Many thanks to Glee Clue Rock 1251, Lady Cougar-Trombone, LabGirl2001, and AlienGhostWizard14 for your reviews! My apologies for not being able to send you guys a response!
This chapter has been proofread, but as always, there will be things that I overlooked. Please let me know if you find any through either a review or a PM. I'll be more than happy to correct them. :)
The penultimate chapter.
Twenty-Six.
Two weeks had passed since the four came back home, and things were gradually getting better. Given, the relationship between the remaining members of the household and Leo was still strained, and their conversations still oftentimes leaned towards being awkward, but it was improving in its own time. Chase and Bree were the ones who were quicker to forgive, but since Chase had to go back to the dorms, Leo only had Bree to rely on with readjusting to his old home life. Adam also helped, and he was willing, but feelings of hurt and anger, especially whenever he remembered what everyone had gone through in the recent months after his little brother's 'death,' resurfaced occasionally, and that prevented him from being as cheerful and open as he was before whenever he was dealing with him.
Leo understood this, though, so he had learned to take the good when it was there and adapt to the bad when it presented itself.
Plus, Leo knew where Adam was coming from, mostly because of the conversation he had with his stepfather not long ago. Donald told his stepson everything, including things that Tasha wouldn't – save for the private conversation he had with his wife regarding those divorce papers, which were, true to her words, now nowhere to be found.
When he had finished speaking, Leo just said quietly, "I guess saying I'm sorry won't fix this, will it?"
"No, maybe not for some time. But it's a start," Donald had replied. Then, remembering what Torrance once revealed to them, he asked, "Just tell me this – if Douglas hadn't captured you and we hadn't had rescued you, would you have come home?"
Leo shied from answering at first. Then, he shook his head.
"Is it because you thought you belonged out there with Torrance rather than here with us?"
"I just didn't want to mess up everybody's lives again. Coming back would just mean trouble for everybody."
"Change that thinking," Donald told his stepson. "We're upset with you, Leo, very much – but what you've just said is one of the biggest lies you could tell yourself."
"I know," Leo acknowledged remorsefully. "It's not my right to decide what's good for you or for them."
Donald agreed, but he allowed his silence to say that. He did feel pity for his child, so to allay the heavy mood clouding the room at that time, he asked, "Did you really hack into my computer last week?"
Leo was obviously bewildered by the change of topic, but he still answered. "Yes."
"Did you have a hard time?"
"Yes. I was dealing with Atkin."
"But you got past him."
"Yes."
There was a pause. Then, "Great job." Donald turned then left the room. "Don't do it again," he said on his way out.
Tasha seemingly was the hardest to appease. She was constantly distant when it came to her son, and she still had yet to sit down with him for an in-depth talk. However, though she was this way towards him, unbeknown to Leo, she was the most thankful out of everyone in the household that he came back. There was never a day that she didn't smile whenever she was by herself and remembered that he was there, or a night when her heart didn't fill with joy as she looked at the family picture sitting on her nightstand and know that she had all of the kids in that photo to love and see grow again.
She was happy, and everybody was, too – even if it didn't seem like it most of the time.
However, along with this happiness, there was also some sadness.
A few hours after having dinner with the family, Torrance showed up in Leo's room to bid him goodbye. She led Linux into the room, told him to take care of the family and his owner, and then petted him. Afterwards, she stood up. Before she could say anything, Leo hugged her tightly. She was surprised at first, but soon she hugged him back. "If you're ever in any trouble, Tor – any trouble at all –, just call me. Or even if you just want to talk about Morning Light," he said as he disengaged.
Torrance smiled. "I will not bother you with trivial things, Leo Dooley," she said.
"You should. Bothering each other with trivial things is what best friends do," he said.
Torrance nodded. "Okay."
After she assured him that she would be back, and after he assured her that she always had a place and people to come back to there in Mission Creek, Torrance left the mansion, vanishing into the silence of the night.
