Well, among other things, I am graduating from high school on the fifteenth. Heck yes! Let's hear it for the Class of 2010! [cheers and dances around]
(On a related side note, a cousin who is twice my age is also graduating this June from a local university with a degree in nursing; I also learned that his real first name is Frelan (no, I don't know how you're supposed to pronounce that). And his sister's name is Olivia (a name that is ubiquitous now but was not popular at all when she was born); I guess my uncle had a flair for the unusual.)

I started this last summer as a sequel of sorts to "Picking Up the Pieces," but we all know how we feel about Disney sequels. ;) Upon finishing it just last week, I decided it's more of a companion piece. You don't have to read PUtP to understand this, but I think those who have already read it would agree with me if I said it's worth a read anyway. ;) Beware, though; it's a touch old...

All that said...

Treasure Planet is © to Disney.

For the Class of 2010. Cos we're just awesome like that.

So, without further ado, please enjoy!

After my dreaming,
I woke with this fear:
What am I leaving
When I'm done here?

~Leave Out All the Rest – Linkin Park

–

"Do you have to leave so soon?" The words drifted to him on a warm, maternal voice, though the sadness beneath gave him pause. Jim turned halfway to see his mother standing in the doorway, her face echoing every layer of her voice.

"There's a ship setting out to a developing planet on the other side of the galaxy. I have to get field experience, Mom," he explained, looking back at his hands to see proof that he could not fold a shirt without looking at it. It was mid-morning, just days after Jim had returned home from graduating the Interstellar Academy with honors. The Montressor summer sun attempted to push through a thick screen of dusty clouds, with little triumph. Only the dirty yellow patches of air showed the sun had risen at all. At her own invitation Sarah crossed her son's room and sat on the edge of the bed, watching him fold his clothes into a duffel bag. Jim couldn't think of anything more to comfort her in his imminent departure; she had known this was coming long ago.

"It's too quickly," his mother sighed, shaking her head. She focused on her work-worn hands for a few seconds before continuing. "It almost seems like yesterday when I held you in my arms for the first time." A peculiar feeling that he could not quite place made Jim stop what he was doing, just look out the corner of his eye at Sarah. Whatever it was, had been called up by the nostalgia in her voice. She turned to look at his face, reached her hand up to touch his hair like she always had. "And now my little boy is all grown up and going out into the world, and I'm wondering where all the years went."

"Mom," Jim said quietly, just a hint of a plea in his voice, and he clasped her hand, "It's okay. You..." his memory flashed back to four years ago, and his imminent departure for Treasure Planet, "You won't lose me. I'll come back every time, I promise." She smiled sadly at him. Yes, she knew her son would come back, but never to stay. He had seen the lush and lively planets beyond the gloomy dust of Montressor, and he wouldn't stop until he had seen them all. He would never be happy staying the rest of his life at the Benbow Inn, even though he was always so willing to help her out. And Sarah could never leave; although the planet was so dull and grey, Montressor was still her home. She had built her life here and she had too many friends to want to go anywhere else. Releasing her hand at last, Jim returned to packing, with a little less sense of purpose than before. With his mother's words, the weight of the situation finally fell on him. It had been easy to get by just thinking that he was leaving home again, but it had never truly occurred to him that he was an adult who was leaving home. Somewhere inside, he was still his mother's little boy...

Then Sarah dropped the other shoe.

"Your father would have been so proud," she said quietly; the room seemed to grow a couple degrees colder while Jim tried to decide how to take that simple statement. While it had healed in the period following Treasure Planet, the subject of his father had always been a sore spot for him. For a moment he froze, before settling on John Silver being the father she could have meant – but that was impossible. Then he resumed as normal, a slightly mysterious, slightly pained smile on his face that did not escape his mother's notice any more than his moment of indecision had.

"Yeah, I guess he would have," he replied, just as quietly. The troubled crease of his brow prompted Sarah to speak again.

"Is something the matter?" Jim paused again, the crease deepening as he wondered how much he wanted to tell his mother.

"I..." he dropped the shirt he was holding into the duffel bag before leaning his arms on the mattress. "I saw my father at the layover planet." The bed creaked and Sarah stood with a gasp. Tentatively she placed a hand on his shoulder.

