Concept of "The 4400" was created by someone else, not me. But I do own the characters. So ha.
Chapter 1
The man with the unshaven face and brown hair was confused at the young woman who had walked right into him. He only had two daughters, and they were both under the age of twelve.
He scratched his head. "Listen, miss. Maybe I look like your pop, but I'm not. My little girls are just that – little."
Tears began to fall from her eyes, and she put her fingers over each stubble on his chin. "Daddy, it's me, April. All these years, we thought you were dead."
He looked into her blue eyes, and somehow knew it was his baby girl. "April?" he began to tear up. "How did you grow up so fast?"
"Took nearly two decades, Daddy."
He embraced her warmly. "I've been gone a long time, huh?"
"So have I. Turns out I've been gone for eight years. Last thing I remember I was freezing my butt off shoveling snow."
"Snow? In Oklahoma?"
She giggled. "No, in Virginia. After I graduated from college, that's where I settled with my husband."
"You're married?"
"I also have two children. But now I've missed so much of their growing up..."
Jack sighed as he patted her back. "I missed y'all's growing up too."
The two spent all night chatting – mainly April answering her father's questions about all that had happened since his disappearance.
"And then Julie missed her connecting flight, so we were waiting around the airport all night!"
"Why'd she miss it?"
"A rainstorm or something. Anyway, she finally got in around 4am. All of us were so tired that we let her drive us back home!"
He chuckled. "You always liked to get Julie to do stuff for you when you were little. It's good to know that some things haven't changed."
April sighed as she stared into her father's eyes. "I wonder what happened to us. Why we disappeared, and why we haven't aged."
"I think that's on everyone's minds, honey. Not just us 'returnees' but the whole world, I'm sure of it. Hey, how's Danny been doing? You haven't said a word about him."
"Danny..." she uttered sadly, remembering her older brother in a mixture of contempt and disappointment. "Before I disappeared, he was serving time in jail."
"Danny? In jail? What did he do, steal some candy from the store?"
"No, Daddy. He... he did something terrible. He's in jail for murder, and is going to be for a long time."
"Murder?" Jack barely whispered, not believing his own son would be capable of such a thing. "He didn't do it, right? He was framed?"
She shook her head. "Danny did it. He confessed to it. I... I was there, Daddy. I saw him shoot the gun at..." She couldn't speak because of the sobs that overcame her.
"No..." he shouted.
"Yes," she nodded as the tears fell down. "He killed Mama."