If I Were a Herald
Chapter 45
Coming Home
Disclaimer: Any resemblance to real people and places is purely intentional. Don't sue me. I'm a poor college student and don't have any money.
A/N (11/14/05): I miss my kitties. Actually, I miss my house in general. And my family. And my friends. And basically this is just my general homesickness chapter.
A/N (1/7/06): Nobody ever mentions how the families would react to losing a child to some fantasy world. They only think about themselves. Selfish Mary-Sues. mutters Yeah, so…that's also what this chapter is about. It's here to lend verisimilitude to the story.
A/N (1/8/06): This chapter is gonna be kinda long, because there's a lot of stuff that falls under the general category of "coming home."
A/N (1/14/06): I was going to use my song, "Coming Home," but it turns out Mercedes Lackey also has a song by that title, and her song is about a Herald, so I thought I'd use it.
Fireblade K'Chona: Real ocean definitely shows up in the next chapter.
Egbert-Jan Baggel: Thanks for the correction. I just wrote what I heard. It has been corrected. I may even upload the corrected version sometime in the near future. If you have any other corrections, feel free to give them.
Jay: There was supposed to be a scene break in between the collapsing of exhaustion and pulling the prank. And there's a cold front going through over Halloween. And you're not drunk, you're tired. I know, because you only had about one shot of liquor.
Mad-4-Manga: Thanks for the explanation. And—thank you for the glomp suggestion.
"Look. The sun is setting." Out across the water, the last rays of the sun painted the waves the color of blood. Red reflection, white foam, and blue water. For an instant I felt a wave of longing for my homeland. America, home of the brave and land of the free. All I had left were memories and songs. Songs about America, but also songs that were simply from Earth, that made me feel connected. I missed the ocean.
"There's something that I have to do," I told him. I'd thought this over carefully, and decided on a tactic that seemed most likely to work. "I need to return home."
"To Haven?" he asked, confused.
"Eventually, yes. But first, to my birthplace. America. I need to see the ocean. To speak with my family. Tell them I'm alright."
"I'll come with you," he offered.
That was exactly what I'd been hoping he'd say. For a while, we'd both have to keep a low profile. Good old Vandir was heading a bona fide search for the pirate and his Herald cohort. So it wasn't like we could just return to Valdemar. Not for a while, at least. Best for us if we could disappear. And the less Jacoby knew about the danger, the better. It had taken me six years to learn enough about politics to accept the fact that even with the royal pardon, Jacoby wasn't out of danger. Jacoby didn't have a snowball's chance in hell of wrapping his mind around such convoluted thinking. I just wished I could bring the kids to meet my family, but there wasn't time to go fetch them. "If you're coming—Lyrna says we're lifebonded. I'll have to do a spell to get where I'm going, and if I could borrow energy from you, it would make things much easier. Will you allow that?"
"Certainly. Take anythin' ye need."
"Great. Um, you might want to find a set of clothes that doesn't smell of alcohol. My parents are going to be suspicious enough when you come in looking like a pirate, I don't need you to be drunk as well." He'd eventually given up on his search for a shirt that wasn't soaked in beer. It was a lost cause anyway, and even if he'd had one, it would have gotten stained quickly. Just because I'd returned to him didn't mean he'd given up alcohol for good. "Maybe you should buy a new shirt. I've got, um, here." I dropped a handful of gold coins into his palm. From Jello, again. It wasn't my fault if our little fight had spilled some gold into the River Terilee, and I'd gone back to collect it later.
While Jacoby went in search of a new outfit, I packed my stuff and arranged it on Lyrna's back.
This time the spell would be perfect. No mistakes. I found a large warehouse doorway, big enough for Lyrna to fit through, and began. I spun energy out from myself and Jacoby, building my Gate. He joined me after I'd begun, but seemed to know I needed silence. Maybe Lyrna had told him.
"Heads Carolina, tails California," I muttered as I worked the spell. "Come on, let's pray this works." Ah, to be going somewhere warm again. I think I may have forgotten the meaning of the word.
Without really realizing what I was doing, I hummed under my breath. Heads Carolina, tails California; somewhere greener, somewhere warmer. Up in the mountains, down by the ocean. Where it don't matter, as long as we're going somewhere together. I've got a quarter. Heads Carolina, tails California.
