'I am a planet turning round the sun,
With a brilliant blaze of glory
It heats everyone.
I am a comet flying through the stars—
With a trailing tail of mystery,
I travel very far.'
"Planets" ~ Joseph
The Parker house is, for once, quiet.
Not to say that it isn't always peaceful, filled with the low volume energy of people bustling fluidly around each other. But often it's accompanied by children shrieking and pots boiling away and one of Sam's stories making the guys groan or argue its veracity.
This hush is even more surprising considering all the younger children are here and mostly in one place.
Wordy pauses in drying the dishes, but there still isn't a peep from the living room, aside from the exaggerated voices of a cartoon playing.
Everyone else is out on the deck or upstairs, asleep at the later hour.
He's careful to only pick up plastic or metal dishware, in case he drops it—not an isolated incident, sadly. The glasses he leaves to Greg, also drying.
Wordy grimaces while scrubbing away at one of Sadie's sippy cups.
Greg catches him, of course. "I bet Shelley's glad to have you around more often now, for stuff like this. Laundry, dishes, cooking. What can't you do?"
"I'm getting to be quite the trophy husband." Wordy manages a smile. "Paperwork from home is not as fun as it sounds though."
"I'll bet."
There's another lull of companionable silence. Wordy watches through the window as Jules glares down her pumpkin like a rude subject. Sam's pumpkin is a flawless smiley face, complete with a carved out pair of spectacles, while Jules' is mangled, the beginnings of a bat that went awry.
Greg chuckles. "At least your house isn't at my level of chaos. I'm just glad Marina enjoys it, that she understands this team and I are a package deal."
"Happy chaos, Greg. That's what counts."
"And I wouldn't change it for the world. Just don't tell the others or they'll start a camp in my kitchen."
Wordy mimes zipping his lips. "Your secret's safe with me."
At the word, that one word alone, Greg's movements slow to a stand still. He's holding a spatula, paused in the act of drying out the slits, when he winds down like a music box.
"I still can't believe it," Greg whispers. "That this happened at all. That they were abducted and sold and poisoned and…"
Wordy nods. "None of it seems real."
Both men pause, trying to hear the happy, muted sounds of their children in the living room.
Ed and Spike are alive—alive!
Wordy resumes his methodical cleaning of the utensils, his mind on mentors who lost their protégés and crooked FBI agents lying because they were paid by a wealthy man and secret base camps in the desert.
"Greg." Wordy turns to face him fully. "There's just one thing I never understood…"
Greg returns to the present with a rustle of the towel. "Just one?"
Wordy laughs a little. "It all feels like a dream, like something that happens to other people."
"No argument here. Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night and just sit outside Spike's door, listening to the sound of him breathing. The fact he's not choking on it anymore."
Confusion plows a furrow in Wordy's brow. "How did you guys track down Spike? There was no cellphone call, like you used to find Ed, and the private plane kept below a certain ceiling to avoid air traffic towers and border laws."
There's no technical explanation that can match the sheer pleasure of watching Greg's face melt into one of such mischief and triumph.
"That," he says, "was a stroke of complete luck."
"…Luck. Luck saved Spike's life?"
Greg slings the towel over his shoulder so he can dig in his pockets. "Luck and a heaping of hubris."
Before Wordy can tease through that statement, Greg pulls out a grainy photo. It's got longitude and latitude numbers at the bottom, along with some complicated satellite readings, but there are no people in it. In fact, it's completely neutral in colour except for one thing.
One very short, very crimson set of footprints.
They stand out because of the bleached grey nature of what looks to be a hidden tarmac.
Like rock candy popping on Wordy's tongue, the hallowed sensation spreads clear through to his fingertips. "It's…they're…"
"A US military satellite took this when a local taxi driver noticed blood on the hem of our tycoon's robe and told his boss, who then told federal agents in their airports sweep."
Greg taps the image, looking at it with love in his eyes. "We flew Sam out before this lead, obviously, because we knew they were taking Spike somewhere to the Middle East. We just didn't know where."
Wordy runs a hand down his smiling mouth. "But Almasi didn't realize he'd stepped in a puddle of Spike's blood."
"When he got off the plane just before hitting the Saudi border…"
"His sandals left a faint trail."
"And from there," Greg finishes, "we contacted Riyadh air traffic controllers and radar operators to find the only plane that didn't have a registered flight path. It was a mad dash to get Sam there in time."
