Out of sight—out of mind. At least that's what they say. Whoever the hell 'they' are. But there's no saying for out of time. But that's what we were—that's what we are. Out of time.
I can't really think of something to say to make up for that. There's nothing to say to make the uprooting of our lives okay. Our lives were ripped out from under us and though it's been said that it must be for a reason—I can't think of any reason good enough, and there's nothing foreseeable on the horizon that seems worth it.
Suddenly a white light erupted in the sky over me. I lifted my other arm to shield my eyes from the brightness. But in the next second, I was gone.
I lost sixteen years, my brother, my parents, all my friends, my home—everything. Then I woke up on a beach on a mountain with thousands of other people in my exact same shoes. We just... appeared. After years away, we just appeared out of nowhere. And then we had to get re-acclimated into society years after we'd disappeared.
And even if that wasn't enough—some of us came back different.
"The 4400 menace?" Shawn read out loud, incredulously, "I know this guy. I was in quarantine with him."
"They're saying he killed someone, just by thinking about it," Danny said.
Tom, Diana and Marco gathered in the Theory Room back at base. Tom paced frustrated, "Goddam serial killer. This guy murders eight people before he's abducted. They send him back, he picks up where he left off."
"In '83, Knox was your garden variety psychopath," Marco elaborated, "They sent him back enhanced. Big difference."
"Well, it makes whoever took him sound pretty nasty," Diana quipped.
"I never meant to scare anyone," Maia frowned, coloring with a green crayon in an interview room with Tom and Diana.
"We know that, sweetie," Tom told her gently, "But why did you say those things to Mrs. Krause about her daughter?"
"Because they're true," Maia answered simply.
"But how did you know?" Tom elaborated.
Maia kept coloring, "I just do."
"You did it," Rio answered him simply. Shawn stared at her dumbly, not understanding. "That night at the hospital when you came in to see me. You touched my hand, and then suddenly all the pain was gone, even my headache. And then the next morning the doctor came in to change my bandage and there was no wound."
Rio stepped closer into his side leaning up to kiss his lips, "You healed me, Shawn... you have a gift."
Davey shifted in his seat across the room. He shrugged, "I'm... different."
"Different?" Ben repeated, "Different how?"
"I know things," Davey answered, "When I touch people—I know everything about them. I know everything about your life while I was gone. I knew when you hugged me. It just... happens."
Rio sighed, "I don't know what's happening to me—whatever they did to me. They changed me."
"They?" Diana asked.
"Whoever took us!" Rio raised her voice, "The aliens—the scientists—whoever it was! They changed me."
"Changed you how?" Tom asked her.
"I can hear people when they're not talking," Rio told him near tears, "I hear what they're hearing. And it's so painful. But I can't turn it off!"
And most of us lost much more than time...
"So they found your family," Shawn changed the subject, "They must be thrilled to hear you're alive."
"If only," Rio muttered, clutching the photograph, "They're all dead."
Shawn gaped at her, before frowning solemnly, "Oh my god—I'm sorry."
The little blonde girl, Maia, appeared one the screen. She looked sad, "They're dead aren't they?"
"This is Maia Rutledge," Diana informed her partner, "She was the first one to disappear, as far as we can tell. She was eight years old, only she was born in 1938."
"I'll be okay," Maia frowned, "Mostly."
"Nice tattoo," Shawn commented, noticing the red ink heart and black letters on Richard's arm, "Who's Lily?"
Richard glanced at the tattoo and frowned, "A girl I used to know."
"Dominic Bello was a wonderful and giving man," an older gentlemen that Alice barely recognized as Dominic's High School best friend, Ralph, spoke the last speech at Dominic's memorial service.
She stood over her husband's casket and let Teddy hold the flower in her hand. "Do you want to drop the flower for Daddy?"
Teddy hummed over his pacifier as his little hand released the flower from his grasp and it fell in slow motion towards the casket, landing softly among the red roses as the casket was lowered into the ground.
But it wasn't so bad, I guess. I met some new friends. Even if they were peculiar. There was Maia, a small blonde girl who disappeared over twenty years before me. She seemed to just... know things.
"Hey there, Maia," Rio greeted the little girl as she approached her, "What's up?"
"It's almost four," Maia told her.
Rio looked up at the clock distractedly, "Oh—right. I need to go take a pill." She went to stand up but paused and faced the little girl, "How'd you know that?"
Maia shrugged and walked away, leaving Rio to watch after her a little perturbed.
She ended up moving in with Homeland Security Agent Diana, and they've been happy together. At first it was hard, juggling a position at Homeland Security and a member of the 4400 in your home. It was difficult to find a place for Maia to stay. But eventually Maia found her own caretaker, a woman from her own era—even her own year, 1946.
