"IN PULLUS VERITAS"
(IN CHICKEN, TRUTH)
Author: Gillian Slater
E-mail: LeoricGS@aol.com
Rating: PG -13
Disclaimer: As always, these characters do not belong to me, they are the property of the show's creators, and I'm borrowing them for my own sinister purposes...
PART SEVEN
Heather's cola didn't arrive within the hour, much as she had expected. Her parents had a lot to get talk about, she knew.
Her parents... both of them. God, how she'd longed for this. Her mind flew back to that afternoon when Uncle Roger, his face paler than she'd ever seen it, turned up at school and whispered something in her teacher's ear. How he'd driven her home in silence, refusing to tell her the reason for her sudden ticket-of-leave from class.
The funeral was awful - trying to maintain a degree of decorum when inside she wanted to run away and hide from the devastating truth. Her dad, huge and cuddly, with a sarcasm that formed the inspiration for her own attitude as she'd grown up.
That was the smart-ass wit she'd immediately appreciated in Mr. Newman. He was so unlike the other adults she knew, and supposed it was due to his age. In the past couple of hours the whole puzzle had fallen into place, the conclusion so logical, so obvious, like a Magic Eye picture that leaps into 3D form after you stare at it for hours.
With a mixture of emotions kaleidoscoping through her mind, Heather's eyelids began to droop.
In the kitchen, Lisa sat perched on the tall stool in front of the man who was at once so suddenly and so profoundly her husband. He had told her more about his life in what he called his 'terrarium', his daily exercise, and about some of the dangerous missions the government had seen fit to throw him into.
The conversation seemed to have slipped away over the past half-hour, as though all the talking was just a precursor to the contemplative silence which had settled over them as they gazed at each other, neither entirely comfortable nor completely awkward.
Michael shifted his gaze from his wife then, peering over into the living room. He sighed with a fond smile. Lisa was about to ask why when he pressed a finger to his lips and nodded in the direction of the living room. Following his gaze, Lisa saw that heather, so exhausted by the day's events and revelations, had fallen fast asleep on the sofa.
Michael walked over to her and looked lovingly down at his sleeping daughter. He could have cried. Over the past few months, as Morris' security had become ever tighter, he'd despaired of ever seeing her again, and he never dreamed he'd be able to be a father to her once more.
Gently, as he'd done a hundred times before, he scooped her up without waking her, and carried her upstairs, laying her softly into her own bed and drawing the covers up around her. Lisa followed him up and watched in silent wonder from the doorway as Michael planted a light kiss on her forehead.
"Merry Christmas, sweetheart."
He heard a soft cry from behind him and turned to see his wife standing there, holding a trembling hand to her mouth before she moved away from the doorway. Michael went to her, closing Heather's door silently behind him, and enveloped her in his arms, pressing her face into his neck as she clung to him and sobbed. It had been an emotional rollercoaster for both of them.
"Shhh... it's okay, I'm here." When her gentle shaking had subsided, he pulled back and placed his hands on her shoulders, bracing her tired form. "Listen, you need to get some sleep, you're exhausted. I promise you, no one's going to beat down the door tonight."
He led her gently to their own bedroom. A hope danced briefly in his eyes as he saw the double bed there, but he quickly banished the thought. She was tired, and it was probably too soon, he thought. Definitely too much for her to cope with in one night.
Strangely, the same idea occurred to Lisa as they entered the room and she glanced furtively as Michael, catching the look which lingered so briefly on his face. Husband and wife exchanged awkward but telling glances, each communicating their hopes and reservations silently, and coming to an unspoken mutual decision as their longing overcame their inhibitions.
They came together with passion, but their kiss was unhurried and tender as they rediscovered each other after so long and so many changes.
Eventually Michael pulled away slightly to look meaningfully into her eyes.
"Lisie... you don't have to do this. I can imagine what you must be..." His words were stopped by her kiss, and the gentle pressure on his shoulder as she pushed him to the bed.
* * * * *
She was stunning, his wife. Michael knew there was no such thing as a perfect marriage, but during his first life he felt sure he'd come fairly close to it. He couldn't remember a time when the sight of her hadn't inspired such feelings of love in him. Since his rebirth into his new life, with all it's duties, rules and routines, he'd spent every spare minute thinking of her, wanting to see her and wishing she could see him, really see him.
And now as she lay in his arms she was the picture of serenity, knowing at last that her bereavement was over, that her husband was where he was meant to be, beside her.
