Title: Two Roads Diverged…Part One

Author: Simon

Characters: Dick and the various people in his life

Rating: PG-13 for violence

Summary: Sometimes a single moment decides the path your life will take. This is a look at that moment going two different ways and the possible differing consequences.

Warnings: none

Disclaimers: These guys aren't mine, they don't belong to me, worst luck, so don't bother me.

Archive: Fine, but if you want it, please ask first.

Feedback: Hell, yes. The Flying Wallenda's are a real high wire act that really was famous for the seven-man pyramid. Two of their members were killed in a fall in 1962, another member was paralyzed. Started back in the 1700's the act continues to this day. Yes, I'm fudging with the dates in this story by having John Grayson attending a performance in 1962, but only by a little.

Two Roads Diverged…

Part One

The Beginning

"That's right, that's exactly the way I told you—get the swing right, get the timing right and the trick will almost turn itself for you." Dick landed lightly on the small platform, his hand automatically going to the rope to steady himself and quickly moved to the side, though he didn't really need any help with his balance. Everyone told him he'd been born with perfect balance—something as rare as genuine perfect pitch and falling simply wasn't part of his make up. A moment later his father was beside him, taking a second to get himself settled then putting his arm around Dick's thin shoulders.

"I'm proud of you, son, I really am—you're hitting tricks your old man can't handle. You nailed it again today and I think next week at the new gig you'll be ready to put it in the act."

Dick ducked his head in pride and surprise then that big grin, the one just like his Dad's broke out. "Really? Next week? Mom said it's okay to throw the quad in front of an audience?"

"…I think it might be fun to surprise her, what do you say?" John Grayson winked and the boy understood; it would be a surprise, a conspiracy between the two men in the family because Mom was always worried he'd get hurt, even though he never did.

The two of them climbed down to the ground, almost forty feet below, or rather John did. Dick grabbed onto the bar of the trapeze, leaned back, pushed off, swinging back and forth a couple of times to build up speed then released, tucked and spun twice before opening up and falling to land on his back in the safety net below, bouncing as if he was on a trampoline several times before rolling himself to the edge and easily flipping himself off, sticking the landing, arms up to acknowledge the applause of the half dozen of so roustabouts milling around and laughing with happiness at the look of pride on his Dad's face.

Walking back to their trailer to get cleaned up, John casually studied his son as he was chattering away and greeting almost everyone they passed by. He was eight years old now and still small for his age, but John had been a late bloomer getting his growth so it didn't matter. He was strong for his age, quick and—this was important—fearless trying new tricks and moves. Oh, sure he had talent; that went without saying, but it was more than that. He loved the life. He loved being part of the act, the crowds, the noise, the moving around and the freedom. He was born to this; it was in his blood.

Dick was a gypsy through and through, even if he was half gage. No question about it; no ifs, ands or buts—Dick was one of the tribe and he was one that would do them all proud. Plus he was smart as a whip to boot—well, maybe that was his mother's doing the way she was always reading to him, taking him to movies and museums in whatever cities they passed through, playing all kinds of music in the trailer or in the truck when they drove from gig to gig. And he was funny, too—he had this sense of humor that could have you on the floor before you knew what hit you and he'd be standing there with his big old blues staring at you, trying to keep a straight face like "Gotcha!"…But of course that was all part of him being so damn smart.

And he was a beauty. Well, sure, boys were supposed to be handsome but Dick was more than that. Dick had the kind of looks that got him noticed wherever they went. He didn't have feminine looks like some pretty boys do, like Rob Lowe or someone like that. Dick was all boy, but he was a beautiful one and that's all there was to it. They could be in a supermarket in Peoria or a gas station in Lansing, spending a couple of hours in a Laundromat in Santa Fe or signing autographs after a show and people would make comments about his eyes or say he ought to be a child model or something. Mary would blush, politely thank them and then laugh about it later. No, no, it wasn't that she didn't know what they had in Dick—God knew they both did—and God knows she'd have loved him to death if he's been born with two heads or no arms, it was just that she knew that none of that stuff about his looks really mattered. Not really. They might even work against him at some point because people could be dumb enough to just see that and miss the rest. And the last thing she wanted was for him to get a swelled head; especially about something he hadn't earned or worked for.

