A/N: I know I said that Never was going to be a one shot visionette, but then I had this idea and…POOF, this second chapter was born.  I know it's a little long, but please read, enjoy, and review!

He kept it folded in a box in our attic, my dad did.  He never knew I'd seen it.  But one day, years ago, as I dug around looking for Christmas lights and my mom's lost nativity scene figures, I found it.

The cardboard box was shoved to the back of the drafty attic.  There was nothing unusual about it-wrinkled and water stained and faded from age-and yet the box somehow called out to me.  So silently I crept towards it, scaling mountains of summer clothes and repelling though valleys of loose floor boards and stray, pink insulation.  I guess I couldn't have been more than ten at the time, and the whole endeavor seemed like some kind of wild adventure, the kind of adventures that I longed to have.

It took all the strength my skinny arms had to pry that box out from under a deck umbrella and other stray junk.  It took even greater strength to pry myself out from the avalanche that ensued, but I had accomplished my goal; I had my prize.  My mom was an organization freak, so everything in the attic, despite size, shape or color, had a label.  Consequently, this box was no exception.  The surprising thing was, however, that it was in my dad's writing that the box bore on its tiny label.  And it didn't read college clothes misc. or pictures from summer home in large letters, as I expected.  It only read Private in concise, bold script across the front.

The excitement welling in my chest seemed to burst through my fingertips as they pried the dusty lid off my newly discovered treasure.  I felt reckless and wild, peeking at something I shouldn't have, and heaven help me, I liked the feeling a little.  My life up till then had been very plain-Jane, middle class suburbia, three square meal-a-day boring.  I was sheltered.  I was over-protected.  I was bored as hell, and to a ten year old, breaking Daddy's rules was as rebellious as things got.

I don't know what I expected to find, but as I removed that newspaper wrapped package, it could've been rusted sheet metal and I wouldn't have cared.  As I peeled back the faded yellow paper my heart soared.  And then I saw it.  'Judson' stitched in perfect, white lettering on a background of abstract greens, blacks, and tans.

"Whoa, camouflage!" I unfolded the fatigues and spread them across my lap.  "Cool…"  To a Wonder Bread raised kid, this was like something out of a comic book.  My Dad was in the army…my Dad had been a soldier!  I never thought as to why my father never told me of his past..  I never noticed the blood stains either. I was still protected by the child-size blinders that I'd been raised in.  Daddy was a computer programmer, Mommy sold houses, and everything was peachy.  But now, Daddy had a secret past too…and I was in on it!

'Rules are not meant to be broken' was one of my father's favorite mantras growing up.  Maybe that's why discovering the secret hidden in the attic was such a big deal.  I guess you can say that I had a strict childhood.  My father wasn't all touchy-feely like some dad's are to their kids.  No, he pretty much left that sappy stuff up to my mother.  It wasn't that my father was mean…or neglectful.  It was even worse in some ways…it was an absence of emotion.  He came to the baseball games and the school concerts and the PTA meetings, but he never seemed happy about it.  He never seemed anything about it.  He was like a shell of a man, hollow and empty inside. 

I guess he drank more than most of my friend's dads did, but never when I was around…or, at least when he thought I wasn't around.  And even then, I never saw him raise a hand to my mother, and he never got rough with me.  He was as emotionally barren when he was drunk as he was sober.  I guess the only thing the booze did was help him forget…well, whatever it was that haunted his dreams and made yell at night.  He would just sit there on the couch in his boxers, with only a bottle of beer and his memories for company.  One night I accidentally rolled out of bed and woke up.  I saw the light shining down the hall and peeked around the corner, only to find my Dad awake once again.  It wasn't the first night I'd seen this, but it was the first time I ever said anything.  Maybe it was the soda I had before bed, or maybe after my personal adventure in the attic I was feeling bolder.  Maybe it was the adrenaline left over from the thrill discovering my Dad's secret identity.  Whatever it was though, it gave me the strength to take a risk once more… 

"Daddy?" I called cautiously.  I didn't see the empty beer bottles on the opposite side of the chair.  All I saw were the tears on my father's cheeks, leaking from his eyes as he stared ahead at the muted TV.  I approached him quickly, before I lost my nerve.  "Dad?"

"Oh Rick…you're such a good kid."  He drooped his limp arm about my shoulder as I reached his side, pulling me close.  The whisky on his breath made my eyes water, but I was more frightened of the tears.  They were the scariest things I'd ever witnessed in my young life.  My dad always said that grown men don't cry…my father didn't cry.

I didn't cry.

"Be…be a good kid for the rest of your life," he muttered thickly.  I nodded, wishing that I could just vanish into thin air.  This was one situation my early education hadn't prepared me to deal with.  "Don't make the same mistake you're old man did…be gooder than I was."

"Okay Daddy," I assured him, nodding emphatically and frantically trying to free myself from his bear-like grip.  But he just held me tighter.  And my words seem to make the tears run faster and harder.  "I promise, I will."

