could bring something up? Also, if you need help with fresh bandages, knock on Merry's door."

 

"Umm, yeah, I'll be down in a sec." I nod, and she nods, then she ducks back out the door, closing it behind her. 

 

Thirty seconds ago I would have said I wasn't hungry. Now, all of the sudden I'm starved. Yeah, second thing after the shower is totally food. Maybe after I eat, I'll be able to figure out what to say to my parents. Are they foster parents, even though they didn't know they were fostering me? I shake the thoughts out of my head and pull open the door closest to me, which luckily turns out to be the bathroom. Figuring out my life will just have to wait until I'm clean.

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Laurie

 

Right after the battle ended, I had so much energy I was bouncing off the walls; even with the broken ribs, I felt pretty damn good. Once we carried William up to the infirmary I had a quick shower, got bandaged up again, and offered myself up as a nurse/bandage fetcher/holder of stuff. It was brilliant. It lasted all of an hour, then sudden-like I was knackered and had to go hunt up my room.

 

Once I woke up, I was bouncing again. It helps that the ribs are feeling better. Slayer healing is an amazing thing. Leg still hurts, but it should be healed completely tomorrow. Lorne's got me running errands, playing nurse, helping in the kitchen, and whatever else he's in need of. S'pose the energy's because I'm grateful to be alive. Or, it could be the adrenaline rush from three days fighting demons. Whatever.

 

I poked my head out the back door earlier, to get a check of the alleyway. Other than the smell created by all the demon blood and vampire dust, what wasn't washed away by the rain or sucked into the portal, it looks pretty normal out there. None of the buildings have so much as a broken window, and there's not one corpse laying out. Who knew inter-dimensional portals did such a bang-up cleaning job? Wonder how often we'll be able to pull that trick?

 

Back downstairs, my 'announce food' duty done again, I head for the kitchen myself. Now is the perfect time for some pancakes and tea. Except that, while I was gone it seems a box of books blew up in here. "What the bloody hell happened to the food?" I can't help asking. "You don't mean for us to eat the books, do you?"

 

Mum lifts her nose from the book it was almost pressed against, glaring at me. "Don't take that tone of voice wit' me, young lady. There's plenty a food, just keep your shirt on and I'll fix you a plate." She heads off to start putting a plate together for me, and Wesley starts out of his daze of concentration as she brushes past him. I don't rightly remember how long it's been since I saw Wesley before this, but I can still predict his reactions to Mum. She moves, he watches.

 

Once Wesley realizes she's getting food, he looks up to see who for and notices me. I wave, because I really don't know what to say. How does one start a conversation with their Mum's ex? Thankfully, he's got more social grace than I. "Hello, Loralie. Would you like tea, coffee…Milk?"

 

"Tea, thanks." I smile at him, and he gestures towards the counter between his seat and Mum's; guess there must be another chair over there. There is, and I sit. Across the counter from me is that Gunn bloke, flipping through a notebook that looks like it's full of Penny's handwriting. "Where's Penny?" I ask, because now that I'm thinking on it, I haven't seen her since she stumbled off to bed last night, not long ahead of me.

 

"She's running some errands." Wesley says quietly, setting my tea in front of me. A moment later, Mum sets down a plate of pancakes and eggs. "She went and searched out Connor's car earlier, and checked around the Wolfram & Hart building to see what was what. Now she's at Spike's apartment, picking up the things Lorne, Gunn and I left there yesterday, and probably a change of clothes for Spike."

 

"He's not gonna be able to get jeans on over those casts." I mumble, and then turn my concentration to food. It's not an out of the ordinary breakfast, but at the moment it's the best food I've ever tasted. Then again, not surprising – I've barely eaten for days.

 

The three of them go back to their books and papers, and there are a few minutes of near silence. Then Gunn speaks. "I don't get this. It seems like, according to the stuff the girls put together before the battle, that the vamps shouldn't be vamps anymore. They fulfilled their missions, we won the battle…So what are we missing here?"

