Hey! I was looking at my iPod screen and saw the name 'in another life' of the song playing. It [the song name] made me think of the twists and turns life takes for and against you; and here goes Henri's story.
Disclaimer: This story belongs to Pittacus Lore. I'm just babysitting the contracts until the Mogadorians I hired release him and the other captives :D
In Another Life
"Guess who," someone said, covering his eyes with soft hands from behind.
"You are so cliché," Brandon said. Soft hands laughed.
"Guess who!" She insisted.
"Natasha," he said. The hands lifted off his eyes and -sure enough- Natasha swung from behind of him to sit down in front. She had curly and dry red hair loose around her head, kept out of her face and jade eyes by a white head band. She had skin like porcelain and a smile that showed her teeth, crinkled her eyes, raised her cheeks, and made his world brighter. She was wearing a basic Garde training uniform- black sweats, and a thin hoody, a belt with loops for weapons around her waist.
"How did you know?" She teased
"Well, I think after three years of going out together, and even longer of yours serving as my best friend; I can recognise your voice."
Natasha smiled at that and took his hand over the table.
"So, what are you reading?" She asked, peaking.
"Stuff for the Cêpan academy," Brandon said. "On other planets. Mogadoria, Earth, Jupiter, Venus, such places."
"Venus… The humans named it after their goddess of love…" Natasha said drawing back on knowledge far away for school. Natasha never had been one for books. "In Rome or something. Did I get that right?"
"Exactly. Maybe it's because I was reading about that, that makes me want to do this." Brandon said, getting up only to drop back to one knee in front of Natasha.
"Did she say yes, did she say yes?" Ely and Bria were yelling that out at the same time the second Brandon walked into the house.
"Of course she said yes, they're madly in love." Malachy said, sprawled on the couch reading a book for school. The house might belong to the four of them, but the couch was his. No arguing.
"Did she? Talk, Brandon, talk!" Bria said shaking his shoulders.
"Calm down! My god. And she said yes."
Both Bria and Ely let out squeals.
"I think I was on to something when I said that the two of us should just ditch these two spazes and move to, like, Pandora. Or Earth. Earth has pretty girls." Malachy said. Bria gave him a tap on the shoulder.
"Malachy! Brandon is going to get married! He will officially move out of this place even if he's already half there. Do you have nothing more to say?"
"Congrats." Malachy said looking up. "You got yourself a pretty one."
"It's not because she's pretty," Brandon said. "Although she is. It's because I love her. You don't have to be so thick about everything you know," Brandon said, sitting down on another seat.
"Fine; I'll be sarcastic then."
"And horribly flirty," Bria frowned.
"You know you love it," he said. He put an arm around Ely and Ely just grinned and rolled her eyes like 'who is this guy?'
"Have I not told you I had something called a boyfriend?" Ely said. "Oh, and he's Garde, so he could kick your butt."
Brandon rolled his eyes.
"Just hook up, and we'll call it a day," Bria said. "This story has been going on and on forever! You flirt with her, but it ends up your weekly boyfriend's changed. Then he tries again, and the same thing's happened."
"Yeah, you know you love me." Malachy said. Ely rolled her eyes.
"Other than Mr Is-going-to-get-married over there, you guys have no romantic experience so stay out of my life. Especially you," she told Malachy.
"Fine. Brandon, I've got to run to the Cêpan office, do you want to come or stay with these two screwups?"
He got up with Malachy.
"Yeah, I'm coming." He said. These three were his best friends (for some reason), but there were different times for the different ones; and now looked like a bad time to be alone, just in case Ely and Bria decided to double team and cause havoc against him with questions.
"Smart Loric," Malachy sneered as they walked down the road.
Brandon was rubbing Natasha's back. She'd had a long day of training and the new coah wasn't quite as familiar with her powers as the last. [Read: the idiot didn't know that Natasha wasn't resistand to electricity and falling. She was an explosion detonator and her strenght was even more amplified than normal Garde people, not invulnerable!]
She groaned in fatigue and pain.
"That guy was nuts," she said.
"Especially if he thinks he can get away with hurting my girl." Brandon said. He couldn't see her smiling but he knew she was. Natasha leaned back against him. Through the roof of the living room, they could see the sky, and tiny millimetres of dark blue between the stars. They looked up for a few minutes.
"That star shines brighter," Natasha said, pointing up.
"Like you do," Brandon said. Natasha turned her head to smile at him.
"I was going to point out that it must be the alpha star of our system, but I like that answer too." She said.
"You really shouldn't be here," Brandon said.
"Yet I am every day," Micah answered back. He was a broad shouldered Loric, with smiling brown eyes, sandy and messy hair, and smile lines.
Brandon smiled at that.
Most of the days that Brandon came to check on his Garde, Micah met him on the road going to the was no talking Micah out of visiting his son. Tyree was playing in the front yard, running around after a ball his grandfather always kicked away at the last seconds. He'd yell 'Grandpa!', as offended as a kid his age could be, and then run away in the opposite direction.
"See? How could I stay away from that? One day you'll have kids and you'll understand."
"Might come sooner than later," Brandon said. Micah looked at him.
"Seriously? Natasha's expecting? Good for you guys," Micah said. "You guys are going to be good, Natasha and you."
"You think?" Brandon said.
"Yeah. If I didn't there would be no way you'd be around my kid," Micah said. Brandon smiled and rolled his eyes as Tyree spotted them before his grandparents did.
"Grandpa – is Brandon an daddy!" He told his parents.
"Is it now?" The older man said looking around. "Well look at that, it's Brandon and Daddy. Someone else can kick this ball for you."
