Notes: This was a planned remix story of my seven-year-old Twins 'Verse fics. It will be continued in other stories, pulling concepts from the first set. Also, as I play the same character Xan in an RPG, be aware that there are many similarities between the two but they are in fact different personalities in my mind. How she is written here has no bearing on the game.
"Home is not where you live,
but where they understand you."
- Christian Morganstern -
Sophie slid into the nearest chair, her eyelids feeling heavy even though two of her most special former students sat before her. She'd hit the ground running that morning and hadn't stopped until after lights out when her last student had reluctantly gotten into bed. There sincerely were days when she wondered why she'd ever felt a need to do adrenaline sports when she got the same rush working at Horizon.
"You look like something the cat dragged in," Shelby remarked with a grin.
It warmed her, even after eight years, to see the younger woman smile. She and Peter had fought hard to help her and what they'd not been able to heal, Scott had done with his mere presence. The way the two had sparked of each other, the way they'd judged each other until the only thing left to do was accept had been both amazing and terrifying to watch.
"I feel like something the cat dragged in," she admitted. "I got up early to deal with a student needing to go to the hospital with pneumonia and it just all went down hill from there." Sophie yawned and stretched. "Sorry," she told them, sighing, "Peter should be along in a minute. He..."
"Was playing tour guide to a potential investor," Scott finished for her. "We saw him a little while ago."
Shelby added, "He looked pretty exhausted too." She paused there, going on after a moment, "We can come back tomorrow if that would be better."
"No. Peter will be happy to see you both," Sophie told her. "We're just a little ragged around the edges since a few of the counselors moved on. Everyone's stretched a bit thin," she admitted to them, knowing they would understand.
The loss of a counselor at any time hit the groups hard, especially when they'd had a close bond with their kids. However, they'd lost two by the beginning of the academic year and another three in the following four months. Sophie and Peter had taken it all in stride but Jeff, who'd been sent to watch over the Trackers while new counselors were hired, wasn't fit to do hikes and Roger had the qualifications to pick up students and teach but not conduct one-on-one therapy. Claire, Jennifer, and Sienna had the quals but couldn't conduct classes.
"Anything we can do? I mean we're here and we know these grounds," Shelby offered, wondering how many times she or any of her former group mates had drained the two counselors to near collapse. "We're here for a couple days as it is."
They'd come up from Berkeley where they'd decided to settle following graduation from Horizon. With Scott's mother a call away for moral support, they'd managed to get themselves both through college while working full-time and paying rent. Now that life had settled some they had made the grueling drive, trading off after every stop so the other could rest, but they both had needed the return to the school for more than just the grounding it still provided to that day.
Eight years they'd gotten through including three at Horizon plus the four in college and the one afterwards, and while Shelby was still weary of the commitment, she had accepted Scott's proposal a few weeks earlier. Daisy had told her she'd expected them to be just like Juliette and Auggie – the perpetually engaged – until Shelby had said they were going, in person, to tell Sophie and Peter.
"You're serious? You're driving all the way up there?" Daisy asked, throwing a ball of paper at the garbage pail beside her desk. The editor had asked her to re-write her article for the third time to include more information she thought was boring, so Shelby's call was a welcome distraction.
"Yeah," Shelby replied, spreading jelly onto fresh bread and eying the peanut butter jar. "They're too important to us to just send an invitation."
There was a pause and Daisy said, "Always knew you two would beat us all to the altar."
Sophie speaking brought Shelby back from the memory. "I wish there was, but right now I think we'll both be happy to settle for talking with you guys." She squished down onto the seat cushion, asking, "So... how's the house fund going?"
Scott snorted. "College loans are coming due. We've had to put the house hunt on hold for a while. Berkeley's more expensive than we'd thought, too," he explained, "We've actually been thinking of moving."
"Oh?"
"Not really anything keeping us there now. Mom finally moved from Santa Monica so Jess will have someone there while she finishes up at USF and we don't have the money to go to graduate school right now anyway." Shelby tipped her head to the side as she finished.
Jess, unlike her elder sister, had been more open to Horizon's lessons upon her arrival. Perhaps it was because she'd asked for the help and Shelby had been ordered there, but the younger Merrick had flourished and grown, graduating not there but at a high school in Berkeley after she moved in with her sister. While Peter hadn't wanted her to leave, she'd felt it was something she had to do and it ultimately had been for the best. She was enjoying her final year of studies at the University of San Francisco, one of the most popular students on campus.
