Part 2: Alejandro

When Alejandro came home, he found Daniel drinking coffee at the kitchen table. There was a newspaper in front of him but he wasn't reading it. He was watching Janet as she puttered around the kitchen humming softly to herself.

"Where's Cass?"

Janet answered, "She brought the car back and went somewhere with Kristen."

His dad looked up at him and said, "Do you want to drive me over to our house to get our car."

Alejandro made an effort to stay very cool but as the holder of a relatively fresh learner's permit he was excited.

"Sure Dad. When do you want to leave?"

Daniel stood up and carried his cup over to the sink, dumped out the remaining coffee, and put it in the dishwasher. Before answering Alejandro directly, he put an arm around Janet and asked, "How about I go now and we can do the shopping expedition this afternoon when Cassie gets back?"

Janet said something softly that Alejandro couldn't quite hear and his dad nodded. "How about we go right now? Let's go out through the garage. I need to grab a can of oil."

Alejandro had a sinking feeling. "Don't tell me we are going to be changing the oil."

"I'm afraid we are."

"Dad, we can pay someone to do that," he implored as they went into the garage.

Daniel handed him the can and picked up a funnel. "Then maybe you should go out in the backyard and get the cash off the money tree out there."

"That's such a dorky thing to say. It's not like you make bad money and Dr. Jan's well, she's a doctor," he said to his dad's back, following him out of the garage to the car.

The car was in the driveway. There was too much junk in the garage to have room for the car. As Daniel put the funnel in the trunk and beckoned to Alejandro to put the can of oil in with it, he said, "A doctor who works for the government and has a lot of debts. And we've got two kids, a house that starting to fall down around our ears, and your college to think of."

"I'm going to get a soccer scholarship."

"Maybe."

"Look Dad. You ought to sell the Barker Street house. We don't live there really and you and Dr. Jan could use the money to fix her house up."

"Move in with her."

"Yeah I guess. Aren't we really already?"

And then Daniel said the most surprising thing. "Okay."

"Okay! That's real funny," Alejandro said irritated.

Daniel started laughing. They got into the Suburban and Alejandro started to turn the key in the ignition. Daniel stopped laughing and said, "What are you forgetting?"

He rolled his eyes but he stopped and put on his seat belt. Don't mess this up now. You want to drive.

He could tell he made his dad nervous as he backed slowly and carefully out of the driveway. "I'm getting A's in driver's ed, Dad."

"Did I say anything?"

"You didn't have to. You know Dad, you would be a lot more relaxed if you weren't so sexually frustrated."

"I'm what?"

"I'm only saying you were sleeping on top of the covers. She's really good looking Dad. She's cool and really nice. Some of my friends have these mothers who are all up tight about things and scream a lot and stuff. But Dr. Jan has it all together. " He sneaked a quick peak at his dad. Despite the amazing cheek of that last remark -- he had been surprised to hear it come out of his own mouth – Daniel didn't look mad. He might as well go the rest of the way.

"Cassie and I, we think you guys should get married."

"Okay."

Alejandro was really irritated. You try to have a heart to heart with someone and they just mock you.

"So you don't want to talk about it." He turned the radio on. Cassie must have been the last one to pick a station. It was Brittany Spears for crying out loud. He couldn't stand it but he knew his father couldn't stand it even more. He cranked it up.

Was Daniel laughing? This was just plain weird. By the time they turned on Barker Street, he decided he was being stupid. What I know to be giving him advice on stuff like this? Tio Arturo would have knocked me across the room. I don't want to think about Tio Arturo now, he begged himself but he couldn't prevent the thought, You're going have to call him tomorrow. If you don't, he'll do something creepy. It isn't worth it.

"Alejandro, are you going to turn off the car?"

"What? I just wanted to hear the end of this song."

Considering that it was another Brittany Spears number, his father looked dubious but didn't make any further comment. As they opened up the garage, Alejandro nerved himself to nibble around the edges of something he could never quite talk to his dad about. "Dad, did you see that case in the paper about that 11 year old boy who helped his mother's boy friend rob a convenience store? He shot the guy who was working there and crippled him."

Daniel was focusing on getting things set up for the oil to drain out and only half paying attention. "No, I don't think I did."