The Gate spun away from me. It took on a life of its own. It drew energy from me. No longer could I control it. I fought desperately for that control. Focus. I had to focus. I imagined the driveway right outside our garage. There would be pine needles on it. The palm tree in the semicircular front yard would look thus, with Mommy's little plants growing in its lower cut-off branches. Would they still be there?
Several tense seconds passed. Fear clenched my gut. Would this Gate go haywire in the same way as the last one? Had I learned enough in the past six years to make it work?
The Gate stabilized.
Like the Stargate, it seemed to swirl with some internal fluctuations. It pulsated once—twice. Then it snapped into place, and I saw the image that had been in my head.
Home.
I'll still hold my head up high, and see this journey through, 'cause I'm coming, oh, I'm coming home to you.
It had been six years. I was a different person from the impetuous girl who had tried to create a Gate in the middle of her dorm room. Now I was an adult.
But I still called my parents Mommy and Daddy, and that was what mattered.
"That's where ye live?" Jacoby asked.
"That's where I lived," I corrected. "Come on. The spell seems to have worked. At least this time it's not sucking me through."
I sensed someone coming up behind us. Someone with ill intent. Well, damn. A firm shove sent Jacoby stumbling through the Gate, where he would—hopefully—be too busy taking in the alien environment to pay attention to what was happening back here.
"Herald Kali," a cold voice intoned. It belonged to a man with rather ordinary features, in plain clothes, perhaps a bitter better made than the average citizen of Belt.
"Who, me?" I asked, as Lyrna went through the Gate. The magic was draining my energy now. It took all my effort not to let it show. "I'm no Herald. I'm Tayledras." To convince him, I babbled something in Shin'a'in. It translated loosely as "You're a bumbling idiot. You wouldn't know a Hawkbrother if his bird bit you on the face." In Valdemaran, I added, "Name's Lightningbolt. And I'm leaving." Without waiting for a reply, I slipped through the Gate. He approached, intent upon following me. If I didn't shut the thing down real soon, he'd end up on Earth.
Nothing like working under pressure.
He was about three steps away when I managed to release all the energies back into the ground. Too close for comfort. At least Lyrna's bulk blocked the Gate from Jacoby's view. Jacoby himself stood off to the side, panting with effort. Quite dazed. Looked about how I felt. Gate-building was an intensive process.
Now that the emergency was over, details began to register. A dog was barking inside the house. Angel, that was her name. Hopefully someone was home. Otherwise I'd have to try to remember either where we hid the key, or how to use the techno-gadget code thingy to open the garage. Life was much simpler without technology.
The humidity hit me like a zombie's punch. Good old Florida. Maybe there was something to be said for cold weather, after all.
"Lyrna, you go make friends with the RV, if it's still out back. I think there should be some horses in the next yard, maybe you could hide among them if you're spotted." I grabbed my packs off her back, then went and rang the doorbell.
No one answered.
"Oh, fu—freak," I said, catching myself at the last second. It wouldn't do to swear like a sailor when around my parents. I made my way to the garage opener and tried to remember the code. Packs went down on the semicircular driveway. Come on, it couldn't be that hard. Oh, right—of course. I entered it, and pressed "open," and the garage door rumbled to life. Pick up the packs once again.
Jacoby jumped back in fear. "Kali, get back! It be alive!"
My grin was infectious. "It's a garage door. Technology. The wonders of life in the twenty-first century. Come on in. Let's see if my old room's still intact. Should be; the cats would rebel if my parents did anything to it." I showed him to the door to the house, then hit the button to close the garage.
As soon as I opened the door I was greeted by a shrieking alarm and a young man with a gun. Not the obnoxious bumble-bee yellow-and-black B-B gun I'd expected, but a pistol. The young man had short blonde hair and blue eyes. He was twenty—so, old enough to own a gun, but not old enough to carry concealed. He'd probably gotten that gun for his eighteenth birthday—which I'd missed. Sort of hard to travel home from another planet, even for something as important as a little brother's coming-of-age.