The door opening and the smell of something unidentifiable yet delicious interrupted any further comments as Peter walked in with a tray laden down with food. He hadn't had the day Sophie did but just the same, he was starving for both a meal and conversation with someone who wasn't fighting him or discussing money.
"Hey, Peter," Scott greeted, happily, and extended a hand that was pulled roughly until he was being hugged.
"Scott. It's good to see you, and Shelby," he smiled after letting go of the man and reaching for her. "You look good."
Shelby laughed and sat down. "We might look good, but it's a hell of a drive to do in one shot, especially with this one," she told them, adding, "We are trying to keep up, Peter."
"That's all I needed to hear," he confessed. Though he knew almost all of his kids were successful, healthy and happy people these days, Peter still worried after them and that particular Cliffhangers class was often in his thoughts. They'd been a special group despite the fact that he would never tell anyone that – counselors couldn't have favorites.
Still, they'd been the kids that had listened patiently when he told them about his slip-up, feeling it hypocritical to keep from them, and they'd attended his and Sophie's wedding, sitting in the front pews. They'd even come back two years after graduation to help Peter make the arrangements for Frank's burial after he'd unexpectedly had a brain aneurysm.
Sophie patted him on the shoulder, and then reached for a fork and one of the empty plates he'd brought. She'd skipped breakfast and dinner, only managing to get a bite of her lunch in before she'd heard the fight break out in the kitchen. By the time, she, Roger, and Josh had gotten all parties involved separated and talking, it was time for the Cliffhangers group and she had to run to the main lodge at full speed lest she end up being late.
Passing the plates back and forth, Shelby noted each one in amusement. "Still serving the prison quality food, I see."
"Shel..." Peter started and then stopped. "Five years since you were a student here and you still make me want to remind you of the rules," he told her, spooning up the reconstituted mashed potatoes.
"Sorry, Peter," she said, "I'm not bed five any more. And soon I won't be Shelby Merrick anymore." She worried her lower lip for a second, looking at Scott who only looked back and brushed a stray hair from her eyes.
They had known from the beginning, Peter and Sophie, that if Scott and Shelby made it through their schooling at Horizon and stayed together, a marriage would be in their lives. It was just something they'd had felt intuitively though Peter had always felt a bit uneasy about it given both of their pasts – until Sophie had pointed out that it was right that they shared a common pain, something they both understood and knew the boundaries with.
"Well, finally!" Sophie declared. She shifted forward to kiss the woman's cheek, and hug her awkwardly. She shook Scott's hand after her husband and asked, "Is that what brought you two all the way up here?"
"Shelby thought a piece of paper wasn't good enough," Scott said. "She thought telling you ourselves was more appropriate and she tends to be right."
"Tends to?" Sophie teased.
"Learn this now, Scott – women never forget and they do know how to make your life miserable," Peter shared, a wide grin on his lips.
"Ultimately we know deeply that the
other side of every fear is freedom."
- Marilyn Ferguson-
They were all laughing hard when Jeff came in, breathing heavy from the run across the campus, and immediately getting Peter's attention.
While it wasn't part of policy, it had become a habit for the last teacher leaving at night to check on the students. Knowing past histories, it was easier for males to check the male dorms while a female did the same for the girls, but Jeff usually didn't enter the dorms – he walked around, checking for any contraband or anything out of the ordinary, and would leave the interiors to the students.
"Xan's gone. I went to check the Cliffhanger girls' dorm, found her window open and her foot prints in the snow," he told them. "I woke up the girls to do a headcount. They said she was there when they all went to bed and no one heard her leave."
Peter sighed. This was what he had feared most with Xan, that she would run when she had no where to run to. "Call Curtis, tell him to go along the road. Lights out was two hours ago so we'll assume she's got that much of a head start," he immediately started rattling off while sliding his boots back on and grabbing his jacket. "Shelby, Scott..."
"Whatever you need," Scott nodded.
"Alright, we'll start along the woods in back of the girls' cabin. Might be some track we can follow. Soph, Shelby, you take the car, help Curtis with the main road. Xan's smart – it's dark and she'll try to find the main road by seeing lights so put the high beams on."
Laden down with instructions and jackets, they all took off. Peter felt his heart twist in his chest as he and Scott snatched flashlights from the reception desk and slipped outside.