"Are you sure? You saw-"

"Leland, yes. He came to me first."

"You spoke to him?" After a second's thought, Jim nodded. "What did he say?" He moved away from the tightened grip on his shoulder to the window, arms crossed over his chest. The urgency in his mother's voice disturbed him. What did it make him, to have no feeling – not even hatred, anymore – for his father, when Sarah's actions betrayed that somewhere in her she still loved the man?

"What does it matter, Mom? He left us."

"What did he say?" Sarah repeated. Aggravated, Jim ran his hand through his hair and rubbed the back of his neck.

"He asked about you once, Mom. How you were. I told him you were fine, and that was it."

"No, it wasn't." Mothers could always see through lies. With a sigh, Jim leaned his arms against the window sill and pressed his forehead into the cool glass. It helped clear his head some.

"He wanted to come back." His eyes shifted over to catch Sarah's reaction; it was conflicted. Better than completely dismayed that Leland hadn't followed her boy home, at any rate. "Mom," Jim said before she could reply with anything, "What exactly made Dad leave?" It was her turn to freeze, and for a moment it looked like she couldn't remember. But she did know why, undeniably. Jim knew she had never forgotten. Every time a younger Jim had let slip his frustration that they didn't have a little more money, there would be a pained expression in her eyes that he never understood for what it was. He never really gave much thought to deciphering the look, but when he met his father just days ago, suddenly it all had clunked into place and any hope he'd had for the relationship had effectively died.

"I get the feeling you've already figured it out, Jim," she said softly. When Jim turned she was sitting on his bed, hands folded in her lap and head angled downward. He came away from the window and knelt on the floor in front of her, looking earnestly at her careworn face.

"I want to hear it from you." She shuddered with sudden emotion and wrenched her gaze away. "Mom," he said beseechingly, causing her to look back at him, "Please." With a hesitating hand she brushed his hair again, seeking to comfort. Jim could see this was hard for his mother, but it had been hard for him, too; accepting the fact that his father had put his own self-interest above the wellbeing of his wife and son, had taken off with barely a backward glance. Had never given him any clue why.

He'd left Jim to stand at the dock, screaming after him until his voice grew hoarse, until he slumped against the pier support and wept for hours.

Jim had left that part of his past behind, but he didn't want to leave without making sure Sarah had moved on from it, too. After nearly ten years, the only thing that had ever worked for him was confronting it head-on, just days ago; this needed to happen.

After letting out another forcefully steady breath, Sarah looked to his eyes. Determinedly, Jim held it, face carefully neutral. "Your father was never a bad person, Jim. Please understand that." Jim blinked and ducked his gaze down for just a moment; then he looked back up. Sarah continued, "When I met him, I was still in secondary school. I... I think I must have been about sixteen." Jim nodded; he sort of already knew this, having done the math several times himself, but he didn't interrupt. Sarah sighed again, this one a little... happier, almost; her eyes drifted far away and Jim could only imagine what she was seeing. "One of my friends that I had recently made, was having a birthday party, and he just showed up a few hours in, wishing her a happy birthday and then talking to her parents." She almost-laughed and shook her head, still lost in her memories. "I couldn't take my eyes off of him."

Jim leaned back to sit cross-legged on the floor, staring up his mother, intrigued in spite of himself. From what she said, it seemed she could remember every exact detail of every moment she'd spent with Leland: how that same friend had formally introduced them at a Christmas party just a month later, following Sarah's endless curiosity (Leland had graduated from their school a couple years prior, before Sarah had started there, and that was how the friend had known him); the way he always held the door for her and gave her his jacket when the nights became too bitterly cold; how he kissed her goodbye at the end of every day they spent together. She almost blushed as she recalled how Leland had informally proposed to her, herself still a year and a half from finishing with school. "He didn't even have an heirloom ring to give me," she recalled fondly, able to laugh now though she had been disappointed then. For all of a year, Sarah said, it had felt like a dream. Then her face fell a little and her eyes drew closer to the present, and Jim knew what happened next.