And so Brandon and Micah climbed into a game Tyree had 'invented' and that -they couldn't break it to him- was actually called 'soccer'.
"Brandon," Natasha called, "Can you just take Jessa for a minute?"
"'Course," Brandon said. He disguarded his notes and wandered around the house. He quickly found Natasha kneeling next to Jessa who was lying on a blanket, her fingers folding and unfolding, a stuffed toy in the crook of her arm.
"I've just got to go get ready for the fireworks," she said. "Coach wants us there early. I mentioned that, right?"
"No, but don't worry about it."
"Great. They start in about an hour; so you don't have to get her to sleep because wasting the effort that it would take would suck," she said, getting up. He gathered Natasha in his arms and kissed her forehead.
"I know, just go do your thing."
"Alright, love you." She said.
"Love you too." Brandon said.
He took Natasha' s place next to Jessa.
"Hey you," he said tickling the inside of her palm with her finger. My god, she was tiny. The healers had said that she was premature and so forth, but still. He could holding her in his two hands, without her little feet even dangling out.
She looked up at Brandon with those typical baby blue eyes and made cooing sounds. Her hand closed around his finger and he passed a finger on her head, gently. Like he might break her. She made more sounds and opened her mouth in what might've been a toothless smile.
She might be two weeks old; Brandon might have been taking care of her for two weeks; waking up in the middle of the night to stop her from crying (and waking up Natasha) for two weeks, but… It still took his breath away that she was actually there. That she existed. That Natasha had brought her into this world. That she was this amazing. She was adorable; people had already decided she looked like Natasha. Brandon wished it on her.
He was starting to understand all those things Micah had said about not being able to stay away from Tyree. But he knew that he couldn't keep her. For one, he wasn't stubborn Micah. And he knew it would be as inhumane and odd as keeping a bird in a cage.
"Even if I really love you," he said, as Jessa rolled onto her side and made more cooing noises and toothless, slobbery smiles.
The fireworks were amazing. The night was cool and calm and perfect. Natasha and Brandon were sitting down in the high grass, Jessa lying on a basket in between them. The noise didn't bother her, but she didn't seem interested in it either.
Natasha and Brandon were starring up like every other Loric. Bursts of blue, purple, red, green, yellow, white…
And then something changed. They didn't sound right. They sounded scary, threatening, omnious… Brandon and Natasha had barely exchanged a look and Natasha had barely expressed her doubts when gawking turned to screaming.
The lights are going downwards, not upwards and they exploded. Bombs.
"NO!"
"Brandon- I've got to go help!" Natasha was already standing, and her hands had erupted into flames. Like she was about to cause explosions- explosions of green lights. "Find your Garde!"
"What about Jessa?" Brandon asked.
"We'll take her!" A family turned around. Two grandparents, each holding the hand of a little girl, about six, with long dark hair and brown eyes like chocolate; Brandon recognised her as Franca, Bria's Garde. "We'll keep her safe for you two," the woman said. "There's no other way we can help- but there is for you! Go!"
Natasha kissed Jessa's forehead and lay their baby girl down in the woman's arms. She looked at Brandon one more time –one last time- and nodded before sprinting off into battle, green light crackling around her like she was going to blow.
Brandon started running like a chimaera. People were running, screaming, trying to fight back, dropping dead…
How was he going to find Tyree in this mess?
It was a stroke of luck when he saw a confused little boy standing alone in the crowd, looking around wondering where to run.
"Tyree!" Brandon yelled. The little boy looked up at him and gasped. He tackled Brandon's leg in a hug.
"I know, I know- common let's find somewhere safe." Brandon said, already feeling a bit of relief. Maybe this wasn't a total mission imposible.
He was running as fast as he could towards… Towards... The museum! That was the closest place.
He didn't look around at the attacks and such. That was what people for Natasha were for. He was scared for her even more than for himself. She was strong, Brandon knew that, but even a signed contract wouldn't make someone at ease when the person they loved was fighting an enemy this big and out of the blue.
"Brandon!" Someone shouted out at him. It was Bria, running side by side with Ely, each of them holding a little girl by the hand. Brandon recognised both little girls, their Garde. Dani was the daughter of Tyree's parents' good friend, and Franca was the little girl in the family he'd just handed Jessa off to.
"There's a ship- they want us to take the kids and leave!"
"Leave?" He said. "That's..! We can't just..!" The idea of leaving Natasha, Jessa, and the rest of everyone behind made red emergency lights go off in Brandon's head. No, that could not happen. He would not leave anyone behind.
"Brandon, the battle's failing." Ely pleaded with him. "We've got to save some of them from Mogadoria!"
"Too many people are already dead, it's only a matter of time! Her whole family already died!" Bria told him, nudging her head towards the little girl. He froze.
"Her whole… Her whole… Her whole family…" Brandon said. He was in a daze. The whole family would include… No… No it couldn't…
Suddenly the whole place was basked in a bright green light. Like if Natasha had just detonated an explosion. But that wasn't possible, this was way too bright. Even Natasha's highest record looked like a spark compared to this. If it was her, in some alternate universe, it would have to be an explosion big enough to kill... Her. To kill her.
And suddenly Brandon looked over his shoulder and he realised what had just happened.
And that was the day that Brandon had realised that he'd never really be Brandon again. Not really. He'd always look like Brandon, he talked like Brandon, and he had the same parents as Brandon. But he'd never feel the same as how Brandon had felt again. He wouldn't even be called Brandon anymore. He'd go by names like Richard, Edgar, Simon, Tom, or Henri even. But he'd never be exactly the same again; he'd never be whole as Brandon, happy like Brandon had been, in love like Brandon, or any of that.
That was all in another life than the one Mogadoria had hid him into.