Part 4 – The Miracle
A vicious chill threads through the alleyway outside the Carmine Kanigher Shelter, sending waste detritus of modern civilization skittering in every direction. Mice and rats flee for cover as fat flakes of snow begin to fall. Soon the entire area will be blanketed in a carpet of fluffy white powder. A Christmas Miracle for Star City courtesy of a recently reunited father and daughter duo of certain...arctic talents who are in town for the first of what will become the annual Team Flarrowgirl – a universally reviled portmanteau courtesy of one Ralph Dibney – Christmas extravaganza.
Pushing off the cinder block he's occupied for the second time tonight over the past few minutes, Marv adopts a toothy grin. He already worked his seasonal miracle, which if his best friend Nora's spotty accounting of history unrelated to her dad can be trusted is taking place right about...now. Nervously, he lifts the sleeve of his jacket to check the vitals monitor on the modular biometrically keyed device wrapped around his wrist, finding all readings back within ideal parameters whereas only hours before they were fluctuating wildly. Just to be sure his efforts were indeed successful, he pinches himself in several places to ensure his central nervous system is still functioning correctly that he is still corporeal and has not disintegrated due to a seismic shift within the causal domino chain that will eventually result in his birth less than six years from his present location in spacetime.
As a reward for a mission accomplished, he sifts through the menus on what Nora calls their Vibe-rators – bless the innocent, adorable, perpetual child that she is, Nora has yet to grasp why nicknaming the gadgets that in honor of their esteemed inventor, their beloved Uncle Cisco, was not quite the honor she thought it was – and quickly deactivates the artificial aging matrix produced by some seriously shway tech that, savvy as he is, even he doesn't fully understand. He also unilaterally decides to never adopt the pseudonym Marv ever again.
Honestly, what was I thinking going with that? Quen shakes his head, chuckling ruefully as the answer dawns on him. There is a longstanding Christmas Eve tradition in his house of watching Christmas movies all evening until everyone is too tired to keep going, and this year they are breaking out amongst other titles both of Macaulay Culkin's Home Alone films. Double-dipping those gems before bed is, in his opinion, just about the perfect way to cap off a perfect Christmas Day with his family. Which is why he has to get a move on or he'll be late and his Moms will not be happy. Nor will Aunt Sara and Aunt Ava, who are actually supposed to drop by this year instead of ducking his Mom's invite with some lame explanation of a temporal anomaly that needed fixing like, pronto. Come to think of it, Maya, his older sister by a year and a half, is coming back home from a work thing in National City for the annual Lance family Christmas and will almost certainly use his tardiness as another excuse to hit him. And Quen can't have that. She has enough reasons as is without adding valid cause. Plus, his damn shoulder has been abused enough by his sibling's iron fists, thank you very much!
Glancing back toward the street he'd watched a younger, more hardened version of his softer mother approach him from, the familiar tug of welcome memory pulls him under its sway. His Ma is still a knock-out according to all his friends, who often break out an ancient acronym he chooses to ignore so as to not require a bleaching of his brain, so the age difference was not that jarring. But it was beyond weird to see her so restrained and world weary.
Of his parents, his Ma is the positive one, the tactile huggy, kissy, slightly smothery mom who sings while she cooks, dances as she cleans, and who cried – on camera! – at his graduation...every last one of the four so far. So many wonderful memories of her flash by that he can hardly sort through them all. Her singing him to sleep while he was little and really, really sick while his Mom cradled him close to her chest and rocked him in her favorite rocking chair. The absurd, bonkers, overboard, birthday bashes she organized for both him and his sister every friggin' year until they were old enough to insist she dial back the adorable insanity. The way she would stand to the side giggling uncontrollably at his ultra-competitive Mom once he got old enough to regularly beat her at basketball or soccer or video games. How a few stern words from her spoke volumes more than a profuse tirade from his Mom ever could amongst one of the many lectures he endured regarding the vital importance of taking responsibility for one's own actions. How she always smells like an amazing blend of vanilla and cinnamon and can with a single enveloping hug and a lingering forehead kiss banish every iota of hurt, confusion, pain, and fear plaguing her children, even when they are fully grown adults. His Ma is a lionhearted woman who loves with every last ounce of her strength, and it was more than a little disconcerting to witness her holding that ferociousness ransom in the obviously fading hope that a rescuer might appear to set it free. Thankfully, he is a devoted son who is willing to brave her wrath to secure her happiness, which he did by pushing her toward a certain irritatingly complicated blonde.
The various images of his Ma, heartwarming as they are, mingle with one of his other mom as he watched her first set foot in the shelter. Looking for all the world like she didn't know what the hell she was doing there, all the while unwilling to surrender an inch to fear or doubt, she was yet so fragile he was afraid to even breath in her general direction lest she shatter into a million pieces. He had to get to know her first before he risked ingratiating himself to the point she would grant him permission for one stilted hug.