"Such a smart kid…you're so smart.  Put those smarts to good use.  Don't screw up like your old man…"  His other hand snaked forward and ruffled my dark tresses.  "Be a doctor…do somethin' good.  Help people…smart as whip, my boy."  Suddenly he'd stopped talking to me, instead he was looking over me.  Talking to some ghost from his past that was standing in my shadow.  Some drunken allusion  "My handsome, green-eyed boy."

It was the perfect time.  The perfect chance to reach out to my father, incapacitated as he was.  To the naïveté of a ten year old child, it was the perfect time.

"No Dad, I don't wanna be a doctor.  I'm gonna be a soldier…like you were."  The effect of those words was instantaneous.  It was like some kind of magical sobriety welled up within his veins.  His arms dropped away, and his eyes left the invisible ghost behind me.  They didn't focus on me either.  Instead, they traveled back to the mute TV, his body shifting away from me.

"Go to bed," he muttered after what felt like an hour of strange, cold silence.  My juvenile brain couldn't wrap around this sudden transformation.  It wasn't supposed to be like this…he was supposed to be happy…he was supposed to love me now.

"But Dad-,"

"Go…just go."  He was deflated.  He was the emotionless mannequin he had always been.  My one chance, the one time I had to connect with him, and I blew it.  I lay awake in bed that night, and I couldn't stop the tears that kept falling.

Little did I know that my Dad was doing the same, next to the prone, sleeping figure of my mother.  A pale reflection of my Dad, that's what I was.  A young version of my him, except for the eyes.  My leaf green eyes.  I cried because looking at them made my Dad want to cry.  He never looked me in the eyes…he couldn't bear to.

I couldn't bear the lonely spot he left in my heart.

Mutant issues-or mutant problems as some called them-were prominent topics of debate my entire young life.  Dad didn't agree with the way the President was handling the controversial subject.  Not that her ever said anything outright, not when I was in earshot, but I could just tell from his expression as he turned off the nightly news.  Once I heard him mutter something about "genocide at the hands of frightened conservatives" or something like that.  I made the mistake once of bringing up the issue at dinner.

"I think one of the boys at school is one," I muttered thickly through my mashed potatoes.  "This new kid."

"One what, honey?" my mother asked, in that distracted yet attentive manner that so many parents display at the diner table. 

"One of those mutant-freak thingies from on the news."  I shrugged nonchalantly.  "The other kids were making fun of him 'cause he has these funny lookin' eyes-," the end of my sentence was cut off suddenly by a loud clatter.  My dad's chair skidded back and ricocheted against the wall, falling to the floor. 

"Jeffrey," my Mom called in her warning tone, standing up herself, but my father didn't stop.  I felt his arm slip around my waist and he hauled me off my chair and into the living room.  I yelped as he deposited me unceremoniously on the couch..  I flipped myself over as my eyes cleared from the dizzying ride.  Dad clamped his hand on my chin and forced me to face him.  I couldn't help it, I whimpered.

"Rick, look at me," he ordered.  There were quick footsteps reverberating in the hall, and my Mom's face appeared 'round the doorway.

"Jeffrey stop!  He didn't mean it!" she cried.

"Rick," Dad began again, completely ignoring her.

"He didn't know any better!" Mom pleaded again.  My eyes quickly slid off my father's seething face and onto my mother's fuming one.  Suddenly, two hands clamped themselves to the sides of my face and turned it again.

"Look at me, Rick!" Dad demanded again.  There was madness dancing in his eyes, the likes of which I'd never seen before.  I felt another whimper force its way through my lips.  "I don't ever want to hear you use that word in this house ever again, do you hear me?" he raged.  I nodded timidly.  I shot another scarred glance at my Mommy.  "Look at me, Rick!"  The hands on my face slipped down to my shoulders and he shook me slightly.  "I don't care if you swear like a sailor all the days of your life…"

"Jeffrey, stop it!  Right now!"

"…But I don't ever want to hear you call someone…"

"You're scarring him!"

"…a freak!"

It was the only time I ever saw my father that angry.  Even during my senior year, when I told my father that I was enlisting after graduation, he never got that upset with me.  He just seemed to fall in on himself and deflate, like he head during all the other problematic times in my life.  It was almost enough to make me whish he'd get angry…almost.

            It was never good enough for him, my Dad.  Whatever I did, it never pulled the love out of him.  I guess that part of me, even as a grown man, held onto that naive belief that if I could just do a little better, work a little harder, that Dad and I would finally find a way to love one another.  But that heart-to-heart, declaration of fatherly devotion never came.  I never got to tell him about my promotion-the promotion I hoped would finally make him proud of my career choice-because the inevitable happened.

About six months ago Dad had a stroke and died, all very sudden.  The neighbor lady found him in the kitchen a day later, after seeing that the back door was swinging wide open.  I cried for about the first time in twenty years, but part of me was happy.  Dad has missed Mom so much when she passed and…well, at least now they were together.  But then came the long task of clearing out the house and getting it ready for sale.  We couldn't afford to keep it just out of sentimental value. 

