When the whole mess is over for the time being - the whole exploding-pizza, Uber-Director, Antarctica, mutations-he-didn't-design-suddenly-appearing, Max-talking-to-Congress mess - when the whole mess is over, Jeb Batchelder slips away to visit his son's grave.
He has given up his right to call himself Max's father. None of the others give him even the respect accorded a distant family friend. He has lost his right to that, too. This fact sits, a tight little lump of pain, in his throat through the whole long drive over the backroads of Zion. Jeb fought very, very hard for his children in the first years of their lives, and they will never know how close they all came to termination on multiple occasions.
Yet, even if it was through no deliberate malevolent act on his part, he broke their trust, and though he still loves them with every fiber of his being, though he would gladly take a bullet for any one of them, he has lost any claim he had to their love. He deserves every insult they fling in his face, every punch they throw at him. They seem to trust Valencia well enough, but he will never regain their esteem. The children have very long memories, and they will never, ever forgive him.
He takes the road up through the lonely Arizona desert to the Utah border, and his eyes sting with the promise of tears. He switches the radio between NPR, static, and whatever local stations he can pick up, but he doesn't hear any of it. He is aware that he's still breathing, but it feels as though his heart's stopped beating, as if it's been replaced in his chest by a dark and empty space.
He has the dizzying sensation of being in freefall. If he pulled over and got out of the car, he wouldn't find himself standing on dusty asphalt or warm tan earth. He would fall through space forever. The bottom has dropped out of his world.
When he was younger, before the medication that destroyed his creativity and much of his memory, he used to have attacks of depression. Waves of black, desolate mood would sweep over him, and he would feel as rootless as he does now. But those attacks came at the whim of his disordered, malfunctioning brain. They were no more his fault than was his teenage acne.
This time, he really has no one to blame but himself. He deserves this.
He pays the park entrance fee automatically. It feels very odd to drive through a checkpoint and not be greeted by name. With every day that passes, the past in which he was a functional person with a job and a life is increasingly a distant, half-remembered country. He has lost everything that gave him a reason to continue. Even the economy is failing, although with his history, he's probably been black-barred from every scientific institution in the country. He'd be lucky to get a job teaching high school chemistry.
The forest begins to rise around him as he drives further into the park, and without the desert pressing in on him, it's a little easier to forget about Max for the time being. He never got the chance to bring her here.
Max does not remember, and he will never be able to tell her, but there was a time when his six children were not under constant Eraser guard. There were plans drawn up for outside exercise schedules, designs for tracking devices to ensure they could not be lost track of... and plans to take them on excursions away from the School, to show them something of the world besides the desert.
This was to have been one of those places. He scouted it out himself when Max was a babe in arms, looking for places he could take her where he could let slip the mantle of scientist and become, even briefly, father.
The campsite is down a long stretch of dirt road, deep in the pine forest. There are no settlements for a twenty mile radius, and the nearest town of any size is on the other side of the park. Condors are known to frequent the area, so airborne objects with large apparent wingspans would draw little question from any possible observer. And Zion itself is one of the littler-visited national parks, so nearby traffic is low at best.
It took three years and more paperwork and meetings than he ever wanted to see again in his life to argue for moving the children out of the School, and in the meantime, whenever he could scrape together enough free time for the drive, he came here with Ari. It wasn't where Ari learned to walk, or where he spoke his first words. Those milestones both passed at the School, and he regrets that more bitterly with each day.
But this was where Jeb taught his son constellations, where Ari chased squirrels and crows through the underbrush, where they roasted marshmallows together. This was the last good place they shared. He knows this road as well as he once knew the hallways of the School, and it is strange to come back and see it so little changed. The tree branches arcing over the road and the patterns of shade and light they throw seem the same, but no amount of changeless scenery can bring back his son.
There's a rudimentary parking lot at the junction of this main road and the track that leads to the site itself, and, unusually, another car is there. It's a dark-colored sedan, coated in red sandstone dust and dark mud. He thinks he sees the circle of a park emblem on the door as he passes it, but it's hard to see under the dirt. Probably a ranger. He never saw anyone else come out here, in all the years he came to visit.
The dirt track to their old campsite is still bumpy, still shaded by the pines, and he remembers Ari's laughter as the CD skipped with every jounce of the suspension. For a long time he felt as though that child had been stolen from him; he remembered his son as a happy toddler, not as the looming, wolfish half-adult he had returned to.
He had been complicit in the creation of that changeling, though by his inaction rather than his direct action. Not that that changed the outcome.
The campsite had been half-abandoned when he started bringing Ari there. That was the reason he'd chosen it for a possible excursion area, the low risk of their encountering curious civilians.
