Mark felt distinctly uncomfortable.

The airport was deserted. Not a walking corpse in sight. It was jarring, particularly considering the last time he'd been here, when he'd been running for his life after an aborted attempt to cross the tarmac. There'd been plenty of dead then, all of them very eager to get up close and personal, and he'd barely escaped with his life. To come back here now to utter silence and stillness was just... making his skin itch.

This was Brandon's first visit back to the airport since that night, and it was obviously sitting badly on him. His son walked by his side, his handgun up and swiveling, scanning every doorway, every barrier and possible cover. He was visibly shaking.

He finally rested his hand gently over his son's, and Brandon slowly lowered the gun.

"I don't think you have to worry Bran," he said, "I really don't think there's anybody left."

Brandon released a heavy sigh and nodded softly, but kept the gun ready. "He's not here, is he," he asked, though it was really more a statement of fact.

They'd walked through almost the entire airport. There were a lot of corpses, but they were the real kind, the ones that would never get up and move again. Most of them were those skeletal things that apparently raided the stadium a couple of weeks ago, just before the change. They were incredibly creepy, and walking anywhere near them raised every single hair on the back of his neck. One of them had actually twitched as they'd passed by, and his son had emptied an entire clip in the thing's head before Mark had grabbed him and calmed him down.

Why they looked like mummies when the rest of the corpses didn't, Mark never understood. But he guessed it didn't matter anymore. Things were changing now, and he had a feeling they were all on the way out.

As they'd moved through the airport, he'd checked every corpse they passed, dreading what he'd find. But so far, his son's real corpse wasn't there either.

There was only one other place he could think of.

"Time to check out the plane I think," Mark said, his eye on the 747 parked beyond the regular gates.

"The plane?" Brandon asked.

"Yeah," he said with a nod, pointing to it. "That one. He visited it a lot for some reason." The manic run across the tarmac had been an attempt to solve the mystery, but the dead had had other ideas. At least his son hadn't been around when that happened. Hadn't been one of the pursuing corpses. Because he wasn't too sure he would have kept running if he had been.

Brandon stared at it, then turned back to him, an eyebrow cocked, "Why would he visit a plane?"

"No idea," Mark answered, shrugging.

They reached the aircraft, and stood at the base of the metal stairs leading to the crew entrance, looking up at the windows.

"If he's up there, what'll we do?" Brandon asked, holding the gun ready at his side.

"Whatever we can," Mark answered, and tried to prepare himself. He really didn't think his son was walking around anymore. If he was in the plane, it was because it was his tomb.

He scaled the steps, trying to keep his footsteps as quiet as possible but failing, as the metal stairs rattled with the slightest movement.

Nothing moved through the windows.

Don't let him be inside, I don't want to see the truly dead corpse of my son.

Taking a deep breath, Mark drew the lever across and pulled the door open. The smell hit them both immediately and they looked at each other.

Dammit.

Leading the way, he stepped inside the plane and his mouth fell open in shock.

"Oh my god," he whispered.

"What?" Brandon called from the stairway, "Is he there?"

He couldn't speak. He had no idea what to say. He just stared, astounded.

"Dad, what?" Brandon asked again, then stepped in after him.

"Holy shit," he said, and moved around his father, to walk down the leftmost aisle of the plane. "Dad, look at all of this stuff!" His son started picking up random objects from the piles stacked in the seats, against the wall, in the overhead compartment. "Is this all his?" he asked, holding up an old Gameboy. He replaced it on the stack and shook his head, his eyes taking in the whole plane. "This is so weird!"

Brandon kept talking as he roamed the aircraft, but Mark just stopped hearing him, his own thoughts crowding out everything else. Had his dead son really been gathering all these things? Why? What did a corpse need with stuff? He'd never heard of anything like it - no one had ever talked about the dead hoarding, collecting things. They walked around with the gear they had on when they died, that was it. They got busy with the killing, and that was it.

But that clearly wasn't it. Everyone was waking up to the fact that the dead weren't truly, completely mindless gone. That they could be brought back, as ridiculously as it seemed, by connection, by touch, by love.

Was that was his son was doing here? Trying to connect? To touch something human? To feel human?

It hurt. If he had only had a chance to see this, to have known this, years ago... Everything could have been so different. He might have made the connection himself, and reached out to his son.

He could have brought him back. Regret crushed him as his mind tumbled down the very familiar road of what ifs and maybes, and his heart fell to despair.

"Dad..." Brandon whispered. He was standing about half way down the plane, looking at something on an old food cart.

"What," Mark answered, his voice deflated.

"You have to see this."