She stirred sleepily and opened her eyes, smiling dreamily as she snuggled up closer against him. Her smile turned poignant then, and she sighed, running a hand across his muscular chest.
"This feels so strange. I mean, I'm a forty-year-old housewife in bed with a twenty-something superhuman. I feel like a cradle-robber."
Michael brought his hand up to run it through her silken hair.
"I'm sorry... I know this can't be easy for you, to think of me as me, but to look at someone who isn't. You don't see Michael Wiseman, you see the 'prototype' Dr. Morris created. It's been the same for me. Every day I get up and I look in the mirror, and this stranger stares back at me. In my mind I'm a forty-five year old insurance exec with a cholesterol problem."
"And now you're a young man with the body of a track star. Huh, you know some people would kill for that."
"Hey!" Michael's mock offence lightened the mood a little. "I might remind you that I was killed for that. And you should see what they put me through to keep me this way. Morris has me running fifty miles a day on a treadmill and eating every type of plant life you can name!"
"Fifty miles a day? Really? You can do that?"
"Well, don't tell the doc', but I always stop after forty-nine." They both chuckled, but then Lisa's smile faded.
"It's just... how can you want someone nearly twice your age now that you're..."
"Still five years older than you." He told her firmly. "It doesn't matter what artificial shell they stick me in, I've been alive for forty-five years, and I can moan my ass off with the best of 'em when the mood takes me." He drew his arms closer about her waist. "And you're as beautiful today as the day I married you -- more. I couldn't possibly want you more than I do right now."
"Really?" A touch of smugness came into her voice.
"Sure. It could be the fact that I've been without you for ten months. That, and... well, obviously I'm love-starved." This drew a snort of laughter from his wife. "Let's face it," Michael continued, "I haven't been with a woman in this lifetime!" She laughed richly as he buried his face into the spread out mass of her hair and kissed the special place on the back of her neck.
"Michael... it is you..."
"It's me Lisie." Lisa noticed how odd her husband's pet name for her sounded in his vibrant, youthful voice. I could get used to it... she thought.
* * * * *
Michael and Lisa were awakened with a start as something landed heavily at the foot of their bed.
"Mom! Dad! I-I had a nightmare, it was really awful!" Heather's earnest face looked imploringly at her entwined parents. "Can I sleep in your bed?"
They exchanged embarrassed glances, both acutely aware of their nudity and both desperately trying to think of an excuse or an explanation for the position in which their daughter found them. Looking back at Heather in distress, they found her petrified expression had vanished, to be replaced with a wicked grin.
"Gotcha!" She exclaimed, cackling with glee at their shocked expressions.
Reddened but relieved, the parents joined in the laughter, if only to cover their humiliation, until a suddenly something occurred to Michael.
"Wait a minute... Heather, you, you just called me 'Dad'." He realised in wonder.
"Well, you are aren't you?" Heather replied casually, as though nothing had changed in the last ten months. "Anyway, I don't know anyone else in the world who likes spicy pecans... and mom would never sleep with you if you were someone else."
"Heather!" Lisa cried in shock, her blush reintensifying.
"That is," Heather went on, ignoring her mother's outburst, "Unless you were 'Mr. 'Hottie' Newman'!" The teenager grinned in triumph as Lisa cringed behind her hands, and walked out closing the door behind her.
* * * * *
An impatient visitor was ringing the doorbell repeatedly as Michael and Lisa perused the kitchen cupboards for breakfast. Lisa pulled her bathrobe tighter around herself as she went to answer it.
The door opened to reveal the sternly glowering face of Dr. Theodore Morris.
"Good morning, Mrs. Wiseman." The greeting was anything but friendly, and Lisa's look mirrored the irate scientist's. "Oh, I'm sorry - did I disturb you before breakfast?" Morris' feigned apology only confirmed what Lisa already suspected as she noticed the bunch of large ripe bananas he held strategically behind him.
Michael groaned audibly as he came up behind Lisa in a matching bathrobe which looked ridiculously outsized for his slight build.
"Huh. I was wondering when the old 'ball and chain' was gonna turn up. How ya been, doc'?"
"Impatient."
"You, doc'? Never!" Lisa tried to stifle her chuckle at Michael's oozing sarcasm. The doctor's face, however, remained stony.
"I shouldn't have to remind you, Mr. Wiseman, that you are still my project. No matter how many times you escape or how many government securities you see fit to breach in your futile attempt to regain your former life, I will always have the last word on your keeping and activities. And now I'm telling you that this... conjugal visit is over. You're going back to the Facility."