Dick was the whole package, no question. The next ten or fifteen years, watching him grow up was going to be a ride and a half and a hell of a lot of fun.

Path A

Haley's Circus always liked playing in Gotham; Gotham was always a good city for them. The crowds were always big and the audience seemed to appreciate the show a little more than some of the other places they stopped. Tonight should be pretty good for everyone, it was a charity benefit and the fat cats who were filling the VIP seats had paid serious money for the privilege of sitting in the front row. The rest of the house was filled, or so the performers heard, with groups of under-privileged kids—orphans, poor kids there with Big Brother or something, kids in foster care, sick kids from the local hospitals who could be allowed out for a few hours and some groups of boy and girl scouts from the suburbs. The fat cats may be bored with the entertainment and sit on their hands, but all the kids were guaranteed to make the night worthwhile.

This was the kind of show they all liked doing; it would be short because the rich guys wanted to get it over with and get to the fancy dinner/dance afterwards and the kids all needed to be back to wherever they were from early because it was a school night. Well, yes, the performers would be expected to do a meet and greet afterwards, have their pictures taken for the papers and standing with the people who gave the most money to whatever they were raising money for this time, but it was all part of the job and they were all used to it. Even Dick knew the routine and rarely complained. Besides, he knew that tomorrow was an off day and they had those tickets to the fifth game of the World Series Jimmy had gotten through some friend of his who worked at the stadium.

The weather was even cooperating with Indian Summer and clear skies. This would be great.

The Flying Graysons were backstage, Gunter's Tiger Act music was hitting its climax and that meant they had three minutes before their intro. Dick was joking around with Billy the Clown, Mary was clucking over how he'd started to outgrow his new costume already and John was loving the moment. You know how once in a while you have one of those flashes where you see everything with a special clarity and it's like the lights are extra bright or the air is especially clean and sharp? He was having one of those moments and he realized how much he loved his life. He loved his wife and son—God he loved them!—he loved his job and he was just really, really loving his life right now, today, right this minute.

This was as good as it got and if it stayed like this forever, he'd die a happy man.

"You look like the cat that swallowed the canary, Johnny."

"I'm a happy man, Sven, and that's no lie."

Just then their intro started… "Ladies and Gentlemen, if I may direct your attention to the center ring…"

"Gotta go. Dick? C'mon."

But they all knew their jobs and they never missed an entrance or a cue.

They made their entrance with the music, swirled off their satin and velvet capes with the gold trim and rhinestones Mary had finished just last week, climbed up the ladders and started the routine.

First, like always, they started with a couple of simple passes, back and forth to get the rhythm and build suspense, Mary and John passing Dick back and forth while he threw in a flip here and a twisting layout there, hitting the catch solidly the way he always did.

Then the lights changed to heighten the drama as the ringmaster asked for complete silence while Richard, the youngest Flying Grayson—no, the youngest person ever would attempt the quadruple tuck. And he would make his attempt without a net.

Silence, please.

Mary gave John a look he knew he'd have to answer for later, but the boy was ready, and there was no point in holding him back, right? You might as well try to keep a bird from flying.

You could have heard the proverbial pin drop as they built the height and momentum needed. The big swings back and forth, the speed increased as Dick pumped his legs to gain the distance. He caught his father's eye, gave an almost imperceptible nod, released, tucked immediately and spun his small body faster than you'd have thought possible to straighten out at the last second and thwack his hands onto John's wrists, John gripping him just as tight with no slipping, no bobble.

The crowd exploded, the ringmaster barely heard over the cheering and applause "Ladies and Gentlemen, a quadruple!"

Dick was gently deposited on the small platform next to his mother who hugged him hard for a second before releasing him to acknowledge the crowd then gave John a look he knew didn't mean anything good. "Okay, sweetheart, down you go—Dad and I have some work to finish."