He'd like to say that it shocked him to see her so walled off, the woman who carried and nourished him inside her body for nine months and then endured unspeakable pain to deliver him safely into the world, but it didn't. His Mom has always had trouble letting people in, which in combination with her frightening dark side could make her a foreboding person to approach. From his first memories, he can recall glimpsing fleeting specters of what he'd witnessed in earnest while on this escapade in the past: a simmering rage and innate cynicism fueled by pain that only his Ma can assuage. Once or twice he was the unlucky target to bear the brunt of an outburst that scared him witless, and scared his Mom even more – so much so that she would sequester herself in the bedroom or the spare bathroom until she calmed down or his Ma intervened to soothe the offended beast back into her thick iron mental cage. He never really understood why his Mom got that way sometimes until just last year, about five months after his eighteenth birthday, when he learned about Black Siren. That wasn't a happy time for him, or for his Mom. He had always known she had a troubled past, but that...that shook the foundations of his essential being, made him doubt his own moral and ethic core, and worst of all caused him to doubt his Mom's ability to love. It took both his Ma and his Uncle Ollie teaming up to knock some sense into him for him to get his head out of his ass and to stop avoiding and start talking to his Mom again.
And now? Well, now he's glad he knows about Black Siren, because if nothing else, this trip into the past has given him a reality check as to just how awful his Mom's life was to have molded her into the hateful person she was before his Grandpa took a chance on her that his Ma later picked up and ran with. Once, and fortuitously, she got to the shelter early enough to join in a group session with the therapist that visits the facility once per week. He had to sit there silently and listen as she got roped into sharing, then grit his teeth through the empathetic agony of her divulging a lot more than she had originally intended. The things she went through before she met his Ma...Quen shudders at the very thought. The silver lining to that intolerable experience is that at least he has a reference to work with dealing with her occasional mood swings.
Also, this foray has given him a new, unique perspective into how much his parents love each other. To have overcome so much adversity just to be together is, quite frankly, astonishing. Nora has told him so many times that his Moms' love story rivals that of any epic parental romance within the group of kids belonging to the venerated members of the Justice League, but he never quite believed her. How could he when they were competing with the likes of Superman and Lois Lane, the Green Arrow and his Overwatch, the Flash and Iris West, and Supergirl and her mysteriously broody governmental handler all the kids simply know as their favorite Aunt Alex. But those precious hours surreptitiously watching them interact in the kitchen and during the post-dinner clean up operation afforded him a view that, while slightly biased, was able to recognize that same divine spark between them that he sensed whenever he was around his friends' folks. It was nice, so nice that his heart is still soaring high in the clouds above, to be given the immense privilege of bearing witness to the event that will begin an inevitable spiral into his – and his sister's – future conception upon a recovered Kryptonian Genesis ship. And come what may, be it unavoidable tragedy like Nora's Uncle Wally getting imprisoned outside the timeline by Abra Kadabra, or some catastrophic event like Darkseid himself descending upon his Earth tomorrow, he won't be forgetting this adventure any time soon. It has ignited in him a flame of hope that cannot be quenched and solidified a belief that will endure until his death that love really can conquer all.
"Well, I guess you guys will see me in five years and twelve months on the dot" he says, his gaze turning instinctively to the apartment in which he knows his parents to be making the first baby steps toward a future they have both risked life and limb to protect multiple times. "Good thing it'll be sooner for me. Just hope you guys don't kill me when I tell you where I've been for the past month..."
And with the press of a button upon his Vibe-rator – he snickers at the thought of the name – Quentin Nicholas Lance disappears from view to join his best friend for their return trip to the future. He is not seen again until many years later. Twenty-four years, ten days, seven hours, and thirteen minutes to be precise, which is two minutes late and of no consequence to anyone but Maya, who uses that as an excuse to hit him.
Damn that punchy brat.
Quen rubs his sore arm, but the smile on his face remains until he is engulfed by two pairs of arms that officially ring in another Merry Christmas for the Lances. To his unending delight, in addition to a new Quantum Tablet, his Moms pulled some really big strings to get him into the Air Force Academy. He can't wait to tell Nora! And as he rushes to dial his bestie up on his Vibe-device, he gives them both the biggest hugs he can muster up. He doesn't see how their eyes catch over his shoulder, glowing with love for each other and pride for their child and happiness over his happiness, but then again he doesn't really need to. He sees it every single day. Nor would it have registered even if he had caught it. He is far too excited to think of little else than realizing his dream of becoming a pilot.
Merry Christmas to me! He thinks as he hears Nora's voice chime through the tiny, nearly impervious subdermal implants designed by his Uncle Cisco that were wired into his ears after a childhood accident his Mom still hasn't forgiven herself for rendered him deaf.
"Hey! You'll never guess what I got for Christmas!"
Nora does guess, the know-it-all brat, but his enthusiasm doesn't diminish one iota. This is, after all, the best Christmas ever. And not just because he got everything he wanted, but because he got to watch his parents take the final steps in their journey falling in love. How many kids get to make that boast? Not any he knows of besides Nora.
Quen has an extended family that loves him, a bright future ahead of him, a sister that would fight the world for him, and Moms who love him – and each other – more than he could ever begin to describe. And that makes him the luckiest kid alive.
THE END
A/N: Anybody guess the twist all the way back in Pt.1? If you did, give yourself a hand of applause! I probably won't be posting anything else for a bit, so I wanna take this opportunity to wish everyone a Happy New Year as well!