I took some time off work went back home.  It felt like some messed up summer vacation, being back in that house and sleeping in my old room at the age of 29.  The days were some of the warmest on record that summer, and moving out was hot, hard work.  Yet slowly but surely the house grew emptier.  The furniture and valuables were divided between me and Dad's remaining brothers and cousins and various other family members.  Anything they didn't want and I couldn't get home went to Goodwill, as did most of his clothing.  I don't think that it was an accident, though, that I found the box the day before I was due to head back to Missouri.  Dad had moved it apparently, and I almost didn't see it in its hiding space behind the water heater.  Had I found it earlier, I probably would've tossed it away.  But then, just before I left…I couldn't leave it behind.

The day I sold the house was one of the toughest in my life.  It was more than just land and a house full of memories that I was letting go of.  It was like I was losing the very essence of my Dad himself.  The last…and the only part of him that I'd ever really known.

"We have to, hun.  I know how much it means to you," my wife said wrapping her arm around my waist as we stood on the lawn, looking at a foundation of my childhood memories for the last time.  "But we can't afford to keep it."  A sigh escaped my lips.

"I know…it's just hard."  I had no idea how true that statement was…and would become.  When all the work was done, and my life slowed back to its normal pace once more, my Dad's death really caught up to me.  Work was hard.  Everything reminded me of him.  After all, I went into the service because of him.  And that's when everything changed, because one of my supervisors noticed my altered behavior, and he had something to say about it.

"I know how hard it must be for you right now.  I lost my father three years ago, so believe me, I can relate to how you feel," General McCormick said as he ushered me into his office one afternoon, about three weeks after my return.  He gestured for me to have a seat before continuing, " I believe that you told me he was the reason you enlisted after high school, yes?"  Damn, McCormick had a good memory.  I'd only mentioned that in passing at a Christmas party years ago.

"Yes, well, he was in the army in his younger days too."  I was a little embarrassed about what I had to say next, but I felt that the General's comment warranted some kind of explanation.  "He…I never found out if he ever saw duty or not.  He didn't really like to talk about it."  This information didn't really seem to surprise the general.

"That's pretty understandable," he muttered, but then his voice took on a different tone, and I got the feeling that chit-chat time was over.  "Look Judson, I'll get to the point.  You entered the service because you admired your old man.  Because you wanted to help people."  With a chilling shudder, I remember the encounter I had with my father in the living room that night, so many years ago.

"…do somethin' good.  Help people…"  Dad's words echoed in the back of my mind.

 I found myself nodding as McCormick spoke. 

"You're a stand-up guy, Judson.  Impeccable and air-tight record, good recommendations, sense of honor," the General continued.  I felt my ego swelling a little with every word he spoke.  "Which is why I need you Judson.  I need to help me lead a special opps team..  I need to help me revolutionize the military system, to help me help the people.  Can you do that?"

"Sir, it would be my honor," was my sharp, official answer.

"Then welcome aboard Judson.  The Friends of Humanity should be honored to have you…"  The General offered me his hand, and…for just a moment, I felt the hair prickle on the back of my neck.  Like there was someone standing behind me that I couldn't see…but then the feeling was gone as quickly as it had come.

I knew what I had to do.

I had to help people.

I had to help protect the people.

I shook McCormick's hand. 

The special training and de-briefing I was to receive for my new position took place at an undisclosed and private location.  My wife, and little Jessica, they weren't allowed to come with me.  Amber, the love of my life, helped finish packing that day, as many tears falling into the duffel bag as clothes.  She was just about to close the bag, in fact,  when I tell her to wait.  I was running late, but I dug through the closet frantically anyways.  I knew it  was there somewhere…ah, here!  Triumphantly, from beneath an old comforter and a carton of baby pictures, I found the old box again.  With loving tenderness, I drew out the worn uniform. 

"Oh, honey," my wife couldn't hide the sadness in her eyes as I showed her the faded fatigues.  The missing piece in the puzzle of my Dad's history.  She couldn't hide her pride either.  Delicately, deftly she folded the worm material and placed it with the rest of my personal effects.  Then, with the bravery that only military spouses can show, she straightened up and smiled, the tears gone and locked away until the night would come and she would sleep in an empty bed. 

Her long arms wrapped around my neck in one brief, passionate embrace.  Then with a light touch she caressed the 'Judson' neatly stitched in white lettering across my chest.  A deft straightening of the badge below my name, which reads proudly stated F.O.H Commander, and I was ready to go. 

The sight of my family made my chest swell with confidence as well as making me think about what I was about to do, at the steps I was about to take.  I thought back, and wondered if my Dad ever felt this way: strong and fearless, ready to serve no matter the cost and strong enough to change the world.  I couldn't help but guess that he did.  I pictured him in uniform, on some historic mission, like Afghanistan, boldly looking danger in the eye.  That mental image had gotten me through a lot of tough times.  I knew that in the end, Dad was happy for me, and that he'd accepted my career path for what it was.  I was trying to let him go, one day at a time.  Slowly, but surely letting his voice fade from my mind, so that the grief might dissipate a little.  That the healing might begin. 

But at that moment, as I kissed my wife goodbye to the tearful serenade provided by my young daughter's sobs, I couldn't help but think only of him, and wonder if he really would've been proud of me.

A/N: Now go tell me what you thought! :)