Dick half climbed, half slid down the ladder, landing with the applause still ringing, took his bow, waved and moved off to the side so his parents could finish the act. The clowns and a few of the others surrounded him, hugging him, slapping his back and making it this side of impossible for his parents to get anyone to look at them while they finished up and John realized that it was a dumb mistake he'd made—from now on the quad ended the act—there was no way to top it and anything else was an anticlimax.

Well, from now on that was what they'd do. Hey, you live and you learn or you don't live long, right?

So, the next thing was to make sure the reporters covering the charity aspect of the performance knew what they'd just seen. Publicity mattered, it sold tickets and ticket sales meant they all had a job.

This was what was going through John Grayson's mind as he and Mary finished the last couple of passes before finishing up the act for the night, one more pass which would put them both on the same trap, deposit them on the left platform. Then they'd pose with arms up, swing out, drop onto the now raised net, flip once, roll over to the side for the dismount, bow, wave to the crowd with Dick then exit.

Simple, they'd done it a thousand times.

She made the easy cross over to his bar and started to give him that look he knew, the one where he knew he was in for a long night for not telling her about Dick trying the quad and without a net, no less.

She made the catch, griping with no problem. They were both still holding the bar when they hit the ground.

As they were falling, for the three days it took for them to hit the ground and the sawdust, John saw the horror on her face, desperately tried to find a way to save her, save himself, save them both and his hand left the bar automatically to try to hold her. He saw Dick standing below, the smile on his face turning to shock and then disbelief and then to terror as his parents were killed. John wanted to tell Mary he loved her, wanted to touch her, wanted to make it not be happening.

The last thing he saw were her eyes staring, wide with fear and her screaming.

He died instantly, his neck and back broken, his skull shattered.

Mary lived for a few minutes, dying but not yet dead. Not quite. She knew John was gone, she'd known as soon as…she couldn't hear anything, could only see what was directly in front of her, couldn't move her head or any of her limbs and realized, dimly that she'd probably broken her back. She saw Dick, her son, her mirror image, her baby, a couple of feet away, staring at her as he knelt beside her. She thought he might have put his hand on her shoulder, though she couldn't feel anything and tried to tell him she loved him but couldn't speak.

She didn't feel any pain and she was surprised about that but mostly what she felt was sadness that Dick was left alone and hoped her family would take care of him, even after the way they'd parted and all the arguments. He was still young, only eight and he needed so much, so much guidance, so much love and encouragement. No one seemed to understand that—he was always so confident, so out going, but he was still so young and now they wouldn't be there to take care of him.

She and John had some years together, not enough, but now Dick would be alone and that made her so incredibly sad that she wanted to apologize to him and tell him how sorry she was that they'd been killed, but couldn't manage to speak.

Dick knew she was dead then. She was still looking at him with her eyes that were exactly like his own but she had stopped breathing and the circus people were trying to lead him away. He stood up, letting them do their work but refusing to leave until his parents were loaded onto gurneys and put into the ambulance, saw the paramedics place the sheets over his parents bodies and watched as the blood which was pooled on the ground soaked through the fabric, staining it bright red and he thought, inappropriately, that red was one of his mother's favorite colors, so maybe she would be somehow pleased.

The others tried to comfort him, knowing there was no comfort to be had. He was allowed to change into jeans and a tee shirt and taken in a police car to a kid's jail because it was too late to take him anywhere else and the social worker called in was incompetent at her job, making him wonder if they thought he'd been responsible for the accident.

Path B

It had been another fancy schmancy Charity performance the night before and thank God it had ended up being pretty much just another night at the office after all. Y'see, a lot of people think that because there are a lot of rich or famous people in the house it's a big deal, but to the performers it's just another day at work. They go through their warm ups, wear their usual costumes, and go through their routines just like they do every night of the week. It's not quite like punching a time clock, but it's not all that different, either. Most of the time, anyway.

Thank God.

It was almost—God. If Dick hadn't seen the ropes, if he hadn't said something, if he hadn't thrown the closest thing to a tantrum he'd had since he was two years old they could have been killed.