"Whoa, kid, put the gun down." I dropped the packs and held up my hands, keeping them as far as possible from my various weapons. "No, really. Don't you recognize me?" I'd gotten to seriously considering trying out John Taylor's trick with the bullets before he spoke. Nothing like an empty chamber to keep a shot from being fired.
"Sabrina?" he asked suspiciously.
"No, I'm not Sabrina, you gurhurt. Honestly, I thought I'd never see the day when my own brother couldn't tell the difference between his sisters."
Jacoby also had his hands raised. He leaned toward me. "Who is that?"
"That's my brother, Blake. I think. That is you, right?" By this time the shrieking was getting on my nerves. The dog was now jumping around my feet. Yip-yap-yip-yap. Stupid dog. "Look, kid, at least let me turn off the alarm." Without waiting for a response, I turned around and did just that. "And tell me that Mom or Dad got my 'Pirates' DVD from my dorm room. I've gone for six years without seeing that movie, and we're talking serious withdrawal here."
Finally the kid lowered the gun, though he was still suspicious. I could feel it. Apparently since "Magic's Price" had awakened my Gifts, I was able to use them on Earth just as well as on Velgarth. "Where've you been?"
"On another planet," I replied with raised eyebrows, daring him to disbelieve. "Where are my kitties? Does my room still look the same? Are they in my room?"
"Uh, yeah. They're probably in there. Why didn't you call? Mom and Dad were really worried about you. They had the police out looking for you and everything. Hell, we thought you were dead!" From the look on his face, he still wasn't sure that wasn't true.
I made a face. "Look, I'm really sorry about that. The reason I didn't call was I couldn't. Let's just say that if the government ever found out where I've been, the Stargate program would become a reality." That was another think I'd missed. Stargate.
"So who's your friend?"
"This, me boy, is a real-life pirate. Captain Jacoby of the Bloodred Falcon. We're getting married."
"Let me guess. You spent the last six years on his ship."
"Well, the last six months, anyway. Not counting the last two, which were spent in various bars—don't ever try to drown your troubles, kid. It's not pretty. Especially if he can swim." Nothing like a bit of exaggeration to spice things up.
"You were on a pirate ship, and that's why you didn't call."
Although that wasn't entirely true, I didn't really try to dissuade him from the idea. "Think whatever you want. I'm going to go check out my room." Just to be safe, I gave him the code. He relaxed minutely. It would have been easier if I could have worked my projective empathy on him, but I knew better than to try singing. If there was one thing I remembered about Blake, it was how much he hated my music.
"Now, c'mon, kid. You haven't seen me in six years. The least you can do is give me a hug."
H approached rather hesitantly, laying the gun on the top of the safe, but I was having none of that. I ran the two steps to him and lifted him in the air. "I'm hoooooome!" I crowed. After about two minutes he managed to wriggle free.
Once again I hefted my packs.
My room was actually rather a lot like I'd left it, even with my old camo assemblage piece on the wall behind the door. I swung the packs down on the floor next to the dresser. The Harry Potter curtains were gone, replaced with something rather plainer and more appropriate for guests. The sheets weren't my HP sheets, either, they were tiger-striped. But the bed was still in the same place. On the opposite wall was the painting of the ship my grandmom had given me. I walked over to the bed and peered onto the top bunk. Sure enough, there was a cat there, but just one. Princess, my little gypsy cat. She yawned and looked at me.
"C'mon, Princess, surely you remember me," I cooed as I took her from the bed. I certainly remembered her.
Jacoby had come into the room after me. "A cat, eh? We could use one o' them aboard ship. Good luck."
"Yeah. Unfortunately, this one can't make any kittens. She's been spayed. And the tom's been neutered. Let's see if he still likes me. Used to be, I was the only person he could stand." I sprawled across the bed and looked in the back corner by the wall. Sure enough, there was Maxx, curled up in his favorite hiding spot. "Hey there, Maxxy-poo. How're ya doin', huh?" I reached down to pet him. He sniffed my hand suspiciously, then allowed me to pamper him to my heart's content. Seemed he still considered my room to be sanctuary. "I've missed you, you know that? I've even missed getting your fur up my nose."
A rumbling began beneath my feet. The garage was opening again. I got downstairs in time to hear Blake say, "Hey, Mom, guess who showed up? You're never going to believe this."