"It was just once," she said quietly, and the way she broke eye contact with Jim and stubbornly kept her gaze on her lap revealed that this was something she had never wanted to say to him. But Jim was old enough to handle the truth, one that he had already known in some form for a long time. For years it had been a private shame of his, how young his mother was, and everything else involved. But now he needed to hear it from her, instead of from the neighbor kids and in whispers from adults. "He'd told me everything I wanted to hear; that since we were planning to get married anyway, we would be okay doing it just once." Jim shifted uncomfortably and Sarah sighed sadly once more. Two months later, she had realized she was pregnant, but she had been too scared to tell anyone. After she started showing, her father made her drop out of school, and then she had to tell Leland when he asked why. Leland said he would take responsibility, finally gave her a ring and promised that he would still marry her, and support her and their child, that she wouldn't have to worry about a thing. "He held my hair back when I felt nauseas, and he made sure I had everything I needed." She smiled a little more and looked directly at Jim. "And then I had you."

The smile never wavered. Jim rocked forward a little and asked, "Then what?"

Sarah looked tired again, gazing at her hands like she had earlier, recalling bittersweet memories. "Leland's father owned the Benbow Inn; he was getting too old to run it himself. We took over for him, but we didn't have the funds yet to afford even a small wedding until a year after you were born." She halted and could only watch Jim slowly bow his head for several long moments, his shoulders tensing, and wait for the sting to fade. He wasn't surprised; there was no way for him not to have heard one thing or another from voices in the community, but at least up until now he had still been able to lie to himself and say that they were the ones who were misinformed. Though he did not like to hear this as truth, Jim felt certain it would not affect him anyway; undoubtedly, he'd grown beyond that long ago. Finally he looked up, mouth set, and he nodded, inviting his mother to continue. "Things were fine for a couple years. Leland worked in the mines, and I serviced customers here; usually, one of my friends looked after you when things were too busy." Jim nodded again in recognition; he could remember several, foggy memories of looking at stars through Dr. Doppler's huge telescope while the doc prattled on about the names of various constellations – no, not prattled: Jim remembered every single one. "But then..." her eyes became deeply sad, and Jim had to drop his gaze again, not wanting to watch her hang her head while she searched for how she could have made things better. "Leland became... distant. He still came home every night, and he still told me he loved me, but when he couldn't muster the enthusiasm to teach you how to tie your shoes or throw a ball, I realized I was losing him."

The responding nod was small, and solemn. Not content to wait for his father to teach him things, Jim had started teaching himself; building things from pictures in books and cheap supplies that the Doc gave him to keep him busy. By the time he was five, before he even started school, Jim was putting together model ships all in one go. He'd take them home and eagerly show them off to his gushing mother and then wait at the door for his father to return so that he could see, too, how smart his son was. But that validation never came; a pat on the head while Leland walked in the door, maybe, to show that he knew Jim was there, but never a stop to admire Jim's handiwork.

At eight, Jim built his first solar surfer, all by himself. But by that time, Leland barely ever spoke to him; it was all on his mother, and Dr. Doppler. And at the time, it had felt like enough.

"I don't know why he even stayed for so long," Sarah was saying, and Jim jumped his head up to refocus on her, "Maybe it was his sense of responsibility. He'd already stopped saying he loved me..." And Jim's heart sank. Honestly, Leland gained a few points for still honoring his duty as a husband after he'd apparently stopped wanting to; that didn't excuse him from drawing out his mother's pain. "In the months before he left... Money had become such an issue for him. We were comfortable with what we had; perhaps the winters tended to be a bit lean, but I felt that as long as you never complained about being hungry or too cold, we could handle anything."

The fights were terrible. Sarah had always thought Jim was sleeping in bed on the second floor, but more than once her son had left his room to go downstairs for a drink of water, only to stop at the landing at the sound of harsh, lowered voices. Most of the time, he couldn't see Mom and Dad – only hear the back-and-forth about food, about firewood, about money; always money came up. But they weren't poor. They simply couldn't always afford what they wanted, and since Jim had never known any better, he never saw what the big deal was.

"You know the rest."

Flashes of memory – the slamming front door waking him up; his mother sobbing at the table; almost slipping off the pier into nothing because he'd run so fast to catch him – danced in Jim's mind and he came to sit next to Sarah on the bed, leaning against her shoulder. Out the corner of his eye, he watched her try to maintain her composure, and fail through the few tears that leaked down her still-young, yet careworn face. This should have been a happy occasion, one where she felt so unbelievably proud of her boy. This should be one of the greatest moments of Jim's life – it shouldn't be spent in tears over the past. Already, Jim felt terrible; he questioned whether it had been a good idea after all to make Sarah relive all those painful memories. Especially since, after all that, she still hadn't answered his question.

