Disclaimer: I don't own anything!
Author's Note: Not quite sure how the last section came out. Didn't think I did it justice. Opinions?
My brother and I's book, the first in an alternate history/fantasy series, is now up on authonomy. Link is on my profile and I'm putting it here with some spaces. It's not completely uploaded yet, but there are about two updates a week. I would very much appreciate it if some of you guys stopped by, took a look and offered thoughts. Yes, I'm going to keep this here.
www . authonomy books / 47917 / sanctum - files - the - dragon - scroll /
"Home is the one place in all this world where hearts are sure of each other. It
is the place of confidence. It is the place where we tear off that mask of
guarded and suspicious coldness which the world forces us to wear in
self-defense, and where we pour out the unreserved communications of full and
confiding hearts. It is the spot where expressions of tenderness gush out
without any sensation of awkwardness and without any dread of ridicule."
~Frederick W. Robertson
Arthur is a fan of classic rock.
The roads of the American Midwest seemed to never end, stretching out past the horizon. The wide expanse and the lack of many people road-tripping straight across was something that allowed Arthur—usually such a safe driver—to speed a little. It surprised Eames a bit, but he settled back into the passenger seat, feeling the warm wind whip through the open window. It lulled him on and off to sleep; he'd offered to drive, but after the last time, Arthur said that he wasn't in any rush.
Eames woke again, slowly, to the sound of the radio playing.
Death comes sweeping through the hallway
Like a lady's dress
He glanced over at Arthur, kind of bobbing his head to the music and occasionally humming a little under his breath, half a cigarette wobbling between his lips. (He looks younger at times like these, more like a teenager than the maybe twenty-one year old that he actually is. He's no longer serious, no longer military posture and sharpness; these times, he's a guitar solo and tapping at the steering wheel like he's playing the drums) Eames also looked at the time; he'd been out for a while, nearly four hours. No wonder Arthur had turned on the radio.
Death comes driving down the highway
In its Sunday best
"Wouldn't have pegged you for a fan of them, darling," Eames said, not quite lifting his head from where it was cradled by the seatbelt. That was one rule Arthur had insisted upon; that Eames where his seatbelt, despite how it dug a bit into his collarbone.
"Don't sound so disappointed; I thought you liked knowing who didn't fit into their boxes."
A fire of unknown origin
Took my baby
Took my baby away...
Eames did. And he was very much liking how, the more he learned about Arthur, the more he seemed to have his own, unique box. "To be quite honest, I think you're not in a box at all. Not a square box."
"Oh really?" Arthur said, humoring him.
"Absolutely. Much more circular, like a hat box or something."
Arthur arched an eyebrow at him. "That may be the strangest thing I've ever heard taken literally."
Eames shifted to sit upright, leaning one arm on the window, letting his fingers play in the wind. "Just keeping you on your toes."
Take me down to the paradise city,
Where the grass is green and the girls are pretty
"Uh-huh."
Eames smiled a little and looked out at the endless fields, at the fiery picture the sun made as it set. He liked days like this; days when they did nothing but drive. Perhaps one day they could do this without being on the run. And in a car with proper air conditioning. It was a nice thought.
Oh, won't you please take me home?
Arthur has his father's eyes.
There were old photo books in Emma's house. Arthur and Eames set them aside for Mina to look through. (Arthur knows the dangers of keeping personal photographs. He's broken the rule once already with Arthur James Reynolds, the only photo he keeps of any of his family)
Mina joined them in the cleaning of Emma's house on the second day. There was a faint redness to her eyes that said she'd been crying, but she smiled when she saw them and gave Arthur a tight hug. She was herself today, not the wife, not the mother. She wore old jeans with ragged hems, splattered with some bleach stains and a white breast cancer shirt, well-worn and with boxing gloves tied neatly together with a pink ribbon with the words Fight Like a Girl written underneath in bold font.
She went to the kitchen first and stared around, as though waiting. Eames had looked away then; Arthur had done much the same and Eames knew what it was to miss a mother.
She seemed surprised at how clean everything was. Boxes were everywhere, but the floors were swept and the table and countertops spotless. Mina glanced over at Eames, who shook his head.
"I'm not the cleanest sort, I'm afraid. It's all Ar-Cameron."
Mina seemed surprised at that and Eames liked the idea that Arthur had not always been so tidy.
She flipped through the photo books while they all ate lunch. They thought about going out, but it didn't feel right, so Mina ordered pizza and they double-dipped the crusts in the garlic sauce. There was a fond smile on her face through most of the photos, a smile touched with sadness. Eames wondered if Arthur had gone through those books as well.
"…Do you remember this?" Mina turned the book to her brother.