"Mommy! I'm home!" I hummed a lullaby under my breath, projecting soothing thoughts.
My mother froze in her tracks. Her fingers went slack from shock, and the bag she carried slipped through them and fell to the floor. "No. It can't be."
For a minute there I thought she might faint. Her face went all ashen and her eyes stopped focusing properly. Forget seeing a ghost, she looked like a ghost herself. So much for soothing thoughts.
"Bright Havens!" I said with forced cheerfulness. "You look as if you'd seen a ghost."
"Kali?" she asked tremulously. "You were gone so long. Your father and I were ready to give you up for dead. What happened?"
By the end of my explanation, she was livid. It took an hour to get her calmed down—then another hour to explain to Daddy over the phone that I really was home. Pure torture. Phone calls were among the technological conveniences I had not missed while on Velgarth. To tell the truth, I was something of a technophobe.
I also had to explain all about Jacoby. Yes, Mother, I'm getting married. No, we haven't yet set a date. Basically whenever we get hold of this priest friend of his—yes, Jacoby does know the nicest people. Oh, hey, Jacoby, meet my mother. She's a judge. Try to behave.
Jacoby choked. :Yer mother is a judge:
Oh, look, he was Mindspeaking me—probably because he was too busy choking to talk normally. :Aye, and she can't be bribed. So don't you dare get into any trouble while you're here. And my dad's a psychologist. He believes boyfriends are fair game in season.:
What day was it, anyway? I checked my watch, which, though set to Valdemar time, still had the Earth days. Somehow they corresponded to Valdemar days, but recently, I'd just lost track.
:Recently you've been too drunk to know whether the sun is out: Lyrna corrected.
September 18. That meant that tomorrow was International Talk Like a Pirate Day. We had to stay for that, if nothing else. "By the way, Mom, I left my horse in the yard. So don't call animal control on her. She's very well-behaved. Smarter than a cat."
:Thanks a lot: Lyrna said sarcastically.
:Cats are quite intelligent creatures. For a kitten rules the universe by right of divine birth.: I couldn't remember the rest of that poem, inspired by Kipling's "Female of the Species," but I could remember that line. Mostly because it came at the end of every verse.
"It is okay if we stay here, right?" I asked, just to be sure. "I mean, if you've got other plans, I should still have that money in the bank. We could check into a hotel for a few nights."
"No, it's okay," replied my mother, much calmer now. "You can stay in the upstairs room, and Jacoby can have the guest bedroom."
Yeah, it figured that Mommy would separate us. Ah well. Seems I was still her baby girl. Just as long as Blake had stopped being such a—
:Kali: Lyrna chided. :That's not nice.:
"Do you believe in magic?" I asked suddenly.
"Not especially," Mom replied. "Why?"
"What if someone were to present you with proof of its existence?"
"It would depend on the proof."
"Okay. How about…this?" There were candles in the fireplace. With a single thought, I lit them all. "Or better yet, I could levitate you." Another thought, and Mom floated a foot off the floor. Her eyes bugged out of her head, but other than that, she remained remarkably calm. Probably lingering shock. There's only so much stress a body can undergo before its freak-out feature stops working. "There's no way I could fake that, now is there?" I let her down gently. "Magic, Mother. I haven't even been on Earth. I've been on another planet, where I learned to do magic. That's why I didn't call you. I couldn't. It's like in that Stargate Atlantis episode, where Dr. Weir's boyfriend tries to call her and he gets a message saying she's temporarily out of range. I was at least as far as the Pegasus galaxy. And I came here via a Gate. Rather like a Stargate, actually, but powered by magic rather than science."
"Either that, or you've been possessed by the Ori," my mom joked. The Ori had been the main evil bad guys on Stargate the year I left.
"Don't discount the possibility," I replied. The fact that she was joking was a good thing. It meant she was coping with the shock.
I found my computer stashed away in the attic along with the rest of my stuff. Seemed my parents had gotten a bit nostalgic, and had kept all my stuff. A miracle in itself.