"He said that his mom's boyfriend made him do it. Said he'd kill her if he didn't."

"Hand me the pan over there, huh."

Alejandro complied. "Do you think that could happen? I mean what do you think they should do to the kid? Was it his fault?"

Daniel stopped what he was doing and focused on Alejandro. Uh oh. I don't want him really starting to ask questions.

Daniel said carefully, weighing his words. "Doesn't sound like it was really his fault but they can't just make him stand in a corner or something. He did an adult crime. They need to put him somewhere for quite awhile where they can make sure he understands what he did and other kids understand that you don't do that stuff."

"But you think he could end up a good person?"

"Of course. Alejandro are you really talking about a case in the paper or is this like some kid you know?"

Madre de dios. My dad is a scary guy sometimes.

"Really. It was in the paper. I just thought, you know, how sad to screw up your life when you're only 12."

"I thought you said he was 11."

"Yeah. Whatever."

His dad turned back to the car and Alejandro faded out the door and went into the house and up to his room. He could hear his dad calling him and knew he had pissed him off by running off when he was supposed to help. He was just afraid to be around him any more right now.

By the time they got back home, the camaraderie of the earlier morning was gone. Alejandro knew his father had a right to be irritated with him but all he could think about was how far beyond irritated he would be if he had any idea of the really bad things his son had done. It was always like this when it was time to call Tio Arturo. All the bad things he managed to push down the rest of the time came back and it was all he could think of. When Daniel had spoken to him about his fading out on the oil changing, he had given him a lot of lip back. It was almost like he was standing outside his body watching himself do it and couldn't stop it.

They trouped back in the house to find Janet looked all sunny and happy in a bright yellow sweater and pale slacks. She took one look at Alejandro and then looked sympathetically at Daniel. Alejandro saw her mouth "The Bad Seed?" at Daniel out the corner of his eye. They thought he didn't know about the Bad Seed, Good Seed thing but he eavesdropped on them far more than they realized.

"So," she said cheerily, "everyone ready for a shopping expedition?" Cassie was up for it of course. Alejandro wouldn't have been in the mood on a Good Seed day and especially not now.

"I told Jaye I'd come over and we'd listen to music. She is really going to be pissed if I don't show up."

"Ordinarily I'd be the last person to want to get a guy in trouble with his girl friend but this time I have to insist. This is something we need to do together as a family."

Alejandro started cussing in Spanish, as much to give himself time to process the amazing description of themselves as a family as to be difficult. Janet looked disapproving and Daniel said, "Those are words I don't really want to listen to and I don't want Janet and Cassie to have to hear them either."

He didn't raise his voice but there was something in the tone that made Alejandro stop. He used to be able to get away with it. Daniel might be a linguist but most of the languages he knew were dead, on this planet anyway, and initially Daniel had little more than the Spanish you pick from watching a lot of Westerns. In short order after Alejandro arrived, Janet, Cassie, and Daniel had all gone from minimal Spanish to fluency in self-defense. And thanks to the Bad Seed, they had picked up a lot of Spanish not found in textbooks.

This time they got in Daniel's car. It was a compact but large enough for the four of them when there wasn't much else to haul. We must not be going to buy anything very large

"Cass," he whispered. "What do you think we are going to buy?"

She shrugged, not really pleased with him. She was still into all this family togetherness stuff and he was mucking it up for her.

They went to a large mall and immediately found a parking spot right near one of the entrances. Janet said to Daniel, "It's like a sign." He hugged her.

A sign for what?

Cassie gave him a look. She was clearly saying "I know it's weird but please don't start."

The next thing he knew they were in a jewelry store. Daniel went to a saleswoman, paused to make sure that both he and Cassie were paying attention and said, "My fiancé and I would like to look at engagement and wedding rings."

Alejandro felt so filled up with happiness then that nothing else could get in for awhile. But Sunday evening he knew that he had to do what he had to do. "Hey, I'm going to walk over to Chad's and watch a DVD, okay?

Janet asked, "All your work is done for tomorrow's classes right?"

His dad added, "And you don't have any tests."

"En absoluto."