 

Mum, seated next to me now, is chewing the back end of a pen. A sure way to tell she's deep in thought. "I think…" She says slowly, taking the pen from her mouth and tapping it against the book in front of her. "That it's daytime. Vampires don't get turned into vampires in the daytime; there isn't anyone out to do the turning. So they'll be more likely to change back at night. It said something in the DeVoir book about them starting over at the beginning. Maybe that means they won't turn back until it's the same night they were turned into vampires? Not the same night, obviously; the same date, I mean. And since William was turned on May 1, which is today…I'd say they'll become living again at sunset."

 

"I should think they'd be more likely to start living again during the day, since they stopped living at night." Wesley huffs. "And, don't forget, we have no clue what date Angel was turned on."

 

"Well, obviously it must have been May 1; the correlation between them doesn't work otherwise. And if there's no correlation this would be a traditional Shanshu for one of them. But it's not, it's part of this other prophecy, about the Twin Souls and The End of the Order of Aurelius." Oh, goody. They're about to start arguing theory, and I'm stuck between them. Bloody hell.

 

Before I can jump out of my chair and make a break out of the Watcher war zone, Connor and Merry troupe in. Merry's still limping, but at least she's up, not doctoring from a wheelchair like she was last night. The other three who were part of the magicks that ended the battle – Elise, Joyce, and Willow – are still asleep. Ron even put Willow on an IV, because he doesn't expect her to wake up anytime soon. Her hair is streaked with white, now. No one seems to think that's a good sign.

 

Connor drops into the empty chair on Gunn's side of the table, looking like the shower and the trip down here took a lot out of him. I hope Merry let him take the elevator; he doesn’t look like steps are a good call at the mo’. Merry fixes him a plate without being asked; or maybe she offered before they got in here. 

 

Whatever. All I know is that I can't run away now, not with a boy here. Not that I like him or anything. It's because I have a weird feeling, like he needs to be reminded that the Slayers are in charge here, meaning the girls. And that means I can't look weak in front of him. Don't ask me why it's so all-fired important. It just is. Sometimes, I just know these things. Like when I knew that Trevor, the really cute guy in my bio class, was not my true love, and that totally sucked because when he asked me out it was really underwhelming…What was I saying again? Oh, yeah, Slayer superiority. Right.

 

Luckily, Connor and Merry's arrival distracted Wesley and Mum enough that their argument is over before it's begun; or at the very least it’s stalled for the moment. Not that I don’t like Wesley, I always have, but I was thankful when he and Mum stopped spending so much time together, because there was a marked decrease in the amount of arguing at home. They’ve both turned back to their books in a huff…Or is it huffs? How would one go about looking that up? Anyway, I get to finish my food in peace, while Connor tucks into his.

 

And then, being her, Merry goes and riles everyone up again. "So, what were you two arguing about when I came in?"

 

They both start talking at once, which in my experience is not a good sign. Bloody damn, I’m gonna have a flashback.

 

"Wes is being pig headed." Mum said.

 

At the exact same moment, Wesley said. "Jezebel is being foolish and illogical."

 

There's a beat of silence, during which they glower at one another, and Gunn sits back, arching one eyebrow at Wesley. Then Merry starts laughing like a blinkin' hyena. It's a wonder she doesn't fall off her chair. When the laughter dies down, she ignores the two who are now glaring at her, and looks to me. "Have you seen them work together before? Are they always like this?"

 

I shrug, not really wanting to answer. Mum's always been private; that's part of the reason Wesley and Merry have never met before. Merry has always been part of Mum's professional life, while Wesley became part of her personal life.

 

Wesley picks that moment to turn the conversation back to the previous issue. "This prophecy you all spent so much time researching; there are a number of different interpretations, and on top of that it seems that there may have been some mistranslation. We’re a bit confused about what’s going on, and what it means for the future.  Especially as it relates to Spike and Angel becoming human.”

 

“Well, they’re not really going to be human, are they? They’ll be male Slayers, like you guys.” Merry waves her hand to indicate the three men in the room, and all three of them return blank looks. “Wait, you didn’t know that? Which part?”

 

Mum clears her throat, probably warning Merry to shut the hell up before she upsets someone. There are a few minutes of silence, and I peek up from my deep concentration on my plate to get a glimpse of the looks on Gunn and Connor’s faces. They both look pretty confused by the information, and part of me wonders how they’ll feel when they learn that every Slayer has a mate. I’m certainly not comfortable with the idea that somewhere out there in the world there’s one guy who will make me happy. It takes a lot of the fun out of dating. See Trevor if you don’t believe me.