"Mom," he started quietly, nestling his head in the crook of her neck; a hand came around and stroked his hair, and it seemed to help her calm, to know her son was there. "I know it hurts to say this. But I have to ask you something else."

She kissed the crown of his head and he straightened away, carefully holding her weary eyes with his own. "You only told me why my father left. I asked what made him leave." Sarah blinked once or twice in the long silence, comprehending the difference and searching for an answer. Jim saw her beginning to understand; the way her eyebrows drew closer together and the sad lines deepened in her forehead, her down-turning mouth and the way she leaned forward in a desperate need for him to believe her.

"It had nothing to do with you, Jim. Nothing." She reached towards him and wrapped him in her arms, losing his face somewhere in the fabric of her blouse. Hugging her back tightly, Jim squeezed his eyes against the tears – tears of relief, that she had understood right away, that she had known exactly what he needed to hear. In response to the slight hitching of his breath, Sarah held him even closer and whispered to his ear, "I promise."

–

With a different kind of faraway look in her eyes, Sarah placed the last of the clothing inside the duffel bag, zipping it up. Jim sat at the foot of the bed, lost in the same sort of world; reminiscing on past events and the mistakes, wondering if they could have done anything to make a difference in how things had turned out. Doesn't matter now, Jim thought.

"Leland left so suddenly," she began cautiously, continuing their conversation, "I don't think I could tell you only one thing. Maybe it was a number of things in combination."

Jim, suddenly feeling a touch apprehensive, jiggled his foot a little to distract himself. "So... It could still have been because of me." He hadn't wanted guilt to flood through his system at the statement, but it did. Sarah's expression remained sympathetic.

"Does it help you at all to think so?" A certain curiosity to know his answer pulled the corner of her mouth the tiniest bit upward while she passed the strap to Jim, who lifted it over his shoulder and slid off the bed. His mother was right: at this point, it didn't make a difference what his father's reasons had been. Only stupid human curiosity made him wonder. The briefest smile crossed his face, and the guilt fell away to nothing. Why he couldn't just hold onto what he had decided a few days ago, after encountering Leland, rather than letting himself become a victim of such self-ruining thoughts again, was beyond him at the moment. For now, he decided it had been a part of adapting to the fact that, starting that night, he would officially be on his own; Jim was about to let go of a chapter of his life, and part of him hadn't wanted to depart until he knew exactly what he was leaving behind. The results had been bittersweet, or downright painful; but the means had been necessary. Facing the truth like this would allow them the opportunity to process it, and then finally move on. "When does your ship leave?"

Jim checked his watch against the clock on the wall. "About an hour and a half. I still have a little time." With that he shuffled out of his old room and down the stairs, swaying a little before he got used to the weight of the duffel bag. Sarah's light footsteps followed after him. Until he needed it again, he placed the bag by the door. His mother had moved into the kitchen.

"Do you have time for an early lunch before you go?" she called, and by the sound of it she'd already started the oven fire. Grinning to himself, Jim slipped through the entryway.

"Something simple," he requested, not wanting her to work too hard. She raised an eyebrow, a meaningful smile stretching her lips. "Okay, whatever you like." After all, this would be the last meal his mother would cook for him for a while. He humored her, letting her do everything by herself like she insisted; just like when he had been too young to do it himself. Jim determined before the food ever hit the table that he would savor every bite.

–

A grainy wind gusted up from the canyons into the docking area. Jim and Sarah were forced to shield their eyes, lest they be assaulted by particles of dirt and sand from the mines, while they weaved through small crowds to find the proper ferry.

"Maybe we should check the schedules again," Sarah wondered aloud, and she peered over the ferries docked and coming in – from a distance it was hard to tell any of them apart. With a chirp, Morph transformed into a small shield to keep dirt from blowing into Jim's eyes while he consulted the timetable and the berths in turn.

"I think it's down this way a little more," he said, pointing ahead. Sarah followed, checking the tower clock as they passed it by.

