My recipient had mentioned many possible AUs they wanted to see, such as what if "Ben was the Milita hostage and Aaron and Maggie raised the kids?" I wasn't sure how this was supposed to go timelinewise, but enjoyed the chance to play around!
"I think Rachel might be alive."
There's no one Ben Matheson trusts with the whole story. But Aaron Pittman, he trusts with this much.
"You're kidding."
"No."
"There's no way you could have..."
...heard anything out in the middle of nowhere, Ben mentally concludes. "There is, actually. And-look, this is not actually your business."
"Not my business? Then what-"
"-are we doing having this conversation?"
Aaron's mouth lolls open. Ben rolls his eyes. "I have to poke around. I-I love Maggie, and I love my kids, but this could be important. And that's why I need you to-to keep an eye out for them. I can't promise how long I'll be, but just-help Maggie out, don't make her do it alone."
"Where are you going?"
"I'm not completely sure. Just-stick around here, and I'll be back. We'll be back, hopefully."
"You want me to help Maggie with your kids."
"Yes, exactly. Don't worry about it."
"And you think bringing your supposedly dead wife back is going to help this cause? Forgive me a bit of skepticism, but-"
Ben rolls his eyes. "I'm confident she will have-moved on."
"Confident. Confidence is not exactly what I'm sensing at this point in time."
"We'll talk that through when we get back."
"Why me?"
"You're the teacher, you work with kids all the time."
"Against my better judgment, Ben, you were the professor-"
"Aaron?"
"Yes."
"I'll be back soon."
He nods, vacantly, taking it for granted that if the truth were anything otherwise, Ben would have at least told his children that.
He makes a point of taking off his old pendant, that last night. "This wasn't stylish before the blackout," he laughs as he and Maggie undress, "and it hasn't gotten any hipper since."
"It's not like you to be concerned about what jewelry is in fashion," she points out. "Or were you much more trendy, before?"
"No," he snorts, and steals a kiss. "But speaking of beforehand-listen, Maggie. The tax collectors that swung through, a few days ago?"
"Mmhmm?"
"I...I heard from them. It sounds like one of my old-colleagues is nearby, down towards Illinois. I'm going to try and visit her, if I can."
"When?"
"Soon."
"Next week? Next month?"
"Tomorrow, if I can get an early start-"
"Tomorrow?"
"Ssh. No, the kids will slow us down, if we all come. You stick around here, with them, and Aaron will drop by after school to check up. Help cook."
"Aaron's cooking? You're just trying to make me appreciate it all the more when you return, aren't you."
Ben kisses her all the more.
He doesn't come back.
Aaron is never sure what Ben really wanted, to begin with; despite his best efforts, he certainly can't cook or build or do much of anything. He can clean, and he can keep quiet about it, as disgusting as it feels.
There's never a point where he officially moves in; he just sort of doesn't go back to his house as often. It is his house, and it's still full of all his stuff. But around the kids there's no need to bring it out, no way to trust them with it.
Maggie doesn't know half of what he's held onto, and he'd quite like to keep it that way.
She appreciates the company, at first, and though he complains when he thinks she can't hear, he's slowly able to do more housework than he admits. Certainly more, given time, then the squirrely or sedentary children, and by and large she begins to catch his allusions, know when to laugh.
Charlie looks up to her mother, in absentia. Rachel had been killed, she'd been out in the world, doing something. She'd respected Charlie, enough to give her something to do. Her father, the coward, had just run away.
Danny looks up to Charlie. And Maggie and Aaron, distantly. But he spends most of his time outside of the house, when he can, playing with the kids. Charlie's fun, sure, but half the time she's interrupting him and watching him like she's his mom or something. There are only three years between them, but that's just long enough for her to become one of the grownups. The Rememberers. And that's not ever going to be him.
Maggie teaches Charlie how to shoot a bow and arrow. She teaches her to cook-Danny too-and more than just handing over recipes, encourages Charlie to experiment and make her own food, and patiently eats all of it even when the experiment goes awry. She calms Charlie down when she wakes up sick in the middle of the night, then goes ahead and washes the sheets, hanging them up to dry in the frigid but bright Wisconsin winters.