Slowly he made his way to his boy, his eyes darting between the strange and mundane treasures around the plane. Books and magazines sat in uneven piles everywhere. He glanced at the spines of a few - school textbooks, cookbooks, mystery novels, sports biographies, randomly mixed together. A globe map stuffed in an overhead compartment, next to what looked like old vinyl records and a Mr. Potato Head. A mobile of the solar system dangling from the ceiling. A saxophone and xylophone in a box. A bunch of action figures in a tray. A bobble headed dog sitting on a seat headrest. He reached out and tapped the dog on the head as he passed.

"Look," Brandon said again as he came near.

Mark scanned the top of the cart. It was dominated by a record player, which sent his mind spinning - he tried to imagine the corpse of his son putting a record on. His mind flashed back to the night he'd changed, seeing his dead son with eyes closed listening to the iPod. Perhaps that had made a difference. Perhaps that connection to music had always made him a little different.

Next to the player was an etch-a-sketch, and a bunch of discarded bits and pieces - a domino, a lighter. Marbles. Brandon was holding the lid of a wooden box, carved roughly with some leaf design.

Mark looked inside and his breath caught in his throat.

It was the photo.

The missing photo, from the album he'd put together for his son - the one he'd gone back to the school for, on one of his side trips to the airport. Another ridiculously dangerous excursion, but one he felt compelled to make. He'd gathered all of their stuff, remembering his last fight with his son, determined to make good, even if belatedly.

When he'd opened the album, he'd been confused to see the empty pouch where the first photo had been. It had always been his favorite, and he knew it was his son's - a picture of all of them, his wife too, sitting around the table laughing at his brother's place. Good times. Great times.

He reached in and took it from the box. Feeling something on the back, he turned it over and saw dark crusted fingerprints in what could only be dried blood. A jarring reminder of what his son was. Turning it back, he focused on his son's face, and drew a thumb across his image. That beautiful smile. He definitely got that from his mother.

A tear fell down his face.

He'd always wondered since then if his eldest had taken the photo with him when they'd left. And now he knew.

"I remember that day," Brandon said beside him, then laughed out loud. "Mom got so pissed 'cause I kicked him in the nuts right after this was taken. I didn't mean to, we were just wrestling!"

Mark wiped his eyes and nodded at his son, his face slowly breaking into a smile. "God, I do remember that. She was angry at me too, cause I let you guys fight all the time. But it was just what brothers did." He started chuckling, the memory playing in his head. "He just fell right over, oh that was funny. I was laughing so hard, and your mom was ready to kill me!"

"I know!" Brandon said, unable to stop laughing.

Caught in the memory, he joined his son, the laughter bubbled from his chest with ease. It felt wonderful. It'd been so long since they'd had a good laugh together. Since before this whole mess really. God, it'd been too long.

The laughter slowly subsided and he wiped new tears from his face, smiling. "Good times."

"Yeah." Brandon nodded. But the smile slipped quickly from his face.

The sight made Mark's heart hurt. He grabbed his son in a hug, and held him tight. "Brandon... god... I'm sorry things have been so hard." He squeezed his boy close. "It's going to be different now, okay?"

Brandon squeezed him back. "Okay," he murmured, and buried his head in his dad's shoulder.

Mark held his son and nodded against him. "I love you son."

Brandon was quiet for a little moment, then released a long sigh. "Love you too Dad."

It struck Mark then, as his eyes swept the plane one last time. Everything he needed was right here, in his arms. There was no need to chase ghosts anymore. "C'mon," he said, and patted his son on the back. "Time to go home."

Brandon pulled away, quickly brushing a hand across his face. "What about...?" he asked, gesturing to all the stuff around them. At the brother who wasn't there.

"We've got him here," he said, and tucked the photo in the pocket of his shirt.

Brandon looked at him, a small smile reaching the corners of his mouth, and he nodded again. "Okay."

Giving Brandon a quick kiss on the forehead, he squeezed his shoulder and guided him to the door.

Father and son descended the steps in the golden light of the fading sun and headed for home.

Okay, did anybody think they were about to pop in on Julie and R there?

They're actually visiting the airport about a week apart. While Mark and Brandon were rummaging around in R's plane, he was out traveling with Julie and the Colonel to gather up dead.

This is a bit of a turning point for Brandon, though things had become a little better after Mark's goodbye to his eldest that night in their apartment. Mark has an epiphany of sorts and truly lets things go, and truly lets Brandon know how important he is to him.

Not long to go now! We're back to Julie and R in the next chapter.

Thanks for reading, and if you've got a moment, leave a review and let me know what you think!

UPDATE:

I'd intended to get another chapter up tonight (9/26) but that's just not going to happen it seems. Hopefully I'll get it up tomorrow. Thanks for the review, and the PM's :)

PS: I think some folks thought that Mark and Brandon are basically walking out of my fanfic here, never to return. That's not the case. I'll leave it at that.