 

Connor is the first to break the silence. “Um, I don’t know where you’re getting your information, but my parents were vampires. I don’t think I can be a Slayer. And, how could there be male Slayers anyway, when girls were always chosen. I’m still a little stuck on how there can even be more than one Slayer at the same time.”

 

Merry is gonna end up on Mum’s list for butting into this conversation, but now that the conversation has come around to Slayers, she’s probably the best person to answer the question. “Well, the story on ‘one girl in all the world’ is that Sineya – the first Slayer – sacrificed herself and her five daughters, and their descendents into perpetuity, to protect the human race from demons. Back then, the intention was to insure that humans could survive without being either overrun by demons or out bred by demon-human hybrids. In order to blend with the weaker humans and become part of their tribes, Sineya’s daughters were placed under a spell to suppress their powers. When Mom died, one of the daughters was chosen by the Powers to take over the duty and the spell suppressing her powers dissolved when she was Chosen. She became the second Slayer, and so on.

 

“Willow cast a spell which gave the power of the Slayer to anyone with the potential to be the Slayer. That revoked the spell binding the powers of the Clan of Sineya, which has probably also released us from our duty to protect the human race. Not that all of us would give up on fighting demons because of that, but at least we have options now.” She shrugs in a way that seems more blasé than should be possible after dropping a bomb like that.

 

Before anyone else could speak, Mum jumped in. “Connor, you are a very special case, both in the manner in which you were born, and your reason for being here. First off, your mother was a Potential Slayer before she became a vampire, which means you do have the genetic connection to the Tribe of Sineya. Second…Merry could tell you more about how this works, but every Slayer is made to have a mate; a life-partner, I guess you could call them. According to the research we did on this prophecy, it seems that an extremely powerful Slayer somehow came into being. But a mate for her did not occur naturally, so one had to be created. Based on Darla’s connection to the Slayer line and your father’s strong demon, they were chosen to be your parents.”

 

“Wait, so you’re saying I’m only here because one day God or whoever is going to force me to be with some girl I’ve never met, and I have no say in it. Screw that!” Sing it, brother. It might sound romantic to some idiot somewhere in the world, but I like to be in charge of my own destiny and stuff, and it pisses me off just as much as it seems to piss off Connor.

 

Merry stops him with her words before Connor’s even done pushing his chair back from the table. “It doesn’t work like that. You always have a choice, that’s part of the mating process. Being mated means that by genetics, temperament, and life experiences you become over the course of your life uniquely suited to only one person. It’s more ‘one true love’ than ‘arranged marriage’. Supposedly, when you meet her you’ll know.”

 

That stops Connor in his tracks, standing in front of his chair. Slowly, he sinks into his chair again. “But, I’ve been in love before. Or, at least, I remember having been in love…”

 

“It happens sometimes, whether you’re a Slayer or not. You fall in love, things don’t work out, and then you fall in love again. Or not, sometimes. That’s just part of life.” Wow, guess Merry can be understanding when she wants to be. Who knew?

 

“I’m still stuck on the part where I’m supposedly one of these male Slayers.” Gunn spoke up. “I mean, I’m no stronger than the average guy who has some training in how to fight. I saw you girls in that fight…You’re wicked strong. Even Wes is stronger than me when he’s really jonesing for a fight. I’m just a guy.”

 

“Well, according to Willow, you do have some demon blood in you, which means you’re some type of demon-human hybrid. It might not be enough to make your abilities much more than the average human’s, but it’s enough to attract you to others like you. Since you’ve naturally aligned yourself with the side of good, since the Slayers around you feel an…Affinity towards you, and you’ve bonded emotionally with Wes and the others, it’s not a big stretch to assume you’re one of ours. That, and the neat little coda in the prophecy, that says the Clan of Sineya had to act alone to neutralize the threat from the Wolf, Ram, and Hart in order to win the battle.” Merry scoots her chair over and flips through Penny’s notebook lying on the table in front of him to show him the passage.