Xan Noellesen had been at the school since September. She'd come in a freshman, all attitude and anger, with a mind that worked at a level Peter wasn't sure he could comprehend though her IQ was an unknown. Her records had shown that her school district had tried on several occasions to administer a test, hoping that her low scores were the result of not being challenged, but she'd resisted and in fact, held back to repeat the sixth grade.
Clearly though, she had little problem with books and words given her perchance for using them like a shield. It had made it difficult to create an educational program that would aid her intellectual development while maintaining her class standing. Peter had refused to push her up a grade in spite of Jeff's urgings, knowing that even four years might not help Xan but he'd be damned if he wasn't going to try.
On top of her educational pitfalls, she was a child of drug addicts, born with cocaine already flowing in her veins and her twin brother Nicklaus', and it did not take looking at what was definitely a sanitized file to know that she'd suffered abuse at her parents' hands. The violence in that house had to have been terrifying for a child especially given the circumstances of both the mother's and the father's deaths. Peter had tried on several occasions to get her to tell him about it as no one could tell him if she'd witnessed the bloodbath or not, but Xan was resistant and he'd let the topic drop.
The tracks behind the cabin disappeared a few feet into the trees. If nothing else, it gave them a path to orient themselves on and they plowed into the woodland, moving quickly and calling her name across the expanse.
It was freezing in the winter air and Peter cursed to himself, thinking that her jacket was appropriate for the season but the shoes she'd chosen – nearly worn out running sneakers – were not. He told Scott as much and the younger grimaced, remembering how all a person had to do was get cold in one place and the rest of their body followed suit.
"Think she could make it to town?" Scott asked when they stopped to catch their breath.
"You did," Peter answered, leaning against a tree and rubbing his bad knee for a minute. The pain had increased through the years, as expected, but with Sophie around, he never had long to suffer. Herbal remedies, loathe he was to admit it, helped as well as the random single painkiller he was given by the school's doctor when it was excruciating.
Scott nodded. "Good point."
They were off again a minute later, pushing forward toward the road and finding themselves there without the girl to show for it. By silent agreement, they turned and went back into the trees, searching as close to the road as they could in case she had simply taken a longer route.
By the time the sun started to rise, however, Sophie and Shelby had also come up without her as had Curtis and Jeff. Short of omnipotence they were not going to find her on foot when she did not want to be found.
"I'll have search and rescue to a fly over. Helicopter's got heat sensing equipment – if she's out there they'll find her," Curtis told them and reached in for the radio to put in the request right as Dispatch began calling him. "Go ahead, Louise."
"Annie just called to report that she's got your girl. She's at Rusty's."
Sophie let out a breath of relief while he relayed the message that he and one of the Horizon staff would be there soon. "Well, we know she's safe," she said to no one in particular despite everyone having gathered in a tight circle right there in the middle of the road.
"Alright," Peter started, "Jeff, I realize it's been a long night but if you could..."
"I'll head back," he nodded. Roger would be in soon from his day off anyway and his friend would cover his groups while Jeff caught a nap in his office. Life at Horizon went on whether or not it's staff had slept. "Scott, Shelby?"
Shaking her head, Shelby said, "If it's alright, I want to go with you," and looked to Peter and Sophie. Scott only looked at them with the same look of want as his fiancée.
Peter thought it over for a moment, thinking of the parallels to Shelby that he'd noticed in Xan before and the haunted look in her eyes that was the same and yet not. He certainly had his ideas of what had occurred in the girl's life, what she'd endured, and he worried about letting strangers near her. Xan had not taken to any new people very well in the past few months and he did not want to reverse the small progress she had made.
Still, something in his gut was telling him to let them come with and let them try to help. He just wasn't sure who would be getting the greater benefit.
He gestured them into the car, waiting until Jeff was gone before putting it into gear and heading southbound in silence. The other three occupants in the car quiet as well, no one willing to speak when their minds were so busy.
Peter was still thinking over the choice when the two cars pulled up to the restaurant, Annie nowhere to be seen though all the lights inside were on.
Curtis went first, concerned for his wife and adopted daughter. He waved the rest in after a moment after surveying the situation. Seeing the girl they'd sought crouched under a table in the corner, terrified, was upsetting at best and he rubbing Annie's arm; she was a mother and she didn't have to say it out-loud for Curtis to know that she was envisioning Gracie where Xan was.
"I got up early to get breakfast started and she was sitting out front, soaked through and freezing," Annie told Peter. "I got her some tea, wrapped her up, and I called Louise, but she heard me and she's been under there ever since."