Her name is Alice, she and her baby boy Theodore disappeared six months after Maia, in Eureka, California. Alice's husband grew old while she was away and died soon after she got back. At least they got to say their goodbyes. Alice decided to come back to Seattle after the service and her late husband's grandson, Ethan, decided to go with her and take care of her. The two had become close friends—and they eventually grew into more.
"He told me that I was his soul mate," Alice explained, looking into Ethan's eyes, "But that we all have room in our hearts for more than one love. And he said... to find someone to love."
"Do you think you will?" Ethan asked her seriously.
"I think I already have," Alice whispered, looking him in the eye. They slowly leaned closer and closer until their lips brushed together, flood gates of emotion pouring into their first kiss as lovers.
Most of us came back to nothing—like me. Luckily, I found a new home with the Hudsons. George and Sarah were happy to open their home to me and I eventually began to think of it as my own home as well. At first it was strange... sleeping in a bed that wasn't my own, waking up in a house that I didn't grow up in. It was all bizarre. I got used to it, and eventually I even felt welcomed. Eventually, I even got comfortable enough to start thinking of them as family.
Nikki weakly laughed, yet still smiled after, and smiled at Rio, "Thank you, Rhiannon. You always seem to know exactly what to say to make me feel better." She twisted her fingers together, "Over the past couple months you've been living here, I've started to think of you as a sister. Is that weird?"
Rio laughed, the sound mimicking a scoff, "No—that's not weird. That's actually kinda boss."
"I'm still not used to your old slang," Nikki laughed, "Boss is good, right?"
Rio rolled her eyes, "Yes, dear, boss is good."
Yes, I made quite a few new friends since coming back. But one stood out... Shawn.
Shawn was my best friend. He was there for me from the beginning. Since we woke up on that beach and he helped me up off the ground when I fell. Since his touch calmed me down during a break down in quarantine.
Shawn caught sight of some of the guards rushing toward her with syringes. He jogged to her and grabbed her elbows like he had the night they all ended up at the mountain, "Hey, you gotta calm down, or I'm sure somewhere they've got a rubber room with your name on it."
"Whatever," Rhiannon spat at him, "It's not like I haven't been locked up in one before."
Shawn pressed his hand to her chin to make her look up at him, "You'll get whatever you want if you just calm down, okay?"
Rhiannon felt a bolt of energy hit her, calming down her nerves as she stopped fidgeting, "Okay."
Shawn sat slouched in a seat at a table, watching the news talk about court appeals for their release when he heard, "Excuse me?"
He turned to see the girl who had the freak out, timidly approaching him where he sat. He smiled disarmingly at her, "Hey, how are you feeling since last week?"
The girl took a seat next to him and smiled sarcastically, "I've got some new twenty-first century happy pills now. Pretty bitchin. I'm Rhiannon Mitchell—Rio for short."
Shawn shook her hand, "Shawn Farrell."
He was the one who made it possible for me to live with the Hudsons, right next door to him. He was always there to talk. But he held his own feelings back, his own insecurities. We both had a hard time adjusting to the changes in the world. He was only gone three years, but I think to him it felt like three decades. I knew he felt like a stranger in his own home. His brother treated him like an alien and all people did at the High School was point, whisper, and stare at us. It made him feel like a freak.
"Fine, you want to hear about my shitty life?" Shawn asked her, growing angry, "My dad's never around, all my mom does is stare at me, my Uncle thinks I did something to Kyle to make him this way and my brother hates that I'm back. You are the one and only good thing in my life. Everything else is a shitty world filled with three years worth of gaps I can't catch up to and I feel like such a pussy because people like you and others have a decade or more to catch up to and you're fine."
But I found ways to help him and he found ways to help me. We helped each other. We were there for each other. We loved each other.
"I love you, Shawn."
Shawn breathed out in disbelief, but smiling at her like the sun shined in her eyes, "I love you, Rhiannon."
They simultaneously leaned towards each other like attracted magnets until their lips met together in the middle, brushing together again and again until they saw stars behind their closed eyelids.
But somewhere along the way I lost him. Shawn was looking anywhere for some kind of sign that he belonged somewhere—that he had a calling. And Jordan Collier just happened to have some manufactured answers for him.
He paused, his front coming to face Shawn and Rhiannon, "You listen to the news, you read the paper, you hear the talk. It seems like the entire world is turning against us." Returnees around started to whisper in agreement. But Rio kept her eyes narrow and trained on Collier, "Well, what are we going to do about it? Are we gonna give up? Run and hide? Maybe. Or maybe, just maybe, we build a world of our own."
"I know you're feeling confused, and I can't blame you. But it sounds to me like you've been given a gift."
Shawn glanced down at Rio with a small smile, "That's what she calls it."
Collier smiled at the young girl, "Well, she's right. And this gift, don't let it scare you. You will find the right way to use it."
Shawn retreated into thought, "Okay."