Ah, yes, my beloved computer. With all my beloved music. The cd's were still in Valdemar, but that didn't matter when I had the computer. I also had my radio/cd player. I gathered up all the important stuff—including my CJS poster—and took it all to my room. I was so proud of myself when I remembered the Hitkicker wavelength. One oh two seven WHKR. It was blaring an old favorite of mine—Toby Keith's "Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue." "You'll be sorry that you messed with the US of A, 'cause we'll put a boot in your ass, it's the American way." As I listened, I not only sang along, but played along. I needed the practice, and I had an instrument with me. My fiddle had been a necessary part of my Taileffer disguise.
"God blessed Texas with his own hand, brought down angels from the Promised Land, gave 'em a place where they could dance. If you wanna see heaven, brother, here's your chance. Well I've been sent to spread the message: God blessed Texas."
Then there were some new songs I didn't recognize. Some of them good, some of them not. The old annoying one about how "hillbillies like it in the hay." I could still remember trying to type a sappy romance while listening to that song. A sappy pirate romance. While listening to a country song that didn't even try to be subtle. Not a good combination.
As I set up my room with all its old accoutrements, I listened to the song "Daddy's Money." That song had always spoken to my heart, because I wanted to be that girl. The one in the choir loft, with her daddy's money and her momma's good looks. I'd had both, or at least the potential for both. And now I had my man.
"Big orange ball sinkin' in the water. Toes in the sand, couldn't get much hotter…. I've been around the block a time or two, done almost everything a girl could do. I've done some living, yeah I've had fun, but there is one thing that I haven't done. I wanna know how forever feels. Hey, I wanna know how forever feels."
"Kali! Come help with dinner!"
I groaned. Home sweet home. Complete with dishes and tables to be set. "Coming, Mother. Jacoby! Get your a—I mean, your butt in here! If I've gotta help, then so do you." Getting up, I had to clutch the railing on the stairs to keep from fainting. Just like I remembered.
When I got to the kitchen, I found Jacoby staring at the silverware in puzzlement. "What's all this for?"
I rolled my eyes. "Come here, darling. I'll show you." At least it made setting the table more interesting, when I had to explain it to him. Forks on the left—on top of the folded napkins—and knives on the right, blade facing inwards. "Try to act civilized in front of my family. Please. Oh, and we've got this rule. Cook takes first bite."
Dinner was wonderful. Steak—I'd forgotten how well my dad could cook. His specialties are steak and hamburgers. I hadn't had steak this tender since—well, since I left home to go to college. It was a Friday, so would have been my day, by the old rules. But things change in six years. Blake had said prayers. Good thing, too—I might have messed up and prayed to the wrong god. After Karse, I'd made it a habit to pray to every god I knew with great regularity. As far as I knew, they were all real, and it was a good idea to be on speaking terms with as many deities as possible. You never knew when you might need them to get you out of a tight squeeze.
About halfway through the meal, we started on another one of our traditions. It was called Imagination, and we'd started it when I was about three or four. Blake had still been in a high chair, and we'd had to say what he liked best for him. That was what Imagination was all about. We'd go in order from youngest to oldest, starting with the person who said prayers, and we'd say our favorite thing for the day. There'd been a slight change shortly before I left. My older sister always said prayers on Sunday, and because we'd eat dinner around two, she'd complain that the day wasn't over yet. So the rules changed to where we could say what we liked best since the last time we said Imagination.
Blake had enjoyed college that day. Seemed he went to FIT, and drove himself there and back.
"With what car?" I asked.
"The Toyota," he replied, jerking his head toward the driveway. I looked out. Indeed, there was Mom's old Toyota Sienna minivan, parked on the edge of the driveway. Funny, I hadn't noticed it before.
"You'd better be taking good care of my car," I growled. It was an old joke. I'd called dibs on that car the moment Mom purchased it, having calculated that she'd be ready to sell it at about the same time as I went off to college. Well, she'd switched cars, alright, but she'd given that one to my sister. Didn't want me to have a car my first year of college. I would've gotten it in two years, but inter-world postage is expensive.
"It's my car now," Blake replied.
"I'm just surprised that thing still runs. How old is it now, thirteen years? How are the locks working?"
"The back doors won't unlock except for manually. Trunk is acting up again." Whatever that meant. "And the engine sounds like it's about to explode."
"How are gas prices these days?"
Blake winced, which was answer enough. "Four dollars a gallon."