Mostly, she shows them how to get ahead. Turning back brings only despair.
Aaron, well, Aaron is a teacher.
"So, uh...what do you think...the Cowardly Lion represents?" he mutters. He flips to the first chapter again, skimming through-no, there's still no mention of the farm workers. Had he forgotten the movie already? It was a classic. As movies go.
"My mom says it represented a government man," says one of the kids.
"A government man? What? What's your name?" he asks. Again. Stupid job.
"I'm Brian," he glares. Brian! Right. That was it.
"Of course, sorry. Why does she think it was a government man?"
"Because it was a book all about the government and the money. There were farmers, like the scarecrow, and the emeralds were for green like...was there green money? And the gold road didn't help you really. But the silver slippers, they were magical."
"Ruby slippers," he says automatically.
"They're silver slippers," says Brian.
"Can we read something else?" says Charlie. "This is boring, and you don't even read it."
Aaron sighs. "Soon. When I find something else we have enough copies of. Brian, why do you think it has to do with government?"
"I don't know. How should I know? Did witches have electricity?"
"Witches are in books," said another kid, he thinks her name is Emma, "there were never any real witches."
"What about Kan-saw?" says Brian, who pronounces it like "Arkansas." "Was that one of the fifty states?"
"Yeah," says Aaron. "And no, they did not have witches."
"Not even back when the book was written?"
"No."
"Did all the states get tornadoes?" Emma asks.
"Uh...yeah. I don't-some more than others," he shrugs. The United States was fantasy as much as it was history. Nothing to be proud of. "Let's go on to math."
Maggie finds him that night, curled up on the couch, paging through the Bible. "A little light reading for you?"
"It's for the curriculum. I can't figure out what else every house will have enough copies of."
"Do you think the parents will want you teaching that?"
"Maybe if I said it was for literary purposes?"
She shakes her head. "Don't stay up too late, unless you want Danny to cook your breakfast."
"I'll be fine," he says, turning the page. It isn't like he's the sort of person who's brave enough to say what he believes, not when he doesn't have to.
They're not in love. They're not sleeping together. They have gradually come to an equilibrium on how to split up the household chores, readjusting every so often as fits of inspiration or guilt shift the balance, but nothing more.
(Maggie has more fits of inspiration, or at least dedicates hers towards things like doing chores. She's more likely to encourage the kids to try it once in a while. Aaron thinks he might as well bother, it's one thing he can get right.)
He stays in the basement, mostly. And while he takes up plenty of space physically, there's still more that he's cleared out in bits and pieces.
"Was my dad's stuff down there?"
"Er, yes," he begins.
"You can throw it out!" Charlie interrupts. "I don't want any of it."
"No, of course not. I brought it all back to my place, you can see."
"Why would I want that?"
"To look around. There are old books, you know, just a change of pace."
"Let me know some other time, when you're going over. Not now. Somebody made us do homework."
"I thought you'd like a change of pace. Better than weeding."
"I guess," she shrugs.
But he does tell her, a week later, when he's heading over. In spite of himself, there's something about being a teacher he likes, the part about having knowledge and being able to dole it out whenever he wants.
And she follows, more out of boredom than anything else. She's surprised by the row of bookshelves she lands on first-she'd expected more directions, instructions to use specific objects that are now useless. She remembers there being lots of different kinds of things, but instead, most of those books are just abstractions written before any real computers were in existence.
"Look at this!" Aaron grins. "The Myhill-Nerode theorem, 1958."
"What is it?"
"This was proved at Chicago, where your dad worked."
"What does it do?"
"It doesn't do anything, it's just true. Helps to categorize certain theoretical sets."
Charlie flips through the book. "There's nothing here about real computers, or electricity, or anything?"
"No. Chicago...the school always had a reputation of being more interested in theory than practice. Your dad used to joke about it, told me he never expected to have a practical impact on the world."
"Guess he never will," Charlie muttered, shoving the book back onto the dusty shelf.
"Does anyone know question ten...question ten...anybody."
Silence.
"Charlie? Question ten?"
"I'inno," she shruggs."
"We were talking about it," says Aaron, "over the weekend."
The others giggle. "I don't remember!" Charlie snaps.