He let himself out of the house and walked quickly four blocks to where you came out of their little neighborhood to a wide, busy street with a 7-11 and a pay phone. He called the number.

"Si."

"Is Chico there?"

"Hola Alejandro," his uncle Arturo said in Spanish. "What do you have for me?"

"My dad was gone for 3 weeks this time. And he said he had to eat worms."

"Your father's dietary problems aren't going to help deal a blow to the evil American government ."

"I went through Dr. Jan's briefcase. There wasn't anything useful in it."

"Three weeks," his uncle mused. "I had people watching Cheyenne Mountain. He never came out that whole time. So what was he doing in there eating worms?"

Alejandro stayed silent. He had nothing to give his uncle.

"Do better. We need hard information if we are going to use this as leverage against the Americans ." His uncle's tone changed, became deadly and menacing. "You are doing the best you can, aren't you? They label freedom fighters as terrorists these Americans. Don't think for a moment they wouldn't turn on you if they knew who and what you really are, what you've done."

"Yes I am. Really I am." Alejandro responded nervously. Part of him wished his uncle's death had been real, not just faked to get Daniel to take him in. Another part of him hated himself for even having the thought. That was the part of him who remembered how he had adored his uncle when he was little. Over the years the massacre his uncle had witnessed of an entire village by a repressive government had continued to eat at him and change him. Civil war in Guatemala was responsible for the deaths of 140,000 people beginning with the 1954 CIA sponsored coup, and Arturo Chavez, for one, found the United States a convenient focus for his hate.

It was only a week later when he and Cassie heard the door slam and Cassie said, excitedly, "They're home. Now we can start talking about wedding plans." She carefully marked her place in American Bride and jumped up off the bed.

I can't believe how much girls get into this wedding stuff. Despite his official reluctance, on some level he was excited about the wedding too so he followed her downstairs.

Dr. Jan was sitting stiffing on the couch in the family room. She was alone.

"Where's my dad?" Alejandro asked with a strange feeling in the pit of his stomach. Dr. Jan was so still. Her face looked puffy like she had been crying. Please God no.

"Sit down, please, both of you."

It's never good when they tell you to sit down.

"I have some terrible news. I'm so sorry, Alejandro. So sorry for all of us."

"It's my dad isn't it?" Alejandro's voice was unsteady. He clutched the cross he wore that had been his mother's. "He's been hurt again." He was on his feet. "What hospital is he in? We have to go now."

Janet got up and walked to Alejandro. She put her hands on his shoulders and, her voice breaking, said, "I tried to save him. I tried my best. But I couldn't. He's dead. There was a terrible accident and he's dead. "

"No, no, it isn't true. I want to see him."

Janet looked even more distressed. "I'm afraid you can't Alejandro. What happened is classified and his body," she cut herself off and then said, "You just can't see it, I'm sorry."

Janet and Alejandro were so focused on each other that they were shocked to hear Cassie break in. "An accident," she said, her voice rising dangerously. "I don't think so. They got him didn't they? Just like they killed my parents and my sisters and brothers and all the people on my world."

Janet looked at Cassie horrified. "Cassie, it had nothing to do with that." She went to Cassie, tried to take her in her arms but Cassie wasn't having any of it.

"How many more people are those snakes going to kill? What if they come through the stargate? What if they come in ships and destroy this planet? " She was becoming hysterical. She screamed at Janet, "You promised me I would be safe here. You promised me."

Cassie ran upstairs and slammed her door. Janet and Alejandro stood stock still staring after her. "What is she talking about Dr. Jan? Is she crazy?"

Janet stared at him, her look unfocused. She wasn't really there, he realized. Finally she said, "Your father's dead. I can't change it. Cassie doesn't understand. But we will have to talk about what she said. Just not today, please Alejandro." She looked at him pleadingly.

Suddenly he felt like the parent and she was the child. He remembered watching his father comfort her after one of her dreams. He walked over to her, put his arms around her, and hearing his father's voice in his head, he murmured, over and over, "It's okay. It will be all right. I'm here. I won't let anything bad happen. I'm here." And he felt a little comforted, playing his father's role.

At first Dr. Jan was rigid in his arms and then she collapsed against him and began to cry. And cry.