Now it was my turn to wince. "Ooch. Tell me you're working on inventing a solar-powered car." Blake had always wanted to be an inventor. He got it from Grandpa Baccus.
"Even better. Electric. We've got a whole group working on it at school. We're about ready to apply for a patent."
"Oh, good." I went to take a bite.
"Kali," Blake said just as the bite got to my mouth, indicating it was my turn. Another tradition. Once it was your turn to say what you liked best, you weren't allowed to eat until you'd discharged your duty; so we made a point of trying to catch the next person right before they took a bite.
"Well," I leaned back in my chair. "Since last time, right? That'd be, oh, over six years. A lot has happened in that time. There was the time Jorjie and I sprayed hair spray and silly string on the Companions."
Jacoby almost choked on his water (he'd asked for beer, but I'd put my foot down; he might be legal, but this was my house, and my fiancé wasn't going to drink my dad's beer—yes, it was silly of me, but I didn't care). :Ye did what:
:Oh, it was terrible fun. I'll have to tell you about it sometime.: While he recovered, I continued. "Oh, I no longer have scoliosis. They…cured it. I won't go into the details. I got to join a group of—nevermind, you really don't need to know that." I'd been about to tell them about the bandits, but maybe that wasn't such a good idea, considering that my mom was a judge. And considering the fact that she still didn't actually know what I did. "Karse really wasn't all that fun anyways. Except for Angus. He was my pet snake for all of about a week, then he skedaddled. Smart guy." I perked up a bit as another memory struck me. "They wrote a couple songs about my time in Karse. Now that was cool. And I adopted four kids off the streets. Great kids, but they get into trouble you would not believe." I continued to play back the last six years of my life in my head. "Oh, I got to be in a play! Lead actress, too. And I wrote it. Then there was that time I met Stormwind outside Belt—you haven't seen anything until you've seen a Hawkbrother trying to pass as a pirate! Silk eye patch, more beads in his hair than Captain Jack Sparrow, colors so bright they hurt my eyes. And I'm just glad to be home. Jacoby."
:What am I supposed to do:
Briefly I explained the rules of Imagination to him. :Just don't mention that you're a pirate. They wouldn't understand.:
"Ah, I enjoyed being here with Kali, and meeting her family. You have a wonderful daughter."
:Aw, you're so sweet.:
:I happen to know that ye'd kick me if I'd said anythin' else.:
:Yes, well, you're still sweet. And it's you, not ye, and stop dropping your final g's.: At least he'd spoken properly when he spoke aloud. Probably trying not to embarrass me.
He pretty much ignored Mom and Dad as they said what they'd liked best—my return, of course. A true miracle. But Jacoby was too busy staring at the chandelier. :Those candles—why don't they flicker:
:'Cause they're not candles. We've got artificers galore here, and something called electricity. It does cool magical stuff. That's called a chandelier, and the "candles" are really light bulbs.:
:This be a strange land ye call home.:
:Is, not be, and you, not ye. And it's not strange to me. From my point of view, Valdemar is crazy-weird. Overall, I think I like Valdemar better. Not so much confusing gadgetry.:
After dinner came chores. Kitchen, dishes, litterbox. Blake was so happy to have someone else to do the litterbox. From the look—and smell—it hadn't been cleaned in about a week. The kid never could remember to clean up after the cats. Then again, they were my cats. Briefly, I wondered who'd been paying their vet bills. Probably Mom. She was the cat person, even though she was allergic to them. Maxx was supposed to be hers, but he'd abandoned her in favor of me only a few months after she acquired him.
Now that was a story worth re-telling. She'd been at the vet's, with my cousin Shelly. The cat carrier, meant only for on cat, held my sister's overweight cat and my hyper cat. Not a good combination from the beginning. The only reason they weren't causing a ruckus was they were too scared. This was the vet's, after all. A cute little grey furball came in, with a stub of a tail and a whiney meow like you would not believe. That thing has some set of lungs.
The vet, seeing his opportunity, tried to foist the cat off on Mommy. But Mommy was having none of that. Admitted, she wanted another cat—a lap cat, sweet and cuddly. So, after a while, she said, "If he goes in the cat carrier with the other cats, I'll take him home."