And I guess that all sounded perfect to Shawn—a whole new world for the 4400 to live apart from the rest of the world. It all sounded like a scam to me. And while that may be a result of being jaded from the eighties, I could never shake the dreaded feeling Jordan Collier always gave me when we met. I didn't trust him from the beginning. The problem was that Shawn did. And when Shawn's gift almost killed his brother and his family looked at him like a monster—Jordan Collier provided him with an escape. But he stole Shawn away from me.
"You're the only good thing that's happened to me since I've been back," Shawn told her sincerely, "But I can't stay here and you won't want to come where I'm going."
"Where is that?" Rio asked as he pulled his face from her hands and walked around his car to the drivers seat, "Where are you going, Shawn?"
"I can't tell you," Shawn replied as he opened the door.
"Too late," Rio growled as the thought entered his head, "You thought of it as soon as I asked you. You can't seriously go to him, Shawn. He can't be trusted."
"I have no where else to go!" Shawn shouted at her.
Rio rushed to him, holding the car door open from his trying to get in the car and drive away, "No—just calm down. Let's talk about this."
A tear escaped from her eye as Shawn looked down at her, "I love you, Rhiannon. I love you so much."
"Then stay with me," Rio whispered, "This isn't right-"
"I can't," Shawn told her, "I need to get away from here."
"But it's not right if you're away from me," Rio told him crying.
Shawn frowned painfully, feeling tears in his own eyes, "I told you I would hurt you. I love you, Rio," he leaned down and pressed his lips firmly onto hers. He pulled away just as quickly and yanked the door closed after he took his seat, starting the car.
Rio slammed her hand against the glass of the window, "Don't do this, Shawn. You can't trust that guy—I promise you that. Please just get out of the car!"
He didn't listen as he pulled away from the sidewalk, avoiding hitting her as she backed away from the car, tears raining down her face uncontrollably.
"What happened?" she whipped her head to see Nikki standing there uncertainly, "I heard shouting."
"What happened?" Rio asked her dangerously, "What happened? You told Danny that you fell for my boyfriend. Danny came at him, punching him and they got into a fight. Now Susan and Danny hate us—and Shawn's run off to join a cult. That's what happened, Nikki—are you happy?"
Nikki frowned, feeling the sting of guilt and tears in her eyes as she saw the utter heartbreak she caused her surrogate sister, "I'm so sorry."
Rio ran a hand through her curls, clenching her eyes shut briefly, "Why? Why does this shit happen? This was supposed to be a second chance for all of us. And everything just turns to shit anyway."
"I know there's nothing I can say to make this better," Nikki started softly, "But I-"
"No," Rio cut her off angrily, walking to the Hudsons' house, "There's nothing you can say."
It's been about six months since then. I've forgiven Nikki. It wasn't her fault that she fell for Shawn and her boyfriend overreacted. It wasn't her fault that Shawn's mom and brother turned on him. And it wasn't her fault that Shawn ran away.
I haven't seen or heard from Shawn since. But I had come home a few times and found flowers in my room that had been delivered while I was away, with a nondescript note that only ever held three words—I love you.
Those were all I had for a while. I had tried to go to the 4400 center to see him, to beg him to come home. I was prepared to tell him that we could get our own place together. In another town. That I would be willing to start a whole new life, despite what I heard on that beach with Tom and the future man in Kyle's body telling me about my important role in time. But I had been stopped at the gate. They told me that Shawn had me on a list of people not to be allowed inside. I had been so devastated. He abandoned me so readily. It hadn't even been a month when I went to the center, but he was already beyond saving.
After months of the flowers growing fewer and farther between, I decided I could only move on. I had to find my calling. And I think I might have. My ability allowed me to link especially with members of the 4400. And I got the chance to use those abilities to help people, returnee or not.
And I just felt indescribably drawn to the idea—helping people with my ability. It gave me a chance to grow and see that something good could actually come from what happened to me. And it was only confirmed that I was meant to be doing this when Shawn's Uncle Tom and I found out what really happened to us.
"I come from a different time," Kyle answered, "That is all. Your future."
"I was right..." Rio breathed, "This is all part of some plan—putting us all here with what we can do, to create some sort of ripple effect and change the future."
"We needed you all," Kyle confirmed for her.
"For what?" Tom asked.
"To survive," Kyle told them grimly, "In my time, humanity is dying out."
Tom and Rio stared at him in shock. Tom spoke, "You mean it's all going to end? Everything?"
"Only those we took could prevent the catastrophe from happening," Kyle explained, "That's why they've been altered and seeded back into the time line."
"Why take us and put us here and this moment?" Rio asked him.
"Because history tells us this is where the path to oblivion began," Kyle stared out at the trees.
"And the people you took are gonna stop that from happening?" Tom posed for him, "How?"
"Rhiannon and the others have already begun their work. And you have begun yours," Kyle assured them.
So, I knew I had work to do. I had people to help. So, I put Shawn to the back of my mind and focused on moving on with my life. Things were only about to get more complicated in my life though.