Days went by and Dr, Jan didn't talk with him about what Cassie had said. Cassie wouldn't either. There was a military memorial ceremony that seemed very unreal. All his dad's friends from the base seemed to be hiding something. And it was weird that no one knew that his dad had been engaged to Dr. Jan. They had planned to tell people when he came back from the mission but he didn't come back. Now she preferred not to have to deal with people knowing. He found Dr. Carter's reaction particularly curious. She kept staring at him and didn't seem to realize that she was crying silently. She just let the tears slip down her cheeks and didn't wipe them off. He heard her say to Dr. Jan, "There's so much I never said and now he's gone."

Dr. Jan was very preoccupied with the estate, with his custody. She went to court and got an order granting her guardianship. There were complications with the property he had inherited. Without a will it went into probate and there was a lot of tedious legal busy work cleaning it all up.

His best friend, Cassie was like a zombie. She turned in on herself and would hardly talk to him or Dr. Jan. She started having her bad dreams again. She was much harder to comfort than Dr. Jan was when Dr. Jan had a nightmare. Sometimes they couldn't wake her up for several minutes and she would scream and scream.

He made his monthly call to his uncle and told him about his father's death. He hated him for a moment, when Arturo seemed to find it all very intriguing and possibly useful information.

One night, a month after Daniel's death, they all sat on Cassie's bed. She leaned against Dr. Jan, spent from crying and screaming. Alejandro held one of her hands. Dr. Jan said, "Alejandro, I'm going to break a lot of rules and tell you the truth. Daniel was your father and you have a right to know. Please remember this is classified information. If you tell anyone, I could go to jail. Promise me, you won't tell anyone."

"I promise," he complied wondering how long it would be before Tio Arturo forced him to break his promise."

She began talking, calmly and matter of factly about crazy things. Travel to other worlds and aliens with snakes inside of them. Evil aliens who wanted to destroy the earth and almost had succeeded. And how his father was part of an elite squad that explored these other worlds. If this had been another teen, he would have been sure he was being set up. But this was Dr. Jan.

Then Cassie told him that she had been born on another world and how the evil people, she called them Goa'uld, had deliberately caused a plague on her world that killed everyone but her. They had then used her to bring a bomb back through the stargate. She could have been responsible for so much death and destruction if they hadn't been able to keep it from going off.

"Okay. I believe you. I don't know why but I do," he finally said. The three of them had clung together against a hostile universe.

Alejandro was completely taken over with wrestling with what he was supposed to do with this information. This was what Tio Arturo had been waiting for ever since he had learned that Alejandro's natural father was involved with some top secret US government project. He had faked his own death to pave the way for Alejandro to become his mole. But despite that, he wondered if his uncle would believe him. He barely believed it himself.

He had to give Tio Arturo something. When he had first come to live with his father, his uncle had tried to use the hatred of America that he had worked to instill in him while they were in Guatemala and the lies he had told him about Daniel's relationship with his mother to motivate him. Alejandro knew that what his uncle wanted was something to sell to other terrorists or enemy governments of the United States. He tried to make it sound like a higher mission but it was really hate and profit. And he had no trouble finding plenty of others from every nation on earth, even this one, with the same goals.

He still remembered the disillusionment of the last day he had been able to trust Tio Arturo. They had been sitting at the rickety table in the shack in the middle of nowhere in Guatemala that his uncle used when he needed privacy. There was plastique and wires and other bomb making paraphernalia spread out on the table. Alejandro was tired. Tio Arturo had been driving him hard for hours. He was thinking to himself, In this beautiful country full of warm loving people I have to get him. You have all the luck Alejandro.

"You did well today."

The rare word of praise made Alejandro feel good. He knew his survival depended on pleasing his uncle but sometimes that was impossible.

Tio Arturo shifted in his chair and leaned forward, closer to Alejandro. "I have to tell you something, something hard."

Alejandro looked at him warily. This couldn't be good. "Your mother never talked to you about your father, did she?"

What is the right answer? Alejandro had long stopped dealing honestly with his uncle and tried instead to tell him whatever would be least likely to result in temper or a blow. Still his mother's emphasis on honesty made him try to find ways to answer that were not directly lies.

