Author's Note:this may or may not be a stand-alone or a prequel...it all depends on how much I can get my Shawn muse to write.
Title:Defusing.
Author:Rodlox.
Pairing:N/A.
Summary:Just a few days after the start of quarantine, trouble is already brewing. Shawn's the one defusing it.
Disclaimer:I own none of the characters except for the ones I created (the cast and crew of 4400 are more than welcome to use them if they like: I'll gladly surrender all rights to the characters).
Charles Matins,
Disappeared 21 September 2001
Standing in line waiting for a change of clothes, even if they were drab quarantine-issue stuff, Charles was pretty sure he'd just overheard what he thought he overheard. "Yo," he said, backhandedly tapping the guy on his back. "You Afghani?"
His fellow teen turned around and nodded, a smile on his face. "Yes. I am Ahmad, a Pathan," and was rather taken aback when the good American leaped at him, hands around his throat.
"Hey! Hey!" Shawn said, jumping between the combatants, or as 'between' as one could get when someone was trying to strangle the life out of the other. Pacing back and forth could be resumed later, he knew; right now he had to keep his fellow returnees from killing one another. "Break it up!" his efforts to separate them aided by the prompt arrival of Benjamin, another returnee, just like them. Benjamin grabbed the strangler's arms.
"What'd you do that for?" demanded Charles, the strangler. "There was almost one less of them."
The 'of them' in question was Ahmad, who'd dropped to the floor, working to get his breathing back to normal. "What'd he do to you?" Shawn asked Charles. "And when're you from?" figuring it'd be good to know.
"September twenty-first, two-thousand-and-one. That's why I was doing what I had to do."
Shawn's eyebrows went up. To him, the date explained absolutely nothing. "What're you talkin' about, man?"
"Where're you from," Charles asked, "that you haven't heard about the two towers being taken down by those filthy rag-headed scum-su-"
"I'm from two-thousand-one too, okay? Just that, when I was taken, the only towers that'd been destroyed were in Kenya."
"New York."
"Oh. And you think he had something to do with it?"
"They're all alike!"
Shawn turned to look at Ahmad. "Where're you from, buddy?" helping him back to standing. "Or when?"
"On your calendar, nineteen-eighty-five," Ahmad replied. "I helped your country fight the Soviets."
"Bull!" Charles hollered.
"Take a walk," Shawn said, putting a hand on Charles' shoulder.
"The hel- !" Charles said as Shawn started putting pressure on his shoulder. "Fine, fine," and Shawn let go. Benjamin let go shortly thereafter.
Charles spat, hitting only the front edge of the quarantine-issued shoes Ahmad was wearing. "Just you watch," Charles grumbled at Shawn, "you'll turn around and there'll be a knife in your back," and stormed off to a distant corner of quarantine.
"Thanks man," Shawn said to Benjamin, who nodded.
"That was not an imposition," Benjamin said, going back to sitting, seeing if he could work in a light nap into his schedule.
"You alright?" Shawn asked Ahmad.
"I am,"Ahmad nodded to Shawn. "Thank you."
"Its nothing." Just keeping him from killing you, that's all.
"If you ever have need of anything, a roof to rest under, a meal in lean times, anything at all, please do not hesitate to ask me."
"Sure thing," Shawn said, doubting the day would ever come, but he figured it didn't cost anything to let the kid do what he could to thank him. "Later," walking off to pace somewhere else.
"Mashallah," Ahmad said quietly: God protect.
Ahmad Mohammadzay,
Disappeared 2 September 1985
Benjamin
Disappeared 9 August 1952
the end.
