**Can it**

"Hey there buddy. Stay where Daddy can see you." Two year old Frankie shot Danny a devilish grin but he nodded and returned to poking through the boxes in their dusty basement. He wouldn't have brought him down into the basement at all but Mrs. Foster had her bridge club that day and Kara was at the new Whitehouse rushing to help President Oliver craft a statement about the Nathan James' recent activities in Greece for his Thanksgiving address. With winter closing in, Oliver was going to make an appeal for people to ration and share as much as possible over the holidays. Genetically modified crops were being planted everywhere in the southern hemisphere but it was 68 days from planting to harvest for even the quickest crops like beans. That meant they needed to make do until Martin Luther King day at the earliest. And the people in the summer countries would eat what they needed before exporting too.

That was why he was in the basement today. The Nathan James would be in dry dock for months and they had been released for some much needed R&R. But Simpson-Slattery was looking for all hands on deck building greenhouses around the St Louis area to provide greens and other cold weather crops. He could have spent the time between Thanksgiving and Christmas enjoying his use or lose vacation time but every time he looked at Frankie gnawing in the "cookies" Kara's mother made him out of ground barley and honey he thought about the kids that he'd seen around the world with even less. And so here he was mucking around in the freezing cold basement looking for box of tools he was sure they had dumped down here when they collected the stuff from their apartments almost two years ago. He was tired and still sore form his injuries and his patience was growing thin.

Moving to the next pile of boxes he lifted the top one off and heard a metallic clank. That was promising. He opened the lid with a cloud of dust. Reaching in he grabbed the canvas bag. Bold black letters labeled it. "Benzo". Frankie-the-elder had always taken care of the little repairs around their old apartment so all the tools were really his.

The sound of Frankie-the=younger's loud squeals echoed off the low ceiling and brick walls giving him a headache. "Shhhh…ugarplums!" He amended quickly, because that time Frankie repeated his favorite four letter word had resulted in quite the scolding from his wife. He looked around for the sandy curls but didn't see him anywhere. "Frankie!"

More giggles greeted his ears but he still didn't see him. "Daddy! Oh Daddy! I found snacks!"

His stomach dropped like he had just jumped out of a plane. "Frankie where are you!" Visions of trying to explain to Kara why he'd let him eat a wire nut or lead paint chips or whatever he'd found brought his pulse to a boil. "Frankie, come show Daddy!"

More giggles. "Too big!" He followed the sound of his voice. It sounded like it was coming from the corner where the old boiler sat useless beside the new tankless water heater. Oh God! There was probably rat poison behind there. Frantic, he shoved aside boxes until he could look behind all the pipes that filled the brick wall behind the equipment. But there was no kid. "Frankie, where the heck are you?"

"You said heck. I'm telling Mommy." His voice sounded like it was right next to Danny! "I'm in Halsey's room." Halsey's room? He turned to study the wall. How the heck had the kid gotten behind it? It was dim in the basement but he could just make out the faint outline of a door that had been bricked up at some point.

He nearly jumped ten feet when he felt a tug on his pant leg. Looking down he found his son, covered in dust and grime, grinning like a mad man. "Look!"

Ignoring the can in the kid's hand he reached down and caught him under the arms and dragged him the rest of the way out of the wall. "How did you find that?" Once he bent down he could see an opening, a few feet square, under the layers of pipes. "And what's in there?" He suppressed a shudder as he wiped a mess of cobwebs from the boy's hair.

Frankie giggled and held up a dusty can. "Look! We can feed Halsey now." Poor Halsey had been reduced to dry kibble these days.

Danny rubbed his thumb over the front label revealing a familiar blue wave logo. "Cranberry sauce?" The use by date on the label was only six months out of date. "Frankie where did you find this, for real?"

Frankie pointed to the wall. "There. Halsey guard it." He ducked his face into Danny's shoulder. "Don't tell Mommy. I runned way."

He patted the kid as they headed for the stairs. "Don't worry buddy. If you promise me not to go in there again, I won't let Mommy get mad." Kara was going to love this!

A few hours later Frankie was washed and in bed and Danny brought out the can. "So, I found this in the basement today. It looks like the previous owner may have had some food stored down there."

Kara looked up from where she was loading the dishwasher, he dark hair swinging over her shoulders in a glossy curtain. "Seriously? Was there anything else still good to eat?"

Not wanting to reveal Frankie's adventure he hedged. "I don't know. I need to get a flashlight to get a better look. Want to come down there with me after your mother gets home?"

Kara handed him the damp dishcloth. "Go down in the creepy old basement at night with only a flashlight. Gee, I thought you'd never ask."