While Peter continued talking to her, Sophie at his side, Shelby took in the sight of the girl. Dark brown hair that was still dripping pulled back in a ponytail, blue jacket taut around her while she shivered, and mud splashed up onto what had probably been good jeans once. She had her back to the wall and her hands clutching her shins while her chin sat pressed against her knees.
Slowly, Shelby came to sit in the same posture opposite Xan and waited a moment before gradually shuffling forward until she disappeared from sight. She only had about an inch of clearance above her head, but she didn't actually notice.
It was the look in Xan's eyes that had entranced her. The look that was screaming pain and sadness and Shelby remembered that feeling well. It had seemed as though the louder she yelled in her head, the more she wanted to speak and the less able she became until she reached her breaking point.
"You know the table... not so good a place to live," she remarked. "Lots of shoes and feet and dropped food."
The absurdity of that statement was not lost to either and Xan relaxed just the smallest bit, letting Shelby move to sit beside her. They lingered for a minute, until Shelby said it was time to go back to school and then, as if the spell had been broken, Xan nodded. They crawled out and Shelby pulled off her own jacket to drape it over the girl, sitting her down while Peter and Sophie watched.
"The vast possibilities of our great future
will become realities only if we make
ourselves responsible for that future."
- Gifford Pinochot -
"She's an orphan," Peter began.
By the time they'd gotten back to campus, breakfast had just ended and Jeff was still sleeping in his office, oblivious to the world. Sophie stayed awake just long enough to make sure that Sasha, the senior cliffhanger, would remain behind in the cabin with Xan and ask one of the Tracker's counselors to check on them when she could, before going to her own office and splaying out on the couch.
Peter had more business to deal with until he could do the same, including Shelby. He knew she had felt a connection to the girl and wanted to know, but she'd never ask. Yet, just as he had earlier, Peter felt this was something that had to be done and he promised himself he'd only keep to the bare facts – he was still legally obligated to protect the rights of the child and that included her privacy.
"Mother and father died in 2003 and she's been in foster care since. She's coded as V15.81 for noncompliance with treatment," he explained, choosing to not reveal Xan's year in the psych ward of which he still felt had been a bad choice on the part of the state. "She's exceedingly resistant to Horizon, but I suspect that's less because she doesn't want to be here and more because she's been told so many times that she's a lost cause."
Shelby's chest grew tight, her heart heavy. She'd been told that a few times herself and she could easily recall how low it had made her feel, how it made her feel like no one would ever care about or love her. From his seat beside her, Scott touched her shoulder and she lifted her hand to take his.
"She's one of the tougher cases and today's an example of how hard she's trying to keep everyone out." Peter leaned back in his chair, and went on, "She's looking up to see the gutter and she's scared."
His words rang through her head the rest of the day. Even as she and Scott wandered into Rusty's to eat, to the motel to sleep, all she could think about was Xan and her eyes. Whatever else was in her file, Shelby didn't need to read it to know the girl had seen a lot of raised hands, a lot of pain; there were dark rooms in her past, and as she laid there with her head on Scott's chest she wished once more there was something they could do.
"Can't sleep either?" Scott finally asked after a while of the silence.
"No," she replied. "I just keep thinking about her." She stroked her fingers down his side, trying to work out how to say what she felt was right.
It had been an unspoken truth between them that she intended to return to Horizon someday. Shelby had loved the air and the trees and she'd never been shy in saying that the school had been her only real home. She might not have taken to it the minute she got to the campus, but she had realized at graduation that she did not regret a moment of her time there. She'd even chosen psychology as her college major, a non-surprise to her friends.
As for Scott, he had never felt the need to say he'd return or not. Horizon hadn't been his home once his mother regained custody, taking him – and Shelby from time to time – to New Mexico when she could. Just the same, Horizon was a place he knew he'd go back to if the option ever presented itself and it seemed it had. Of course, should anyone point out that his own undergraduate degree had included a double minor in psychology and sociology, well, that was just a coincidence.
"Scott," she whispered.
"Yeah, Shel." He didn't need to elaborate, only speaking again to tell her, "We'll go house hunting in the morning."
Then they were asleep, finally calm while Shelby's laptop quietly whirred on with a blinking cursor paused at the end of her name. A clean list of her educational merits written on the motel paper pad laid to the left of the computer, 'Resume' written in neat pen strokes in the margin.