Leo missed her very much. It was the first time after months of being together that he was where she was not, and though the two of them didn't see eye to eye on some things, he missed hearing her speak her thoughts, her objections, and even her innocent comments that at times came across as insults. He also missed the hacking tips she would give him whenever she saw the right opportunity.
The rest of the family missed having her around, too. Donald and Tasha once voiced their surprise and even slight dismay that she didn't stay because they said they wouldn't have minded opening their house to her. Adam and Bree have on a few occasions talked about her, laughing back on how awkward she and they were towards each other when they met weeks prior.
Chase seemed…lost without her, and Leo was quick to pick up on it. He saw it on the morning when they found out she left, and he could still see it now, right at that moment as he and his siblings waited for their father while he configured the new control panel that regulated the capsules where the sleeping forms of Darwin, Echo, and Fielder were. Chase stood in front of Fielder's capsule, staring down in empty space, his mind obviously running with many thoughts. He had that same look on his face, as if he understood why she left but didn't at the same time.
There was also a deep shadow of hurt set on his features.
Leo got up from his seat then slowly walked towards Chase, the sound of Bree laughing at Adam's joke regarding the homework she brought there with her ringing behind him. "She didn't leave because she got scared, you know," he told his older brother even if he didn't know the full scope of what had transpired between them. "It's also not because she doesn't like you."
Chase looked at him morosely. "How would you know?" he asked.
Leo shrugged. "I told you, the girl is brutally honest. If she doesn't like you, you would've known immediately," he said. "The last time you guys talked, were there any indication at all that she doesn't like you?"
Chase thought on the question. The only answer coming back to him was the feeling he had when she kissed him back. A small smile pulled on his lips. "No," he said.
"See?" Leo said. He placed a hand on his brother's shoulder. "She's coming back, Chase. You'll have a chance to talk to her again."
Chase nodded, comforted by that.
"You know, it just came to me," Adam spoke as he and Bree got up from their seats to join them, "you're still short, Leo."
Leo and Chase looked up at him with similar frowns. "And you're still tall, Adam," Leo said, somewhat annoyed. "What's the point of this conversation?"
Bree's mouth popped open as she chuckled, looking up at Adam to see his response to the gutsy reply their younger brother gave him. Chase only crossed his arms and quirked his brows at him, giving him a 'see, that's what you get' look.
Adam, meanwhile, just gaped at Leo, oddly impressed. "Oh. Well, excuse me," he said, backing off from that topic.
"Okay, that should just about do it," Donald said, clicking on one more button before walking over to his children.
"What'd you do, Mr. Davenport?" Bree asked.
"Oh, I just made sure that their energy sources wouldn't burn out as they stay in there," Donald said, nodding ahead. "I also had to reprogram the capsules a bit. These ones were made for bionic humans and not androids, so a few things had to be switched out so these three wouldn't short or malfunction. Thankfully, we recovered more information about them from Douglas' computer. It made the job much easier."
Leo looked at Darwin, Echo, and Fielder with sympathy. He felt bad seeing them this way, because although they had been merciless and harmful, he knew that those weren't who they were. At least he believed they weren't. They were modeled after Adam, Bree, and Chase, and his siblings, when not under the control of a program, weren't bad people.
"So, how long are they staying here?" Adam asked.
"Not really sure," Donald said. "It all depends on how the test will go three days from now."
"Test?" Bree asked.
"We're gonna let them wake up and see how they would react to us," Chase said. When he saw the unsure expressions on his older siblings' faces, he explained, "Look, it may not be so bad. We've retrieved that unit from the simulator room and had destroyed the programs in it. We've also gone into their chips. That Override Code wouldn't completely delete, but as it stands right now, it's just like an empty folder. It shouldn't operate anymore." He shrugged. "For all we know, they could turn out to be really nice kids without it."
Leo hadn't had the heart yet to tell his family about what the chip on his wrist could enable him to do, but with that news he began thinking that maybe it wasn't necessary anymore. If the program was turned into something useless, maybe he didn't have to worry about chip.