The gravel parking lot has washed away in some past rainstorm, and now the road simply trails off into the underbrush, incomplete without its ending. Tall grass and wildflowers spring up where he had once parked his battered little coupe. There's a flourishing little growth of the five-sided flowers that Ari had loved so well, and he kneels without thought to pick them, the white and the delicate lavender alike. They smell faintly of dust.
Once, walking in these woods, they had come upon a clearing where clovers grew in wild profusion, their many-petaled flowers untouched by the wind that shook the treetops far above. They had stayed to eat their lunch there, and Ari had showed him a fistful of clover flowers. "Smell them, Daddy," he insisted. "They smell just like bananas."
They had, and the memory of that scent mingled with the warm grass smell of that summer's day now long gone sat heavy in his heart. That had been a good day, one of their last together.
Max had thought, and Ari himself had thought, that Jeb had willfully abandoned his son to take the flock to Colorado. He admits now that it was half-true. He had always had the option of running, of taking his children and seeing how far he could get with a little luck. Valencia had had friends who might have helped him hide, then.
Yet it had felt as though he had no choice. Ari's mother was long dead, and Jeb had been the only one who could care for Ari. Both his parents and hers were dead, and his brother had been in Russia so long it was quite possible he, too, had died. And Jeb had argued that he had to keep Ari with him for those reasons, because there was no one he could go to, nowhere the boy could be sent that would not be to strangers.
They had threatened him with the termination of his contract, with the revocation of the few custodial rights he had over Max and the others, with the insinuated threat that after all he had seen and done, they could not let him go alive and free, even with a non-disclosure agreement, and in that moment, after he had fought so hard to free the children, even if only for a few years, from their cinderblock cage, their threats seemed to menace the little progress he had made. He rolled over and meekly accepted what they offered him. He signed over custody of his son to one of the few remaining American scientists he trusted (and how wrong he had been to do that, he realized when he returned), and went to Colorado.
Jeb shakes himself from his reverie and forces himself to stand up. The engine ticks over slowly in the stillness. Somewhere in the forest a jay is calling. He brushes the pebbles from the knees of his trousers with one hand, and, needing no map to find his way, turns to walk to their old campsite.
The trail they had followed was little more than an animal track at its best, and it has nearly grown over in his time away. Ferns rustle against his shins, and the pine needles cushion his footfalls. To an outside observer, there would be no path there at all, and they might have wondered how he found his way. He needs no path. Even after all this time, he could find the way in the darkest night.
Up ahead he can see golden rays of sunlight cutting perpendicularly through the canopy, illuminating the particles of dust that hang in the air. He thinks of walking into rooms long since abandoned, of museum exhibits left to gather dust, of the sorrowful silence of a house after its occupants leave, and a shiver races up his back.
He comes out into the clearing before he thought he would, the gap in the woods suddenly opening up. In their absence it has grown wider. It seems to gape open, somehow, to be empty. The grass waves in the breeze as it always had, like the waves of a green sea. Overhead a crow screams, and he hears the flutter of wings as a group of swallows mob it, chirping furiously. And this is the same, too.
The thing that is missing is Ari. His son should be running through the tall grass ahead of him, his little backpack discarded at his father's feet. His laughter and happy shouts should be ringing through the forest, startling the jays and sparrows.
He has never been the father his children deserved.
If not for him, if not for the selfish choices he has made, Ari might still be happy. If he had had the courage to steal his son away before it was too late, Ari might still be human. If he had not been a coward to the last, Ari would still be alive.
The grass has grown up tall, and it's hard to see his son's grave through it, topped by no headstone, marked only by the patch of disturbed earth that overlies it.
He wonders why the flock picked this location for the burial. Perhaps they saw it from the air and thought it a good place to lay Ari to rest. Perhaps Angel plucked the location from his mind. He can't ask. They owe him no answers.
But Max would enjoy knowing the pain it causes him. This was Ari's favorite place. He would be turning eight this year, and instead he is buried in the earth, buried where he once ran and played.
The circle of stones where he built their fires is untouched, though the ashes have been scattered by wind. He imagines he sees tiny dents in the earth where he used to sink their tent-pegs. Their presence here, even though it was years ago, has left little ghosts in the clearing.
He crosses the clearing to the little grave. It has rained since they came to bury his son, and the red earth, still damp, is the color of blood.
He does not know what the children said at their ceremony. It is not his place to know. He has his own words to offer to his son.
Jeb sits down at what is either the head or the foot of the grave, and lays the bunch of flowers on the little hill of earth. There is a lump in his throat, and he sits silently for a time, the breeze whipping strands of his hair across his forehead, before he can speak. His voice comes out a broken whisper. Hot tears stand in his eyes, blurring his vision.
"I'm so sorry," he says. "I was never there for you when you needed me, was I? What kind of a father was I to you?"