As it was, Mary was white with shock and fear, swearing that this was it, she wasn't going up there again and Dick wasn't setting foot off the ground if she had to tie him to a stake and sit on him.

"Mary, don't be silly, all right? The ropes frayed, Dick saw them, they were replaced and nothing happened. It's fine."

"Fine? He could have been killed—we all could have been killed and all you can say is 'don't worry about it, these things happen'? For God's sake, John…"

"Mary…" If she knew they'd been cut she'd be flat out cold on the floor or on the next train home to Mama, with Dick in tow.

"It's too dangerous—I've said that before and you never listen, you just pooh-pooh me and say I'm being over protective or hysterical or something but this was just too close. When I think of what could have happened…I'm going to call my father and we're leaving in the morning. You know he'll give you a job with the company and then we can live like normal people for once in our lives—Dick can go to a real school and we can stop living like vagabonds."

She was upset, he knew that and frankly so was he, but for God's sake, cut and run because of one incident? Jesus, if anything happened to Mary or Dick he'd never forgive himself, but to run away because one set of thugs tried to shake down the show? The cops had arrested them, they wouldn't be bothering anyone and the show was moving two hundred miles in the morning anyway. Nothing happened. They were all safe and sound and, Christ, leaving the circus? It was their lives and as soon as some time went by, Mary would come around. He knew she would, she always did—like the other times she'd insisted they quit, get 'normal' jobs in one place so Dick could go to a real school instead of being home schooled.

It never happened, they were still with Haley's and Dick was as smart as they come. He read like a grad student, he had more friends than he could count, he'd seen more of the country—and Europe—than any kid who wasn't in this life and he was happy and loved. The kid was fine, great, incredible, fantastic and was getting better all the time.

He'd bring her around, he knew he would. They'd put the quad in as a regular part of the act and then the big shows would be after them even more than they usually were. He'd be able to negotiate more money and Mary would be happy about that. They'd be fine.

It had been a damn close call, though and he didn't like thinking about what could have happened. John had been at the show years ago when the Wallenda's had their big fall. He'd just been a little kid, but that's the kind of thing you don't ever forget. The Wallenda's were a big tight knit family of wirewalkers, probably the best in the world. They had this act where they'd build these big pyramids on the high wire, they'd have three or four of the big men on the bottom, men balancing in their shoulders and the ladies on top of them with maybe one more on top like a big old cherry and they'd walk like this on that wire, back and forth. Sometimes they'd even do the act up on special bicycles on the wire, back and forth, seven people in a pyramid.

One night, God knows why, someone lost their balance and the whole pyramid fell with no net to break the fall. Three of the men fell, two were killed, the third paralyzed from the waist down. Oh, sure, they rebuilt the act and even did the same trick again, but John never forgot the thud of bodies hitting the ground and the screams.

He'd never forget that and once in a great while, maybe after a rough practice, he'd wake up in a cold sweat seeing Dick on the ground like the Wallenda's and in his dream he'd have the same look on his face Karl Wallenda had that night.

So sure, sometimes he thought about what he was asking Mary and Dick to do, but God—they all loved it so much. The traveling, the crowds, the attention, even dealing with the bills and the sprains and the cramped little trailer they lived in on the road.

He'd never seen a kid as happy as Dick and Mary, damn; she was everything he'd ever wanted all in one five-foot tall package. Smart and pretty and funny and she loved him back as much as he loved her.

The act was fine. They were fine. They'd be in Hartford tomorrow and that was that.

"Hey Dad? Mom wants you inside."

"Thanks, son. Isn't it getting to be past your bed time?"

"Billy said he'd show me some more juggling stuff now and I can sleep during the drive later, okay?" He meant the drive to Hartford after the strike was done, after they were packed to go and it wouldn't be all that long. When you move every week, you get good at it.

"I guess. I mean, if it's all right with your mother."

Dick gave his dad a blushing smile. "Mom said she wanted to talk to you. Inside, Dad."

John knew what that meant even better than Dick did. Mary was ready to make up and Dick, at eight years old, knew they'd like it if he were busy for an hour or so.

Smart kid. Good kid and tonight he may well have saved lives.

TBC