 

“If that were true,” Wesley interjects, drawing everyone’s attention. “If the Sineyans had to act alone to neutralize the threat, then how did we win with Spike and Angel helping us? And, wouldn’t we have been more successful if Buffy had been here?”

 

Mum speaks up, and as she draws the attention of the group I take the opportunity to slip out of my chair and get more tea. Hopefully, they’ll get involved in another argument and I can get out of here without being forced to listen to any more. “Well, technically we didn’t win until both vampires were out of the action. Also, the vampires are going to become part of the Tribe, and their actions on our behalf helped to decide their fate, so it was symbiosis. We helped them on their road to transcendence, they helped us survive.” I don’t think that’s what symbiosis means, but then I didn’t exactly get an ‘A’ in Bio.

 

“As for Buffy, as the head of the Tribe, she’ll be called on less and less to lead in battle as we become a more cohesive unit; we will become a people, and she’ll be…Well, she’s kind of like the queen. You don’t send the queen out to be a general unless there’s no one else. And, not to spill any secrets, but the indicators of the prophecy made it seem like it would upset the balance too much for any of us to have our mates here. And it seems as if Buffy and Spike…Well, you can’t tell things like that from a prophecy, really. They could decide that it isn’t the case. But from listening to Willow speak about their relationship; I wouldn’t say it was a stretch that Spike was Buffy’s mate. He’s been her second in command for years, and it seems pretty obvious even from second hand information that they care for one another.”

 

“Spike’s in love with her.” How Wesley knows that, I don’t know, and I officially no longer want to be involved in this crap. I’m too tired to process the research, and there’s gonna be nothing for me to hit around here any time soon, so I take off.

 

I take my tea out into the courtyard in front of the hotel, and sit on a bench to drink it, watching the traffic glide by on the street outside and forcing myself not to think. I’ve known I was a potential Slayer almost my entire life, and because of Merry and her perpetual tactlessness, I know that means I was born not fully human. Still, it’s hard to hear sometimes. Not like I aspire to be one of those bloody boring teenagers with no goal in life other than to go to parties, but I wonder sometimes what it might be like if I didn’t have this whole destiny thing; or, at least if I didn’t know I had it.

 

Before I’ve finished my tea, or really succeeded in drowning out all of the thoughts running around inside my brain, Connor wanders outside and sits next to me. Oh, joy. If the Powers seriously expect me to go from bouncing-off-the-walls-grateful, to thoughtful consideration of prophecy as it applies to my life, to some kind of advisor or guide, I’ll shoot myself. I don’t know why he’s here; I don’t have anything to offer.

 

Connor has a cup of coffee with him, and he takes a few sips before he even gets around to speaking. “So, umm, hey.”

 

Very original, and pithy. God help the Slayer who ends up with mister wordy over here. “Hey. Feeling okay?” We’re all battle scarred, somehow wounds seem like a nice safe topic of conversation. Which says a lot about…Oh, hell…Suck.

 

He shrugs, which, okay; it’s actually a little adorable. He just kind of scrunches up, his coffee cup turning a little bit sideways, a frown/pout kind of expression on his face…And then he just sits there for a minute, thinking. Maybe I should have stuck to yes and no questions? 

 

Just when I’m about to fill the silence myself, the boy speaks. “I have no idea how I feel, or how I should feel, or what the hell is going on in my life. I took off from campus in the middle of the week, in the middle of the semester; to help my father, who I barely know and kind of hate, save the world. Your mom and her buddy are trying to convince me that I’m descended from a mystical tribe of prehistoric demon-human hybrids, as though being the child of vampires wasn’t bad enough. My father might lose his arm, and even though I still kind of hate him I’m scared for him. And, let’s not forget the fact that my memories were altered to make me think I was a human boy with a human family…

 

“And how the hell am I supposed to tell my supposed parents any of this? I don’t know if they’ll even want me anymore now that they know I’m not really their son. How will I be able to go back to school next year, if they don’t want anything to do with me? I can’t support myself, let alone pay for Stanford…”

 

By the time he finally winds down, I’m pretty sure my eyes are the size of baseballs. I don’t think I’ve blinked since he started rambling. And I thought I had problems? What the hell do I say? “I’m adopted.” Yeah, I’m blinkin’ smooth… “What I mean is; I get the whole not knowing where you belong, or if your parents want you bit. I’ve found that the best way to start figuring that out is by talking to them.” Okay, that was better. I give myself a ‘B’. Maybe a ‘C+’.