For a few minutes, they gaze at the footprints. Seven total. Like stars pointing sailors home in the dark of an open sea.
"How did he not notice?" Wordy wonders aloud.
Greg huffs too. "Spike's blood probably didn't show up in the plane's carpeting when he walked out. Here, in dry earth…"
"His soles wrung out, like a sponge. The sun dried them so fast that blood got baked into this tarmac."
Greg's thumb traces the outline of each print, hazy as they are.
"In a way, Spike's trick with the blood did work." Wordy points to his feet. "If not in the woods to lead them away from Ed, then here, to lead us towards him."
"Like I said…luck and Almasi's hubris, in no small supply."
"And you've kept it, all this time?" Wordy asks.
Greg doesn't look away from the photo, and his face hardly changes, but a vivid sheen coats Greg's eyes. He swallows, trying to banish it, but this doesn't work.
A flutter of something oozing and affectionate foams in Wordy's stomach, when he understands.
Quietly, he says, "I keep a copy of my daughters' baby footprints in my wallet. Shelley's got their ultrasound photos. Welcome to the club, Greg."
The first tear falls against the bright and shining sight of Greg grinning, teeth and all. "I'm a little late."
"Never. It's never too late."
"They saved his life." Greg shakes his head. "I just want to remember…want to honour what he went through and how it saved their lives, by however shoe string a margin."
Wordy claps his friend's chest. "We got them back, Greg. And they're not going anywhere."
Greg listens, perking up at the growing sound of voices. "That might be his problem at the moment."
"I'll go check on them." Wordy laughs. "Besides, you just don't want me to eat that last piece of lemon meringue I know you have squirreled away in the fridge."
"I admit nothing!" Greg calls back.
Wordy waves him off without looking. Everyone knows Greg is the real sweets hog in this household, competing with Dean for the last slice of everything.
When Wordy rounds the corner to the living room, Spike is bundled tight into the corner of the couch.
It's a new tic since rescued, the fact that Spike sometimes wants to sleep curled up very tightly. Not often, but when he feels alone or vulnerable. They'll find him, knees tucked up to his chest, huddled on the floor of his room or against a tree or on the landing.
However, he's already well on his way to stretching back out.
The noise of three little girls around him seems to be doing the trick. They've attached themselves to their beloved fireworks man without abandon.
Sadie sits on his feet, on the floor, bouncing along and riveted to yet another episode of Kim Possible—Jules' favourite growing up and a staple of the Braddock household. She hums around a soother.
Izzy is using a plastic My Little Pony hairbrush to stroke her giraffe, plopped across Spike's knees. Lilly gently reaches out to move Izzy's elbow away from Spike's stomach whenever it gets dangerously in range.
He nods gratefully at her.
Lilly sits underneath Spike's left arm, up against his side. Her eyes are troubled, studying Spike with a touch of uncertainty.
Wordy's oldest has been the hardest to talk to about the whole ordeal. She's right on the cusp of being old enough to understand what happened but young enough to be disturbed by even the glossed over truth.
She has as many nightmares as Spike.
Jules and Wordy eventually sat her down and explained that some very bad men took Spike and Ed because they wanted money. Greg and the team got them safely back. The end.
But Lilly is smarter than that.
She knows how tender Spike's stomach still is. She senses that he struggles when Ed isn't here.
Wordy watches her and realizes she's been carrying a lot without telling any of them, except perhaps the man she's currently leaning on.
Spike's eyes are half lidded. Closed enough to feel sleepy. Open enough to keep an eye on the children, with two of them being under the age of three.
Sure enough, when Lilly's fingers briefly touch Spike's purple cheek, he looks down at her with a sad smile. "I took my medication so I'm not in any pain, Miss Wordsworth. Just like the last time you asked. Don't worry."
"Okay." Lilly snuggles back up against him. But she's not really watching Ron or his naked mole rat. "Was it scary?"
"Was what scary?"
"When the bad guys took you?"
Wordy tenses, preparing himself to head off this conversation.
"Oh." Spike watches Sadie for a moment, her on-the-beat bobbing against his toes. She's going to have Jules' energy one day. She already does have Jules' energy. "Not the bad guys, no. But Ed got hurt and that was really scary, yeah."
"He had to have stitches on his head."
"Yep, that's right. It's called a concussion."
"Con-cu-ssion." Lilly tries the word out. "Is that why Uncle Ed is tired all the time? He couldn't look at screens for a while either."