He sighs. "All right. It's five, as we can see here..."
"We are never going to use this," Danny mouths, and Charlie can't help but nod.
Aaron doesn't let her slide, cornering her after school but having the courtesy-no, slowness-to wait till it's just them at home. "You've seemed very distracted."
"I'm fine," she says. "Been busy. Hunting."
"You're getting very good at it!"
You don't set the bar very high. "Thanks."
"Anything going on?"
She pauses, then decides a man's perspective couldn't hurt. "Don't tell anybody about this, okay? Just, I need some advice."
"Are you all right? If you're in trouble."
"I'm fine! I just need some advice."
"I'll see what I can do."
"It's Brian."
"What about him? Is he all right?"
"I...I think I sort of have a crush on him."
Aaron blinks. Charlie in love? With someone here, in tiny Sylvania Estates? Instantly, he remembers his mother-in-law telling him she and her husband met in just as small a town. Also instantly, he pushes that thought aside. "Well, might as well let him know so you can go back to focusing on your assignments," he teases. "Or your hunting."
"Let him know? Do I just-what do I do?"
"Ask him...out, take him to the Ferris wheel or wherever it is you hang out. Or make him presents...find something crafty, I don't know."
"You're helpful."
"Well, what do you expect from me? Do I look like an expert?"
"You look like a male."
"Just...be yourself," he ventures, though the words sound stilted in his mouth.
He can hardly believe it. Charlie Matheson is grown up, a teenager. Big enough to do her own chores, shoot her own arrows, be struck by Cupid's. Danny might as well be.
And still, he is living in their house, not even needed but still welcome.
Charlie has never considered hiding her lunch box. They keep their distance-Danny because he's out playing with the other kids, usually, desperate to prove himself. Aaron can be found in his house at least several times a week, and Maggie doesn't seem to care if she has something of her own.
So when Aaron notices her stadium postcards, he says nothing, but after a couple days eventually digs out two more from the pile of Ben's things.
"Comiskey Park," he says. "This would've been nearer by where you lived."
Charlie squints, holding it closely. "It says US Cellular Field?"
"I guess that's what they called it by the end, yeah," he snorts. "Cellular, sure. There's an adjective no one uses these days..."
Charlie turns the card over in her hands, glancing at the next one. "Wrigley Field?"
"That would have been on the north side. Farther from you."
"Not too far," she shrugs.
"They were the holdouts. Took them till eighty-eight to get electric lights, last team by far." He shakes his head. "Doesn't matter now."
"Were you a sports fan?" Maggie asks.
"Sort of."
"Didn't take you for one."
"Ah, well. All about the hot dogs and crackerjacks, for me. What about you?"
"In eighty-eight? I think we were trying to make sure our stadiums didn't collapse."
"Thanks," says Charlie, glancing at Aaron.
"Oh, you're welcome, not like I was using them anyway."
They must have been her dad's, then; she's not sure whether that makes her feel more or less grateful.
And so it goes, what passes for family.
When Danny is seventeen, a stranger comes trekking into town and sees him on the verge of an asthma attack, gasping for air.
"Are you all right?" she asks.
"I'll be fine," he wheezes, "just need...a minute."
She shakes her head. "You remind me of my son. There was a study...What's your name?"
"That's Danny," Charlie interrupts, "I'm Charlie, come on, Danny, let's get back to the house."
She leads Danny back, the stranger following behind. Once Danny is situated and breathing more easily, Maggie pokes her head out the door. "Can I help you?"
"I'm looking for the Mathesons," she says. "Ben, Rachel, they live here?"
"They're gone," Charlie snaps, "you're wasting your time."
"I-I'm sorry to upset you. But I thought-maybe some of their belongings are still around?"
"Don't talk to me, ask Aaron."
"Aaron?"
Before Charlie can fire off a reply, Maggie steps in. "Aaron Pittman, our...housemate, might be able to help you."
"Aaron Pittman?" the stranger repeats. "Yes, I...I suppose I'd quite like to meet him, if I can."
Charlie turns, looking at Danny, who's sitting up now, wide-eyed. They can get through it together, she knows, but feels all the while that nothing will ever be the same.