Author's Notes: A two-part chapter, I'm too tired to write any more tonight, but I'll get the second part up soon.
Also, I forgot to mention the issue of Scott's eye color in Chapter One. They're brown in the comics and in the old cartoon. They're green in Evolution for some strange reason. Anyway, since I'm supposedly following Evolution canon, that's the way it goes.
Summary: (Part One) Alex recalls bits of his childhood post-adoption.
* * *
"Kids, may I have your attention please," Ms. Gibson asked the class, holding the hand of a small, blonde haired boy as he nervously shuffled his feet. "This is Alexander Masters. He'll be attending this class from now on. Please make him feel welcome." The young boy reluctantly left the teacher's side and sat between a very large boy wearing funny looking glasses and a smaller, slimmer built boy with corkscrew brown hair and a mischievous gleam in his eyes.
"Hi," the smaller boy said quickly as Alex quietly unpacked his stuff and took his seat beside the boy. Alex smiled at him uncertainly.
"I'm James Mardok. But everybody calls me Jamie. This here is Guido," Jamie said gesturing to the boy beside him. Alex nodded and smiled at the large boy who waved back at him in a friendly manner. "Do people call you 'Lex?"
"Alex," he corrected rather stiffly. He hated being called 'Lex and only tolerated it with adults or kids he knew very well.
"All right, all right, Alex it is. Hey, want to play with me and Guido during recess? 'Cause everyone's scared of Guido, we usually get the four square courts to ourselves."
Alex shrugged. "Kay, that sounds good to me."
"Good." Smiling, the three boys turned their attention back to Ms. Gibson who was telling them something about dinosaurs.
* * *
"Yo Alex!"
Whirling, Alex waved at Jamie and Guido. "In a hurry?" He cried as they ran passed him. Jamie turned and stuck his tongue out at him before continuing on his way. Guido smiled and nodded.
"They have advance tickets to that new Josh Hartnett flick this afternoon," Lorna offered, placing her arm through his.
"Ah," Alex didn't "get" pop culture, which was fine with Lorna who wasn't very into it either. "What're you doing this evening, Ms. Dane?"
Lorna shrugged. "Ten page paper on the Franco Prussian War." Alex blew a raspberry and Lorna laughed. "What about you, Mr. Summers?"
"Ben has dinner with a client, so Wendy and I are probably going to order a pizza." Wendy was Alex's adorable, younger sister. Lorna met her once or twice and she seemed like the typical, hyper, bratty twelve-year-old. "She'll probably make me watch the Disney channel all night." Alex added grimly.
"Poor baby. Maybe I'll drop in and make your day, eh?"
Alex brightened. "Could you? That is, if you're not too consumed in your paper and all."
Lorna smiled. "For you, kid? I'll make time."
It wasn't hard to spot the Masters household even from the distance Alex and Lorna were standing. It was a large, wooden house with white washed walls, a large blue garage door and a small porch out by the door. Alex's foster father was the president of his own publishing company and his foster mother taught history at the local junior high school. Together they had a little girl named Wendy, but that was before the accident. Before…
"Alex?"
"Yeah?"
"How come your mom likes to call you 'Michael.'"
Alex winced. Michael Masters. "He was their son. Their biological son. He died in a car accident ten years ago. He was a smart, outgoing, popular kid."
Lorna eyed Alex knowingly, "With blonde hair and blue eyes?"
"How did you guess," Alex attempted to smile but the expression kept breaking. Finally, he shrugged. "My foster mom went through a lot after his death; she quit her job and went into a pretty heavy state of depression. Before the accident she was an attorney, very confident and opinionated. She blamed herself for the crash, you know? Figured had she picked up Mike after school like a normal mom none of this would have happened."
"How does she treat you?"
Alex kissed Lorna' hand lightly and looked back at the house. "Like a cheap imitation," a simple truth. He wasn't looking for sympathy, he loved his foster parents, but they wanted something, or really it was someone, that he couldn't give them. "I'll see you later Lorna."
Alex pushed the large wooden door open as he had done everyday for nearly a decade. "Wendy?" he called. No answer. "Mom! Dad!" Voices in the living room alerted him to the presence of people inside the house. "Mom? Dad?" He called again, walking into the room and noticing Ben and Laura Masters sitting on the couch speaking to another gentleman Alex thought looked strangely familiar.
"Alex, sweetie, you're home early. This is Mr. Erikson, he's a client of your father's," replied Laura, gesturing for Alex to sit down. Alex awkwardly shook Mr. Erikson's hand before sitting down.