It was a picture of the three siblings stretched out in the shade beneath a large tree. One of the twins—Eames had to take a closer look to be able to say which one, though he could guess by the book in his lap (He doesn't know if Arthur James Reynolds liked to read. He doesn't know any of his habits and he doesn't know just how different the twins had been in terms of personality)—had their legs crossed and neither of them wore glasses yet. Mina's head was on the twin not reading's thigh, the rest of her curled up under a jacket. The other twin was leaning his head on his brother's shoulder, most likely dozing.
"It was the tree outside mom's classroom," Arthur recognized. They'd spent many a schoolday afternoon there, waiting for their mother to be finished with work.
"You broke your arm climbing it," Mina said, smiling.
Arthur shrugged a little. "I was eleven, what can I say?"
"You were dumb, is what. You only did it 'cause you were dared."
Something about the inflection of the words let Eames know exactly who had done the daring.
After Mina had finished looking through the books, she set them aside, though Eames noted that she left the last few pages of each untouched, not even glancing at them. It was after the day was done and Mina kissed them both on the cheek before she left—"God knows what chaos the kids have managed to cause by now," said with a roll of the eyes—and Arthur was showering that Eames looked through the books.
There were a few that were well aged and slightly yellowed. There were lazy days and not-so-lazy days photographed. There were days at a lake, where one of the twins was on a boulder, arms thrown out wide, hair everywhere and Eames could imagine them shouting that they were king of the world. Mina in a ballet class. Emma with her arms around one of her sons, kissing his temple. It went on and on.
The photos got more yellowed as the pages flipped. Photos of the twins holding a baby Mina in her pink blanket. Of first days of school. Of Halloween costumes and Christmases. Of baptisms. There were spaces where photos might have been once. There was one of a man holding both of the twins, one with a leg around each of his neck, chin balanced on the top of his head and the other in his arms, laughing and squirming away at a long ago tickle.
The man was a plain sort of handsome, tall and his shoulders were set in a familiar sort of way, like old military (Like Arthur's….). A day's growth of stubble darkened his jawline and his nose wasn't quite straight anymore. But his eyes were a familiar shade of coffee brown and they were sparkling with laughter in the photo and Eames knew those eyes as well as he knew his own reflection.
(Arthur will never say that that is his father, but Eames knows)
There was another photo of a long ago wedding day and Emma was breathtaking—her children had her looks, Mina especially—in her white dress, arm in arm with William Scott Reynolds, who was clean shaven and grinning ridiculously wide, as though he couldn't quite believe his luck. His hair was shorter in this picture, almost military-short. He seemed a little uncomfortable in his tux though in a way that Arthur had never seemed in his suits. The best man was caught in mid-laughter, even as he was clapping.
In the few remaining pictures of him, the man didn't seem like the type to be a dirty cop (But then, Arthur doesn't seem like the type to be a dream thief. He always seems too polite, too neat for that kind of work and perhaps Arthur and his father have more in common than he's willing to admit)
Arthur is good with babies.
They told Mal they would take care of Phillipa so that she and Dom could have a night to themselves for the first time since the birth. "You deserve it," Arthur insisted, little Phillipa cradled in his arms.
Dom had looked a little uneasy because while Arthur had been dependable in every other aspect, children were a different story. "Are you sure? She's only a few months old, Arthur."
Eames had clapped Dom's shoulder. "Don't worry. I'll be here to make sure he doesn't accidentally drop the girl."
That did little for the new father's nerves. Mal just shot Eames a look and slipped her arm into her husband's. "Don't worry. I trust them. Or, I trust Arthur at least."
"I'm wounded that you would think me incapable." But that only made Mal laugh.
"Then prove me wrong," She challenged, knowing Eames wouldn't be able to turn that down.
It wasn't very difficult. Phillipa was an inquisitive baby, but she whimpered more than cried. They took turns holding her when she got tired of lying on the blanket spread on the wide, rocking armchair that usually doubled as a cradle, at least until she would get old enough to roll over. They traded off on movies and TV shows and Arthur dozed off somewhere in between My Fair Lady and Dead Poets' Society.
(Phillipa reminds Eames of his own little girl, back in England who probably isn't so little anymore and he wants to go back in time to when he could still feel her tug on his hand and hear her call him 'daddy')
Eames was in the bathroom when he heard Phillipa start crying again. By the time he got back to the living room to see if Arthur needed any help, she had quieted. Arthur had her cradled against his shoulder and was alternating between gently bouncing and rocking her. When Eames strained his ears, he could hear Arthur humming.