Spike squeezes her. "You got it."
Lilly thinks about this. Long enough that one episode finishes and another one starts.
"Daddy's hurt too. But he doesn't need stitches."
Spike hesitates, then taps Lilly's knee. "One is a short term injury—like Ed's cranium—and one is long term, something that's a lot harder to heal from. But your Dad is fine right now, Lilly. He's not going anywhere."
Wordy's chest is a geyser, shooting up a burst of pain and love and fear. Especially to hear the echo of his own words and the tender way Spike says them.
Izzy saves them all a breakdown by lifting her giraffe so high it bops Spike on the nose. "Look, S…'pike! He's better now."
Spike runs a hand over the velvety fur. "He looks very nice. I especially love his tail. It reminds me of a comet."
"A comet?" asks Izzy. She and Spike play with the tuft of brown tail hair.
"Yeah," says Spike. "Kind of like a shooting star."
Izzy gasps. "Like makin' a wish!"
"Comets and shooting stars aren't the same thing," Lilly protests.
"Sure they are." Spike gets that excited look in his eye. "Most shooting stars we see, a streak because of the Earth's curvature and burning up in atmosphere, are actually space debris caught in the orbit of a larger celestial body."
There's a quick silence and then Spike seems to realize his audience. "Err…suffice it to say: yes, sometimes they are the same thing."
Lilly tickles Izzy so that she squeals. "Now every time you move his tail, you can make a wish, Iz."
Sadie looks up at all this fuss. When Izzy dangles the tail, she plays with it too.
"Comets are important, you know," says Spike.
Lilly glances at him, eyes clouded. "Why? Aren't they just rocks?"
"Because…" Spike passes a hand over Sadie's wispy, butterscotch head. "They say that we're important. That we're not alone and everything in the universe matters, even if it doesn't last very long. There's beauty and hope to be found everywhere. Kinda sentimental, but that's why I like them."
Lilly sighs a thoughtful, small sound and Spike rubs her shoulder.
"I do you' hair?"
Spike leans his head back. "My hair? That's a hard pass, Iz."
"That means go for it!" Lilly goads.
Izzy burbles something too fast to hear and stands on Spike's thighs to get at his hair.
Spike rolls his head to squint at Lilly. "I didn't peg you for an instigator. What would your father say?"
Lilly laughs, even though she doesn't know what the word means.
Wordy catches her eye and taps his nose. "I'd say I've known all along, young lady."
Spike looks at him in surprise, apparently having no idea he was there. He lightly bats Izzy's hands away while waving at him. It's a lost cause, with the blue barrettes Izzy already has started in his bangs.
Lilly and Wordy share a meaningful look and then he scoops her up, sitting beside Spike. "What would you wish for if you saw a shooting star, honey?"
"Umm…" Lilly fidgets with Spike's watch. "What would you wish for, Spike?"
Spike looks at Izzy 'styling' his hair with the plastic brush and Wordy's faintly shaking hands and the distant sound of Sam laughing while Jules swears at her pumpkin.
He smiles. "I think I already have it."
Lilly nods in her sage way.
Wordy tugs gently on Izzy's ponytail like a doorbell. "What's your wish, Iz?"
She turns to him, finger on her lips, and is about to fall clean onto the floor until Spike's hand catches her around the middle. "'S a secret, Unca Wordy."
"Oh, of course. My bad." His eyes twinkle, finger to his lips. "Lilly? You're not going to tell us yours?"
Lilly's eyes are on the palm Spike has laid flat, where she splays her own against it. The tiger stripe scarring of his skin that will never fade. The mauve, ugly cigar burn on his neck.
"I wish I had a remote," she says. "One that could pause time. Like this."
Wordy envelopes her hand, and she rocks forward to kiss his cheek. It strikes him afresh that as the oldest, Lilly will always remember more of him, the reality of his diagnosis, more than his other two daughters. She'll be both blessed and cursed by that.
"I love you, sweat pea."
"I love you too, Daddy."
Spike picks up the soother Sadie has lost in her lap and presents it to her, then stretches all the way out so his neck is cradled by the back of the couch.
"You know what, Lilly?" He blows a raspberry in the hand sneaking a bow around his hair. Over Izzy's giggles, he declares, "I'd love one of those too. You might just be on to something."
AN: Everyone spot the hobby (obsessed) astronomer! I adore space facts and studying stellar navigation in my free time, weaving it into my stories' imagery wherever I can.