The vet thought that was a bit much. "No way he's going to do that. Just pick him up. He's really sweet."
While they were talking, the clever little manx jumped into the already-full cat carrier. The overweight motherly cat immediately commenced giving him a bath. So Mommy was stuck with him.
As it turned out, he wasn't the sweet cat she'd thought him to be. He was too skittish. Before the vet took him in, he'd been feral, so he didn't trust people, unless they put forth a lot of effort. Like me.
When I came back into the kitchen, Blake was regaling Jacoby with a tale of his latest exploit in the backyard. "Boom! It just exploded. Dirt flew everywhere. There was a crater a foot wide. It was awesome."
"And this bomb, it can be used as a weapon?" Jacoby asked.
"Hell yes. As a weapon, or to get through a barricade. Haven't you ever heard of bombs before?"
"No he hasn't," I replied for Jacoby. "I found him way out in the boonies. No television or anything. Sometimes I'm not even sure he knows how to read."
"I know perfectly well—"
"I'm teasing, love. I do that a lot."
Blake rolled his eyes. "She does that all the time."
Well, at least he didn't say he'd been glad to be rid of me these past six years. Because if he had, I would've had to hurt him. Seriously. And I might not have gotten to him before Jacoby killed him.
Maybe he'd finally learned to keep his mouth shut.
"So, kid. I see you and Jacoby hit it off."
"Yeah. He thinks he can throw knives better than I can. We're gonna have a contest after we finish up here."
:Well, I hope you don't beat him too badly: I Mindsent Jacoby. :He's got a rather delicate ego.:
:I'll be sure to mess up once or twice, just for ye.:
:You: I corrected automatically.
:Aye, you.:
"You forget, Jacoby's a pirate. He challenged me to a knife-throwing contest, once."
"More like a drinking contest."
"Yeah, well, the ten mugs of whiskey was just to make it more interesting."
"An' to get ye—you into me—"
"Ahem. Not with my brother present. You didn't succeed, anyways. The point is, he beat me, hands down."
"You passed out," Jacoby pointed out. "We never even got around to throwing the knives."
"Fine, so I fainted. I've got low blood pressure." With a huff, I grabbed a paper towel, wet it, and began wiping the counters that Blake and Jacoby had cleared.
Meanwhile, the two boys continued to put dishes in the dishwasher. Blake splashed water at Jacoby. My fiancé responded by tossing tea from a glass at my brother. Blake spluttered indignantly. Jacoby shrugged. "Fair's fair, mate."
I sniggered. "Pirates don't play fair. We cheat. Blake, go get cleaned up. Jacoby, water's okay, but no throwing tea at people. It stains."
For a minute it looked like Blake was going to argue with my peremptory command; then, realizing that he'd just been given temporary release from kitchen duty, he raced upstairs to change.
That left me in the kitchen alone with Jacoby. I could feel my parents watching us from the next room, wondering what we'd do. Two strangers, in their kitchen. They didn't even know their own daughter anymore. After all, it had been six years. Last they'd seen me, I'd been an excitable teenager getting into the swing of college life. Partying like mad and hiding her alcohol consumption as best she could. Now I was an adult, engaged to be married, who wouldn't let her fiancé drink beer at her parents' table. What had changed in those six years?
Nothing, really. Except for this: I'd grown up.
"So. What's my brother been telling you? I heard something about bombs."
"Aye! They destroy things, like fire."
"Yeah, I know what bombs are. Maybe we should watch Stargate together. C-4 kicks ass." :And I'll just bet you've never seen a P-90 before.:
:What is a P-90:
:It's a type of gun.: I accompanied that thought with an image of someone firing a pistol. :Only, the P-90 is so much cooler than most guns. It's fully automatic, meaning it can keep firing without you having to release the trigger. Watch Stargate and you'll understand.: "Say, Daddy, can we watch Stargate after this? I never got to finish watching Season 9."
"Sure. But finish the kitchen first."
With the incentive of Stargate to encourage me, I finished the kitchen in record time. We met Blake on his way back down and herded him upstairs again. He tried to protest that he and Jacoby were supposed to throw knives, but I said they could do that tomorrow. It was too dark now anyways.