The thought that Darwin, Echo, and Fielder would come to with no recollection of who he was and the things they had done for him saddened him a bit, but he knew that that would work best for him and them. They deserved to be free, too – just like how his siblings were.
"Yeah," Leo said in agreement with Chase. "Actually, they were. Without Douglas, they'll be good."
"How did Douglas get them to attack, anyways?" Donald asked him. "Is it that override program? Or was it a form of the Triton app?"
"Neither of those had anything to do with them being aggressive towards you guys," Leo said with a glance at his siblings. "If he wasn't lying to me when he told me this, Douglas said that he had programmed their memories to recognize certain people as threats. That was why they attacked when they saw you."
"Their memories?" Donald asked. "So does that mean that we can access their drives and delete that data?"
Leo shrugged. "I guess so."
A ponderous expression came over Donald's face. "Huh. I'm going to have to look into that later tonight," he said. "Because if we can do that, that will make the test less of a threat."
"What about you?" Bree asked Leo. "I mean, I know the project had conditioned them to be protective of you. Would reprogramming their chips have a bad effect on how they view you? We don't want them being friendly towards us then suddenly snapping and being crazy again when they see you."
"Honestly, I don't know. Probably not," Leo said. "Worse thing that can happen is that they won't remember me. Even that's not too bad."
"Well, we'll just have to wait and see when they come to," Donald said, observing the three subjects in front of them. He glanced down at his watch. "We've been gone long enough. All of us should probably head upstairs. Tasha should be coming home any minute now from work, and we have those things we're heating up in the oven for lunch. We should go."
Bree turned on her heels then led the way towards the elevator, with Adam then Chase right behind her. Donald followed close.
Leo took a step forward to follow them but stopped. Looking up and seeing that there was enough distance between the five of them, he turned back towards the capsules. "I don't know if you can hear me while you're sleeping," he told Darwin, Echo, and Fielder quietly, "but I hope you can understand why we have to do all of this. Don't think I betrayed you. It's just that, you're not gonna be happy with someone already having picked your friends and your enemies for you. You have the right to that choice." A weak but sincere smile came to his face. "You deserve that much."
"Leo!" Chase called out, his voice echoing through the long hall. "Where did you go?"
Leo glanced up towards the direction of the elevator. Then, he placed a hand on the glass of Echo's capsule before jogging off. "I'm coming," he answered.
"You move like a snail," Adam commented with a grin as his brother hobbled towards them to join them.
Leo shot him an unhappy look as he stepped into the elevator with his family, who were either smiling or grinning at what Adam had said.
When the doors to the elevators closed, the light on that floor dimmed down, the sensors picking up the lack of movement. As darkness descended upon the room, several things lit up, like the neon linings lighting the path from the tunnel, the control panel, and the edges of the capsules' bases. Darkness also laid bare the mostly undetectable blue glow of Darwin's eyes under his closed lids.
Though the three of them weren't fully conscious, Darwin, Echo, and Fielder still picked up the sounds around them. They heard every conversation, every observation, and every comment exchanged and given by the people who had come there, though blearily so. What Leo told them was the first to fully register to them, mostly because he was one of the people whose voices they were the most attuned to.
They listened to him, even if he didn't know. Despite the new surroundings and new people terrifying them, they trusted him, because, as he knew them to be good people, they knew he was good, too. He cared about them, even if he didn't understand them completely.
That was enough to start with and was all they needed to know.
As these thoughts lulled Darwin, Echo, and Fielder back into a peaceful sleep, floors above them, Leo felt the same warm spark within him. It took away the wide grin on his face, which had come about from a story Chase was telling them. He recognized that feeling, and he knew exactly its source.
He forced a smile on his face as his family turned to look at him after Adam asked him a question, not wanting them to know that he was alarmed by what he had found out.
He was right. The chip ran independently from any of the programs found on Douglas' system—and it worked well by itself.
to be continued.