He takes off his glasses, fumbles them into his shirt pocket, and swipes at his running-over eyes with his cuff.
"I shouldn't have left you at the School," he says, directing his voice to the earth as if, somewhere down there, his son can hear and grant him forgiveness. It's too late for him to be forgiven, by Ari or by Max. He cannot even grant himself forgiveness. "What happened to you was my fault, and I could have stopped them..." He has to break off to wipe his eyes dry again. Grief rises up in him like a great black wave.
"I should have been there for you," he says, as if the dead can hear his admittances of fault. "I know it doesn't matter now, but I am so sorry for what I let them do to you. You were my son, and I loved you. And I let you down." He chokes for a moment, on the edge of a sob. "I loved you so much."
The crow has been driven off, and in the trees around the clearing the swallows call and sing to each other. A family of coyotes once denned near here, he remembers at random. The last spring he and Ari came here, they saw the pups following their mother on an excursion out of the den, stumbling through the tall grass.
The little mound of earth is cool under his palms, still faintly damp to the touch. How could I ever make things right? he thinks. How can he ever repay the debt he owes the dead?
In the underbrush an animal rustles. He recalls the midden of small bones that stood near the coyote den, gnawed by teeth and neatly abandoned. Do the coyotes still come here, or have they too abandoned this place?
He sits in silence for a while. A great open space has opened in his chest, desolate and dead. Overhead the wisps of clouds blow by, and the breeze chills his skin.
The clearing sits in the shadow of a mountain, striped with the long shadows of alternating bands of living growth and pines that the pine beetle has killed. Up past the treeline there is no snow, only grey fields of boulders. There nothing grows but grass and dwarf bushes, lichens and moss. Life persists, molded by its environment.
He cannot turn back time. Revising his past actions is beyond his power. All he can do is move forward. He can't be sure what choices remain to him, but he can do his best by the living in the time he has left.
There is no more happiness left in this place for him. All its memories are soured by his failure, turned bitter by the passage of time. The shadow of his betrayal lies on the tall grass and the little saplings, blighting them; a shadow in the shape of a child.
It's time for him to go.
Jeb leaves the flowers on the little hill of red earth. Soon grass will grow over it. Rain and wind will reduce it to the level of the rest of the clearing. In time trees will spring up all through here, and the clearing itself will vanish. Roots will twine through his son's bones. The pines that grow here will be his gravestone.
Looking back from the beginning of the path, it's just possible to see the little spot of white where his poor bouquet lies on the makeshift grave. He looks just long enough to fix it in his memory, and turns to leave. He puts his glasses back on.
The dark sedan is parked next to his borrowed car, and a man is standing next to its open door, putting something in the back seat. He's wearing a flannel shirt and jeans. His hair is a dirty blond-brown color. He is a little taller than average. Really, he could be anyone.
Yet when he turns around and closes the door, Jeb recognizes him.
He looks haggard and prematurely old. They both do, in all likelihood. His glasses are crooked and the skin below his eyes is dark from lack of sleep. There are deep lines etched at the corners of his mouth. He has lost weight since Jeb last saw him, and he looks grotesquely like he did when they first met.
They look at each other for a moment, each taking the measure of the other. Jeb is reminded of their first meeting, twenty years and more ago. Neither of them wants to be the first to speak.
"What are you doing here?" Jeb says.
"What are you doing here?" the other man returns. "I was looking for a nice, quiet place to die, and then you show up."
It's all too easy to slip back into the old rhythm of sniping at each other. It was the basis of their friendship, once. "Sorry to spoil your plans. I had business here."
"So did I," he says tiredly. "I'm tired of being hunted. They've been chasing me since last year, and I'm getting sick of running. This was the quietest place I could find. But of course you were here."
"I apologize for spoiling your suicide," Jeb says, and he feels a small twist of regret when the words leave his mouth: this is his friend, Roland ter Borcht, who spent two years in a mental institution after trying to kill himself to get out from under Itexicon's thumb.
"I don't doubt that," he says. He looks very tired, and Jeb wonders what's happened to him these past months. Where has he been? The last time they saw each other was in the courtyard at Lendeheim, and that was only a fleeting glance. Perhaps they've passed each other in their peregrinations along the secret highways of America.
Ter Borcht sighs, steps away from his car. "May I ask you something?"
"Of course." He has always thought that ter Borcht's reaction to learning that Itex had stolen his work was a little histrionic, and yet - where can he go from here? Itex is dying, and yet he knows if he draws attention to himself they could kill him easily. He is too valuable to let live. They both are.
"You once did me a great favor," he says. "I must ask your indulgence once again. One last time."
"What do you want?" His son is dead. He has lost his daughter forever. What else does he have to give?