 

“And how do you do that?” I can’t tell if that’s sarcasm, or if he’s actually interested, but I’m going to assume serious, because he seems so mope-y otherwise.

 

“Well, when Mum was assigned her Potential Slayer; that’s Apple, did you meet her?” He shrugs. “Well, Apple lived in Texas; so we had to move away from England, because her parents didn’t want her moved to England. We lived with my birth father at the time, and he wasn’t going to move with us. So, you know, I asked him why. I thought maybe he was happy to get rid of me. 

 

“It turns out he was, in a sense. He loved me, but I was a reminder that he’d done a very bad thing. No matter how much he loved me, I reminded him of my birth mother and the mistake they’d made, and it made him feel guilty. The weird thing is that I really believe that he loved me more than just about anything or anyone else in his life. After we left England we never did lose touch; he made a real effort to write letters and ring me every week or so. He came to visit, and took as much interest in my life as he could from across the pond. If he hadn’t been so committed to his work with the Council, he probably even would have moved with us.” I didn’t know what else to say, so I stopped and waited.

 

“And what would you have done if you’d never heard from him again?” He asks quietly.

 

I sigh, and it feels like my heart beats too hard for a second. “Probably the same thing I did after he died. I’d have been sad for a while, and been arsed about what a rotten thing it was to have happen to me; and eventually moved on to a place where it didn’t hurt quite so much every day.”

 

Connor’s hair, which is a bit too long, has blown into his eyes, and he buys himself a few minutes brushing it out of his way and finger-combing it into some type of order. “I never knew my birth mother.” He finally says, which seems a very strange thing to tell me. “She had to stake herself so I could be born…Did you ever meet your birth mother?” And…Suddenly, it all makes sense.

 

“She lived with us until I was almost three, until she aged out of being a Potential, and then she took off. I spoke to her on the phone a couple of times, but I don’t remember seeing her in person. I’ve seen pictures of her holding me, so I know it happened, I just don’t remember it.”

 

“Do you think she loved you?”

 

Geez, dude; ask some hard questions, why don’t you? “I don’t know. I’m not sure she knew. She got pregnant at 16, in what was probably a bid to get her parents to pay more attention to her, and they disowned her instead. Her Watcher who knocked her up considered their relationship a huge mistake, but still paid more attention to me than to her. Her best friend adopted me because she thought I was being neglected…I’d say her feelings towards me were mixed, at best. At least you know the woman who gave birth to you considered you important enough to sacrifice her life for you. That’s bloody well gotta be love. And, I reiterate; the only way to find out if the adopted parents still love you is to ask them.”

 

“They did call me this morning.” He looks a little sheepish.

 

“And, when would the spell or whatever was making them think they were your parents get broken?”

 

“Umm…Thursday? The last few days are kind of a blur.” He shakes his head.

 

“Boy, you are not bloody kidding.”

 

“You say bloody a lot.”

 

Thanks, observant guy. “I’m not supposed to curse, but my Mum’s a New Yorker, so she really doesn’t think ‘bloody’ is swearing.”

 

He takes a sip of coffee instead of answering, and because I have nothing to say to fill the silence, I finish my tea. We keep sitting there for a few minutes, and I’m oddly calm. All those personal things we’ve said are sort of hanging in the air between us, but it feels comfortable. When his coffee is finished, Connor stands, and I think for a second he’s just gonna wander off, but before I can ask where he’s going he pulls a cell phone from his pocket. He stands next to me, still facing the road and holding the phone in the palm of his hand for several long seconds, before he turns to look at me. “Would you mind staying here while I talk to them?”

 

I shake my head; because there is no way I can let someone deal with something like this alone, even if it’s a someone I barely know. Connor nods his head in what I assume is a thank you before dialing his phone. As he waits for someone to pick up the line, obviously nervous, all I can do is pray that I was wrong earlier when I thought I had nothing to offer him. I might not be big on the wisdom, but a little understanding and friendship should count for something; I hope.