"My, my, your little boy is an image of Michael when he was his age," Mr. Erikson told the Masters with a grin. Alex flinched noticeably and avoided looking in his foster mother's direction. Ben laughed and patted Erikson on the back. "Doesn't he? But Alex isn't our son by birth; we adopted him when he was eight years old. His parents were killed in a freak accident flying in a plane over Colorado. Alex was the only survivor. His older brother, Steve-"
"Scott."
Everyone turned their attention to Alex, who hadn't realized he had spoken aloud. "Scott, dad. His name was Scott."
"Oh, right. Scott. Sorry Alex. His older brother Scott died shortly later in the hospital due to complications. When we first met the tyke, Laura and me, well our hearts just melted. We had to take him home."
Mr. Erikson smiled at Alex as if he were a puppy Wendy had brought home and asked to keep.
"Well, we should head on to dinner, shouldn't we?" Laura asked brightly as if Mr. Erikson hadn't mentioned the dreaded topic of Michael earlier on in the conversation.
"Let's," Erikson replied, rising. "It was nice to meet you, Alex."
"The pleasure was all mine, Mr. Erikson," Alex replied with his best fake smile.
"Please, there's no need for formalities, call me Nathaniel. Ben, Laura, I'm starving. Let's get going."
Ben helped Laura into her jacket as Nathaniel Erikson watched. "We left money for pizza on the kitchen table. Make sure Wendy works on her history homework and that she's in bed by nine."
Alex nodded, opening the door for the couple. "I know, mom. I will. Have a fun evening.
Smiling, Laura kissed Alex on the top of his head before leaving. Ben patted him on the back and Erikson gave him a long, assessing look before departing. Alex let the door click gently shut behind them. It was going to be a long evening.
By eight thirty, the pepperoni, olive, mushroom and pineapple pizza was devoured and Wendy was upstairs quietly working on her history homework. Alex sat, propped up on the couch, reading Joseph Heller. At around ten o'clock, Laura and Ben still weren't home and Alex was half-awake, half-asleep on the couch so that when the phone rang, he didn't get up to answer it.
"Hello, you've reached the Masters residence, leave a message for Ben, Laura, Alex or Wendy Masters after the tone and we'll get back to you as soon as possible."
"Alex? I know you're home. Pick up the phone, it's Lorna. Alex? Don't make me come over there."
A pause.
"Fine. I'm coming over there. You better get up to answer the door."
There was a click and a dial tone.
Alex drifted back to sleep with a slight smile on his face.
* * *
Beep.
Beep.
Beep.
Alex instinctively waved his arm around, trying to slap an alarm clock that wasn't there. He opened his eyes. Woah. Big mistake. The world spun. He closed his eyes, but the nice comforting blackness that usually accompanied sleep would not come, so slowly he ventured into opening his eyes again. This time, the white room slowly came into focus.
"Where am I?" He whispered to no one in particular. No one answered him because no one else was in the room. It was a rather small room with one window. Beside him were beeping monitors and bags of fluids. He laid on his back on a hospital bed while a small television in front of him delivered the news report. A nurse popped her head in and smiled at him.
"Ah, the little miracle is up. How are you feeling?"
"Okay," he lied. "Where are my mom and dad. And Scott, where's Scott? He worries when we're not together."
The nurse gave Alex a strange look, as if she were struggling with whether to tell him something or not. "Hold on a minute there, honey, while I go get your case worker."
"My case worker? I don't want my case worker." Whatever that was. "I want Scott. And my mommy and my daddy. Hello! Hello!"
But the nurse had already retreated from the room. Alex allowed his head to sink back into the pillow and shut his eyes tightly, knowing that when he opened them again, the world would never be the same again.
* * *
Lorna hated how long the twelve block walk to Alex's seemed when she was worried. 'Why couldn't he have just picked up the telephone,' she fumed. Since watching Alex enter his house that afternoon, Lorna had the nagging feeling he was somehow in danger. She had already called twice that night, both calls were answered by an irate Alex telling her he was alive and well and eating dinner with Wendy. But at least he answered. Her last phone call in which the answering machine picked up disturbed her.
She tried to take her mind off of Alex for a while by thinking about her paper, which she had managed to write all of three pages since her panic over Alex's safety began. Turning a left on Regent Street, she gladly noted she was now only three blocks from Alex's. She would only stay for a little while, Lorna told herself, picking up her pace just a little bit so that it appeared as if she were nearly floating on air. Just long enough to wring Alex's neck for making me worry so much.
Two blocks to go. By the last block, she had lost some steam and her panic died from a spasm to a dull ache. I'm being silly, she told herself again, but did little to slow her pace down. As she turned to Alex's block a flash of light caught her eye. She blinked. Once. "My…" Twice. "…God." Any other silly thoughts she may have had about school, her paper, self-preservation, vanished. Alex's house was on fire.
TBC…