"But this is where I belong. My home, my family." He drew his arms protectively around Lisa's waist.
"Mr. Wiseman, you are dead. D-E-A-D. You are the property of the United States Government and you belong in the place which was designed and built specifically to monitor and train you. Now get dressed and say your goodbyes. I'll be in the car."
"What, before breakfast?" Michael yelled in bitter sarcasm after the doctor's retreating form. Without halting or turning back Morris held up the bananas in silent, firm reply.
Michael let out a sharp breath and shut the door. Turning to Lisa, he put a hand on her shoulder and squeezed it comfortingly, her sad eyes told him everything she needed to say, but the only words that came out were, "I'll fix you some coffee." As she turned into the kitchen.
With practised swiftness, Michael dressed in the same clothes he'd been wearing the previous two days, having found to his chagrin that all of his old clothes, still in the wardrobe, were at least seven or eight sizes too large.
As he came down the stairs, he saw his wife and daughter standing there like a send-off party. He joined them and the three group-hugged the way they always used to before Heather became old enough to think it 'soppy'. She made no complaint, however, as her recently rediscovered father lifted her effortlessly and hugged her tightly. Heather clung to Michael's neck and whispered softly in his ear, "I love you Daddy."
"Shhh," he soothed, "I'll come back and see you soon, I promise." He wiped away a stray tear from the corner of her eye. "Hey, at least I'm not dead, huh?" Heather sniffed and smiled as she kissed his cheek before he lowered her to the ground and turned to Lisa. Her kiss was of a different kind, communicating her sorrow, longing and abiding desire all at once.
"I will come, Lisie." He repeated with assurance. "I don't care if they decide to make the door out of solid marble, nothing is keeping me away from you for too long, not now that you know."
Lisa and Heather watched and waved sombrely from the doorway as Michael cast one last, longing look at his family before getting into the black stretched limo at the end of the driveway.
Morris ordered the driver back to the townhouse then handed Michael the bunch of bananas with a slight smirk on his face.
"You're really enjoying this 'control' thing, aren't you?" Michael accused him as he eyed the fruit distastefully. "Why couldn't you at least let me stay for breakfast? Lisa makes this really nutritious shake..."
"Which I'm sure she enjoys greatly while you tuck into your bacon and eggs." The doctor's look was stern. "Don't think I don't know you, Mr. Wiseman. I went to a lot of trouble to create the perfect human body, and I'm not going to let you or any adoring wife spoil it. I dread to think what you've been filling yourself with without me there to stop you..." Morris cocked one eyebrow at his young subject, smirking suddenly, "...Although I don't believe for one second that you weren't getting any exercise!"
Michael countered the doctor's innuendo smoothly. "Wow, doc', someone finally got around to explaining about that did they?"
"Mr. Wiseman, I've lived and breathed the 'facts of life' since college. Just who do you think built that body - ALL of it!? And I think I outdid myself in that area."
Michael thought about that for a moment, remembering his wife's earlier compliments.
"I guess I owe you some thanks for that, then."
"Thanks are not required, Mr. Wiseman. You can show your gratitude by being obedient and dedicated to our work. Show me just what that body I designed can do -- what it was meant to do."
Michael shrugged acquiescently. "You're the doc', doc'."
"Don't you forget it."
"And... what about Lisa and Heather?"
"What about them?"
"Well, I mean, you can't just shut them out now that they know so... when do I get to see them again?"
"That depends entirely upon the success of your training. I've given up trying to motivate you with threats, and I can't persuade you to co-operate out of respect for me or the importance of this project. Since your family is clearly the only thing you care about, we're now operating on the 'cookie' system: You show me good, steady progress... and I'll consider inviting them to dinner. Sometime. Maybe."
Michael nodded, feeling encouraged. "You got it, doc'! Hell, I'll run a hundred miles a day if it takes me one step closer to Lisa." Morris saw the enthusiasm in him and raised his eyebrows thoughtfully.
"Hmmm... perhaps I should have tried this approach sooner, but then there isn't usually such a discipline problem amongst guinea-pigs."
Michael smiled and gazed out of the tinted windows. "Cookie system. Mmm..."
"A metaphor only," Morris said quickly, then added, "It may be against the rules in every way, but at least your wife is less fattening and involves no chocolate chips."
"Not necessarily."
"I'll pretend I didn't hear that." He shot Michael the most menacing look he could muster at short notice and then turned away, trying desperately to hide his sudden grin.
* * * * *