"Revenge." Ter Borcht smiles, and Jeb sees in him the brilliant young scientist who asked one little thing of him so long ago - I need human test subjects, I know you can help me, think of what we could do together - and not the tired old man he saw in the courtyard at Lendeheim. Something has happened to his old friend. Something has brought the life back into his eyes.
"On who?"
"Who do you think?" he snaps. "I don't know about you, but I don't want to rely on the legal system to bring Itex to justice. But we're not the only ones they wronged, and there are people who will pay dearly for men with our set of skills to help them revenge themselves on Itex." His phrasing is stilted and slightly off. The awkward rhythm of his speech sounds strange coming from a man Jeb has always remembered as articulate, jovial, charming.
"What exactly do you mean by revenge?"
"I'm not sure," ter Borcht admits. "I had... found another solution for my problems. Until I saw you, and thought of something else. I think now that together we can strike back more effectively than either of us could alone. Jeb - my dear friend - we can right the wrongs that we committed."
His voice is earnest, nearly pleading. What does he see in Jeb that he does not see in himself?
"Look, I don't want to kill anyone," Jeb says.
Ter Borcht laughs. "You won't have to. I think, my friend, that our assistance is asked for because of what we saw. What we did. You and I could expose their crimes to the world. Is that not a better legacy to leave than-"
He cuts himself off, and Jeb thinks he knows what his old friend would have said, always cursed with a too-sharp tongue, with a wit that cut too deeply - is that not a better legacy than a twice-dead son, a daughter who curses your name, a career stained by the darkest of crimes?
They're marked by the same stains, though. They have committed the same evils. It's likely, six months after the disaster in Lendeheim, that Roland ter Borcht is the only living free agent who really knows what Jeb has done. What has happened to him.
"Yes," Jeb says. "It is."
Ter Borcht's smile is kind and sad, and the truth of why he has paid this visit sits in Jeb's stomach like a stone.
"Roland, I came here to visit my son's grave," he says, and his friend freezes momentarily at the use of his first name.
"I thought as much," he says gently. "I came here to put a bullet in my brain. It seems we are both at the end of our ropes, my dear friend. We were brought here by the same people, remember. It was they who drove us here. Can you help me bring them to justice?"
He holds out his hand to Jeb, and he takes it instinctively. The simple human contact feels good, a reassurance that he is still alive, a reminder that his life has not ended with his son's.
The skin of his hand is dry and smooth. He had planned to become a surgeon, Jeb remembers, before Itex headhunted him out of medical school. Itex and the School took so much of their lives from them, and they had little chance to strike back, until now.
"I'm sorry about Ari," he says. "Will you do this with me? This one thing, and then you never have to see me again."
"Yes," says Jeb. "I will."
"Thank you," ter Borcht says, and there is something cracking in his expression, some veneer of professionalism falling away. He takes a half-step closer to Jeb, gravel popping under his shoes. "I am sorry to intrude," he begins, faltering, then stops to try again. Their hands are still clasped, and Jeb can smell his familiar cologne.
"I've wanted to do this for a long time," he starts again. "Would you permit-"
You are all that I have left, he thinks, and loops his free arm around ter Borcht's shoulders, pulls him closer for a kiss.
It's the most awkward kiss he remembers having since high school. Their glasses click against each other. They're still holding hands, mashed between their chests because neither of them wants to let go. Ter Borcht's three-days' stubble rasps against his cheek, the rough sensation strange and new. He has never really enjoyed kissing, finding it wet and faintly disgusting.
At the same time it feels as though some dead thing inside Jeb is returning to life. He can feel his heart beat in his chest for the first time in weeks. Ter Borcht's hand is warm against his back, and he startles slightly when Jeb tentatively slips his tongue into the other man's mouth, then sighs slightly, relaxing into him. The brush of stubble against his cheek is strange, but good, sparking warmth in his heart. He has felt like a ghost in a world of ghosts for a long time now, and now he feels as though he is finally coming back to life, sharing this kiss with this man who is warm and alive in his arms, this man he has known longer than anyone else now living.
Something has changed between them, as they stand together while the sunlight fades. They have been friends before, and colleagues. Yet this is something new, some strange new thing beginning, a pact formed between them here and now. Jeb knows no word for this new relationship between them. Are they comrades? Are they friends, or something more? And what is it they have really promised to do together?
The thing that matters is that he has found a way forward, and someone with whom to walk it. They have made a new bond, forged a promise to each other and the world, here under the shadow of Tiger Mountain.
Note -
I've been shaping this idea for five years, give or take, and at last it is presentable. Pity I didn't finish it sooner, before the fandom went all comatose.
Musical accompaniment: "Tiger Mountain Peasant Song" by the Fleet Foxes.