"You're going to be late if we don't find it soon," she said, fretting a little at the way the spaceport time differed uncomfortably from her watch.

Jim, for the most part, seemed undeterred. "I'm sure it's that one there," he said more to himself, though loudly enough that his mother heard it. He pointed at it, and she could just make out the name painted on the side. "Yeah," Jim was murmuring as he double-checked the slip of paper in his hand, "That's the one."

"I'll walk you to the gate," Sarah said. Once they arrived, Jim checked in for the flight while Sarah waited at a nearby bench. Her son came back a little out of breath, ticket in hand.

"This is it," he said significantly, and it was a herculean effort for Sarah not to burst into tears right there. Her boy, her little boy... She held him close and ran her fingers through his hair, like she always used to, one last time.

"I'm going to miss you so much while you're gone," she whispered.

Jim held her tighter. "I'll write," he promised, "I'll send you pictures, and everything." She chuckled appreciatively and loosened away.

"You don't have to do everything," she assured him, the beginnings of tears shining in her eyes, "Just come home." He nodded and looked to the ferry, just finishing boarding; looked back to her, eyes moist. Grasped her hand.

"I'll make you proud."

Sarah brushed away a tear that had fallen down her cheek. "Every day, Jim."

–

Jim waved as he boarded the ferry, Morph floating along after him. As the ferry drifted away toward its destination, he watched his mother grow smaller in the porthole view. Suddenly it completely hit him, and his heart rate rocketed; he... was leaving home. He was independent. It was completely up to him now, to make his own decisions, without the guidance of his mother or professors or anyone but his own instincts. The thought was at once exhilarating and terrifying.

But the difference now, compared to the morning, was that he felt okay with it. No more apprehension about leaving unresolved issues behind. Maybe he didn't have the answers to all his questions yet, and maybe he never would. But what was still unanswered, he could decide what he wanted to live with. He could decide how much he wanted his past to keep him down: never. It would be hard, at times; he would have to be stupid not to believe that. At the same time, though...

With a small sigh he took his seat in an empty compartment, leaning back against the cushioning, gazing out at the cerulean Etherium and the flecks of stars and distant galaxies ambling by, and with the smallest smile on his face he recalled rushing winds that promised adventure, and hanging precariously from shrouds to catch eyes with space whales...

"And when th' time comes you get th' chance to really test the cut o' yer sails, and show what yeh're made of..."

And he grinned uncontrollably.

Jim could not believe how far he had come.

~Fin~

:'D

I might go back and fix some things later. Or I might not. Who knows? Overall, I think I'm happy with it.

Something to talk about before I send you off to review (or not; it's cool):

Up until, I'm guessing, some time after my parents finished high school (this would be the late 1960s – early 1970s – yes, my parents are on the older side), it was very shameful to have a child out of wedlock. Especially when the parents were teenagers. If a high school-aged boy got a similarly-aged girl pregnant, the honorable thing to do was to marry her, and support her, because that was his duty as the father of her child. I didn't do any actual research into the attitude of the original "Treasure Island" story's time period setting, but I imagine the stigma would have been much greater then. If TP is meant to be a re-imagining of RLS's TI, but how the future might promise to be for them, then I think they would never have imagined the social stigma going away. Obviously I softened it a little for the purposes of this – it seems to be that as progress is made in one direction, decay happens in another – but that's an explanation of my thinking behind that particular spot. I considered playing it down a little during proofreading since it's not essential to the story, but I couldn't think how.

And: Everyone's been bipolar about decisions for their life. You can feel good about a decision the hour you make it, and then the next day go, "Oh... gee. Maybe not." I've been facing a lot of uncertainty, myself, in the past couple months; questions about who I am, what I've been, what sort of legacy I'm leaving behind me as I move on from high school to college. This is the sort of thing that's hard to appreciate until you're actually there, I think – I certainly have never had these kinds of thoughts before. Call them growing pains for the mind.

Also: If the What vs. Why argument doesn't make sense to you, I advise reading it again, more closely. ;) Not that closely. Safe to say, I get a little too literal sometimes...

All that said, I don't want the Author's Notes to be as long as the story itself, so I'm going to leave it off there, and formally invite you to review. :)