We made our way to the TV room, which looked different than I remembered. Mom had been redecorating again. There was a new couch, and the old plush rocking chair was gone. But Dad's old black leather chair was still there, looking none the worse for wear.
Although I'd watched Stargate before, up to about the middle of Season 9, it had been six years. So I popped out the first DVD for Season 1 and placed it in the DVD player. It took me a while to remember how to work the thing, and I didn't even bother with the remotes. We had too many, and there was just no way I was going to figure out which one went to which piece of equipment. When I left, there had been four, but they'd spawned in my absence.
Mommy ended up with control of the remote. Jacoby sat on the new couch, and I sat practically on top of him. It was only supposed to be a two-person couch, a loveseat, but at the moment it was holding me, Jacoby, and Blake. Daddy sat in his leather chair, while Mommy rolled out her computer chair.
After the trailer/prologue thingy, Mommy started to fast-forward through the opening sequence, but I threw my usual fit and convinced her to leave it be. In this case, being the pilot episode, the opening sequence was kinda boring, but I missed the music. After all, I hadn't heard it in six years. "Stargate, it's a great big swirl, with a great big whirl. You can step inside to another world. We're talking Stargate, it's a crazy trip. You can go quite far. You don't need a car or even a ship. There's Colonel O'Neill and Carter and Daniel and Teal'c. Look out for that Goa'uld!"
Somehow, Colonel O'Neill just didn't look quite as hot as I'd remembered. And Daniel was cute, but in a geeky sort of way. Plus he sneezed too much. He'd gotten over his allergies by the later episodes, but in this one he was still Sir Sneezalot.
Overall, Stargate just wasn't what I'd remembered. Sure it was funny—Colonel O'Neill guaranteed there was at least some humor involved—but not as good as my memory made it. Still, it had its highlights. There was Samantha Carter's line about how "Just because my reproductive organs are on the inside rather than the outside doesn't mean I can't do anything you can do." I noticed Blake watching her with evident appreciation. So. He still had a crush on her. What fun. I wondered briefly if he was still with that same girl from years ago. They'd been such a perfect couple. Every time she came over, they'd try to drown each other in the pool.
Jacoby kept interrupting with questions about the television. Are there really people in there? No, there aren't really people in there. It's a recording. So it's magic? Are they fairies? No, Jacoby, they've been recorded. It's like scrying. Only we're scrying something that already happened. Oh. So this is real? No, it's made up, like a play. Now shut up and watch the show.
Well, maybe it didn't go quite like that. Jacoby's questions were slightly more intelligent, and my responses weren't quite so condescending. But that was the basic idea.
So. On with the show. Teal'c's amazement at Jack's watch was matched by Jacoby's, and I had to show him my watch and explain how it worked. Blake cast us a sideways glance, then decided not to worry about it. I was certifiably insane, and anyone who wanted to marry me had to be even crazier. So there probably wasn't any logical explanation for what we were doing—at least not one that he would understand.
There was the whole nude lady scene. I still didn't see the point of that, except to up the rating to "R." This time, unlike when I'd watched it at sixteen, Mommy didn't fast forward and cover my eyes. She tried to fast forward, but Blake grabbed the remote out of her hand. Horny teenager. My lips twisted wryly.
Jacoby couldn't tear his gaze off the screen through the entire sequence, so I poked him. Hard. Right in the side. He tried to look innocent, but broke under my glare.
:Well, ye gotta admit, she's pretty. In an abstract sort of way.:
:That doesn't mean you have to look.:
:Oh, alright. But yer brother's lookin'.:
:He's my brother, not my fiancé. Although maybe I should whack him over the head. On general principles.: But I didn't. It wouldn't have changed anything. Just would've ticked him off.
The scene was over shortly after that. :Okay, you can look now: I told Jacoby, who had been obediently staring at my face in the interim. Probably watching the TV out of the corner of his eye, but you can't have everything.
As the show continued, my eyes got heavier and heavier. It had been a long day. I snuggled up against Jacoby's comforting warmth. He had such a nice chest. Mmm. He stroked my hair absently. By the time the show ended, I was fast asleep, and purring like a cat.
I need ideas for the next chapter—Talk Like a Pirate Day. Well, I don't need them, but I figure y'all will have fun chipping in anyway. And that will make me happy, too.