With thanks to Voodoo and Ellie for reviewing! Hopefully this chapter will answer your questions.


Scott coughed up bile and coffee, the edges of the tiles digging into his knees. Almost immediately his body began to calm, like it had needed that one moment to purge itself of evil. It never would, of course. Not with evil in his cells, slowing his aging… did it slow his thinking? Did it make him stupid?

Twenty-five years old.

How could he be twenty-five years old?

Spending the rest of the day—possibly the rest of his life—on the floor, trying not to think, sounded great. Instead Scott forced himself to stand and walk to the sink. He washed his hands out of habit, then rinsed his mouth.

Looking in the mirror, he did not see a twenty-five-year-old man. He saw a fifteen-year-old boy who wished he didn't feel like such a helpless child, and a thirty-year-old in the doorway who seemed to think he had gone unnoticed.

"He kept me a child," Scott said, "because when I grew up I could leave."

"I wouldn't doubt it," Charles agreed. "Are you all right?"

Scott nodded. He wasn't, but then, they both knew that.

"I can bring the memory to the front of your mind—your parents. If you'd like."

"Would it help?"

"Yes, I believe so."

Scott wasn't sure. Maybe it would help, but maybe remembering would only hurt. How much could he miss his parents if he didn't even remember them? But if he did—if the memory came forward in his mind, if they became people—he hadn't really grieved. He had adjusted.

Some part of him knew that if he remembered his parents now, he would mourn their loss. It was beyond his ability to endure.

"You should know that you were never in foster care."

That wasn't right. Scott remembered. Mr. Milbury told him—he went with the family one morning and they brought him back the following evening. They didn't want him. "No, that's—I was. For two days."

"It was a lie. Perhaps to control you, perhaps to hurt you, but think of what Milbury did to keep you young. He wouldn't have risked losing you. I searched your memories. There was never any foster home."

Scott took a deep breath. For Alex, he reminded himself, because the lie had hurt. Being looked over was one thing. Potential parents had plenty of orphans to choose from; empty as it made him feel, he could accept not being among the most likable. But being so deeply flawed that after a few days with him, a couple preferred childlessness…

He gripped the sink, trying to keep from physically seething—which he felt like, at the moment. He knew there were bad people in the world, but there was no word too cold for Milbury, nor any word so cold as the man himself.

"Hank is a scientist, but he would never do something like this," Scott said, the closest he could manage to putting his thoughts to words. "Experiment. That's the word Milbury used. He—did things—he—what was the point? An experiment always has a purpose, a hypothesis to test."

This was, undeniably, a conversation. Even Scott had to accept that, so he finally turned away from the sink and pretended he had manners.

"We can't determine what motivates a man like that. I don't think it would do us any good to even try. He's in your past now."

"I guess," Scott agreed, because he nearly always agreed. He wasn't sure Milbury was his past, though. Not until the nightmares stopped.

"It's not what you expected, is it, getting what you want?" Charles asked.

It wasn't. Scott realized, thinking about it, that he had not wanted to know that Alex was his brother. He had wanted to feel it. He wanted not to be an orphan anymore.

Scott didn't and couldn't answer, and the question had probably been rhetorical, anyway.

"Alex wants to speak with you, when you're ready."

He nodded. "What's going to happen to me?"

"Hopefully this will wear off and you'll return to aging normally. Hank may be able to tell. You're still welcome here, you always will be."

"I'm older than Hank now."

"Yes, I suppose you are."

"I shouldn't be, you know. In high school."

"Scott, you are not an adult. You're fifteen. That's what he allowed you, fifteen years."

Scott considered that. Fifteen years as himself. Ten years as Milbury's. He tugged at his sweater and tried not to think about what that made him.

"Where's Alex?"

Charles telepathically sought him out. "He's outside, attempting to pet the cat. With little success, I might add."

In the two minutes Scott needed to gather his thoughts and walk out the front door, Alex had resigned himself to the fact that he would not be petting Artie. Instead he brushed a stalk of grass along her fur and tried to avoid being clawed when she attacked the grass. The plastic picture frame lay face-down beside him.

"Hey, Alex."

"Hey."

"You wanted to talk to me?"

"Yeah," Alex agreed, then for a long moment stayed quiet. "Um… you know how to rebuild an engine?"

Scott shook his head. "I'd like to learn."

Alex had not wanted to talk about engines. He picked up the picture frame, detached the back, and slid out two photos. He offered them to Scott. After a moment's hesitation, Scott took both. One was the familiar photograph of the family.

"Flip it over," Alex told him.

Scott did.

The words were faint, but still legible. In faded blue ink on the back: Christopher, Scott Matthew, Katherine Anne. And under 'Katherine Anne', written in another hand: (Alexander Cole Summers).

Scott stared at the words. He knew those names. His parents. His brother. Him. This was his family.

"They're young," he observed. It was his first time really looking at the picture and seeing it, not thinking about what it might imply, and he realized that his parents looked about Alex's age. "She looked just like you."

"Yeah."

"Where did these come from?"

Alex shrugged. "I've had them as long as I can remember. You should have this one, though."

"Thank you."

"It was never really mine."

Scott wanted to reply that he didn't mind, but Alex had a point. Why should he hang on to pictures of a family he had not yet become a part of? That said, "Do you want this one?" It didn't seem right that he should have both pictures. They had so little left of their parents.

"I didn't even know it was there. It's not mine."

He wanted to keep it for himself. The way Scott grew up, he had no one to love him, no one to reminisce. Nobody told him stories about when he was a little boy, certainly nobody cared enough to keep pictures. He wanted these reminders that he had, once, been loved.

Scott set the photo in Alex's hand. "You should have this one," he said.

It was a picture with an obvious story behind it: a mother guiding her son's arms, telling him to be very careful, the strangeness of trusting a little boy with a newborn.

"That's you and me."