"I never asked her about him."

"She couldn't talk to you about him because it was too hard to remember what he did to her."

He stared at the dirt floor. "I don't understand."

"He forced her Alejandro. He forced my sweet little sister and when he was done, he just walked away."

Alejandro was stunned. His uncle didn't know that he had found and read his mother's diary. He knew more than a 12 year old boy wanted to know about how he was conceived and rape had had nothing to do with it. He also knew that it was her decision not to tell Daniel that she was pregnant. But the instincts gained from years living with his uncle told him not to argue with him. His uncle needed him to believe this. What would he say if he did believe him? He made himself tear up.

He raised his head and looked at Tio Arturo through the crocodile tears. "Mama was so good. She never hurt anyone. How could he do that?"

"He's a typical selfish American. He thinks only of his own pleasures."

"Wouldn't the police believe her?"

Tio Arturo looked him straight in the eye and lied. "She couldn't make herself go to the police. She was too ashamed and she didn't think they would take her word against his."

"He has to pay for this."

Tio Arturo looked very satisfied. Alejandro had properly guessed what response his uncle was hoping for. "He will, Alejandro, I promise you."

Arturo Chavez may not have been a terribly perceptive man but within a few months after Alejandro had returned to the US he had picked up on the fact that despite everything, Alejandro had come to care about his father. That's when Tio Arturo had started reminding him of what he had done. Of who he had been. And of what the American government, the American military would do with that information. Of what Dr. Jan and his father would think of him.

Four more months went by and one night while Alejandro was lying awake, starring at the ceiling and replaying the same stale arguments for the millionth time, he suddenly felt a presence. He was sure there was something else in the room with him but he didn't feel afraid. The presence felt warm, comforting. And then he saw his father take shape in front of him.

"Dad, are you an angel?"

"No son. But I am watching over you."

"How? I don't understand."

"Arturo is full of hate, Alejandro. Don't take his path."

And his father was gone and the warm presence was no more.

Because he had promised his mother before she died, he had never stopped going to Mass every Sunday. That Sunday, he sought Fr. Pedro out at Our Lady of Perpetual Help and told him what he had seen. The priest knew everything from the confessional and there was no need to keep secrets. Fr. Pedro was kind but Alejandro doubted that he believed him. He said gently, "Alejandro, God uses all sorts of means to give us His message. Neither of us understand what you experienced but the words were the right words. Hatred is never the answer. I think you should consider this a message from God."

Despite telling the priest, he didn't even consider telling Dr. Jan. What if she hadn't seen Daniel. Wouldn't that make her feel bad?

It became even harder to sleep. Night after night he waited for his father to come back again. Morning after morning he woke up with his first thought being disappointment that he had somehow fallen asleep and it hadn't happened.

Two more months passed and at last he felt his father in the room again. Alejandro had a book spread out on his lap and was reading fitfully. His monthly call with Tio Arturo was the next night and he had almost decided to tell him everything. Every month Tio Arturo talked to him about how the evil American government had undoubtedly done something to put his father in jeopardy. Knowing the secrets that he did about the stargate, the seeds of distrust of the American government had found fruitful ground in his heart. It made him angry that they had kept this information from the rest of the world. What gave them the right to decide everyone's destiny? It wasn't hard to blame the American government for his dad's death. From what Dr. Jan had told him, it seemed the stargate program had awakened sleeping dragons. His father would be alive today if he had never heard of it. The hurt was too hard to deal with. It felt better to be angry. To turn the emotions outward.

Suddenly his dad was sitting on the foot of his bed, a creature of light, hard to make out but unmistakably there. He knocked the book out of his lap and sat forward.

"Dad, why did you take so long to come back? I missed you so much."

"It's very hard for me to let you see me, Alejandro. I don't think I will be able to come back again."

"I need you Dad. Please."

"I love you so much Alejandro and I'm very proud of you. What you were is not what you are now or what you will become. Take care of Janet and Cassie for me."

"No Dad, no," he called out as his father disappeared.

He stayed still, his arms locked around his knees, until he was stiff and cold. He didn't understand any of it but he knew that he couldn't tell Tio Arturo the truth.