(It takes him a moment, but he wants to laugh out loud when he figures out what Arthur's humming. He'd been expecting some lullaby, but it isn't. He trades off, but the ones Eames catches are Don't Fear the Reaper and Love Me Tender and of course Arthur can't have chosen any normal songs, but they seem to be doing the trick, Phillipa's eyes half-lidded with sleep)
Arthur can convince anyone to do just about anything.
He doesn't quite have the courage to do it. He's managed to get this far, which is an accomplishment, but he can't quite cross the street, can't walk into the store, can't get within ten feet of her.
(His mind told him how ridiculous he was being. This was his daughter)
But she's a sharp one—her mother's daughter, for certain—and it's after less than a week that she notices him. She looks so very like Sherallyn that it hurts a little to see her. But she strides up to him with a brand of confidence and brass that's all unique to her.
She studies him like she doesn't quite know him (and the truly terrible part was that she didn't. He was a stranger to her, a stranger whose memories were only vague snatches of a voice and old photos. There weren't even really any pictures in his file for Interpol) and she asks, "…Dad?"
Eames doesn't know what to tell her. Doesn't know how to talk to her. Logically, it wouldn't be any different than talking to Phillipa or Mina, but it is. "Amara."
What she says next surprises him. "He said you'd show up sooner or later."
Eames blinks at her and can only connect one person between himself and her. "…He spoke to you?"
"Yeah, since he isn't afraid of me. Or for me." She crosses her arms and that angle of her hip, that is all Sherallyn. "Whichever."
"He told you that?"
"Was he wrong?"
"…No." Arthur knows him too well and Eames can't even really accuse him of crossing a line because ever since Amara found him first, he's been invested. She'd involved him.
Her eyes keep studying him and Eames struggles to keep still. His fingers are itching for a cigarette and his feet keep wanting to turn around and walk away. (In truth, she was looking for similarities. She'd been told for years that she got her looks from her mother, but when she'd get home that night, she would see the same lines of the face, the same curve of the lips. She has her mother's softness, has her nose and her chin, but she is her father's daughter as well)
Her eyes drop and she shoves her hands inside her pockets. After taking a deep breath, Amara says, "I knew this was a bad idea."
That hurts. (It was better that she thought that way. It would only keep hurting, but she would be safe) "…So why'd you do it?"
Her nose wrinkles and it's an expression he remembers. "I wanted to believe it wasn't and he made it sound like it."
And that means Eames has something to thank Arthur for. "Amara, I'm so sorry."
Her jaw sets and she's back to looking at him. "Oh really? For what? For never being there? For leaving for no apparent reason? For lying to us?"
"And what, specifically, did I lie to you about?"
"That money you sent—it was blood money."
"'Blood money'? I didn't kill anyone." It isn't, strictly speaking, true, but he's only hurt people when they came after him first.
"I'm using the term loosely." She glances around, lowering her voice a little. "Your file says that you're just a forger. A conman, a thief."
Eames keeps silent. He can't forget that she's the government now and he can't know that she won't arrest him.
Amara leans a little closer and there's a threat under her skin. "I'm not stupid. The kind of money you sent doesn't come from little things while still being able to provide for yourself and the things they caught you forging weren't worth that much."
"And if, hypothetically speaking, that was me, why do you sound like you don't believe it?"
"Oh, I believe it. Mom told me some stuff, about the two of you. Before. But there's talk of some technology. Some…device. Lets you go into people's minds." The look on her face says what she thinks about that.
"Sounds like you've been watching too much science fiction, darling."
"I'd say you're right, but in a lot of big cases—these…turnarounds that people seem to be so fond of having. Billionaires, business giants, all with these change of hearts—and everywhere it happens, you seem to always be nearby."
"Are you here to arrest me?"
And for the first time, she hesitates. "…Not today. All I want to know is why you left. For Arthur? Or Justin Peterson? Whoever he pretends to be?"
Eames huffs a laugh. "I didn't meet him until quite a bit later."
"So why?"
"…It's complicated, darling."
Amara spreads her arms, gesturing around her. "I don't have any appointments. I have time."
"Amara!"
They both look to the speaker. He's thin, tall with glasses. Eames catches the Interpol badge clipped to his belt. The light turns green and he's stuck on the other side of the street. "Apparently, you don't."
Before she can say anything, Eames is getting out of there. He wants to stay, wants to keep talking to her, even as his whole body is telling him it's a bad idea. He glances back only once (And once was enough for Orpheus…)and she's staring after him, fists clenched and the tall man joining up with her.
(Later, when he'd gone the long way home by taking planes to several other places before heading to Nairobi, he won't be surprised when, after two days, Arthur calls and all Eames will only be able to say one thing)
