Word Count: 8,787 (Total: 17,739)

Rating: T for language and some light sexual situations (all clothing stays on, but those who are squeamish about age gaps beware)

Date Submitted: 1/12/18

Chapter 2 – The Son's Choice

She's sitting on her side of the back porch, sipping at a lemonade as she watches Jason roll about on the ground. Previously, Herc was puzzled by her resistance to treating the yard with pesticides and fertilizer to cultivate a nicer-looking yard and understood when she had said she did not want it to make Jason sick, but it makes far more sense to actually see how the boy might get sick in the first place. Herc watches him pluck up a blade of grass and stick it in his mouth, chew it, then spit it out.

Herc crosses to Jazmine's porch and settles in the cushioned wicker chair on the near side of her matching wicker table. Jason makes an unintelligible cheeping noise and waves at him. He returns the wave and says to the toddler's mother, "Germs."

She grunts softly as she drinks a little more, but doesn't take her eyes from Jason. As she sets her glass on the table on a ceramic coaster she says, "Won't do him any harm at all. The yard's fenced, so the only things getting in here are birds and the occasional squirrel. Earthworms. My brothers and I ate more grass from an unfenced yard and turned out just fine. Besides, I refuse to turn him into one of those kids who's allergic to everything because I wanted to 'protect' him."

Herc looks at her, at her glass, then at her again. "No wine?" He has learned that her mother was French and instilled a number of French mannerisms in her; she almost always has wine in the evening, with supper or right after or both, and if she doesn't have wine she doesn't have anything else alcoholic either.

Jazmine sighs long and slow, and seems to shrink a bit. "When I was pregnant with Jason, his father asked me to avoid anything with alcohol. I didn't want to—I'm not an alcoholic and don't drink socially outside the house, plus my mother consumed wine responsibly throughout her pregnancies with my brothers and me and none of us were affected negatively by it, so I didn't see a danger—but he was very sincere. It was one of the few things that he didn't shout about when I resisted. I was often a pushover where he was concerned, so I caved."

Herc smirks. It sounds like love to him.

Then it occurs to him exactly what she's saying. He refocuses on her and lets his gaze drift down her body. Through the glass top of the wicker table he can see her left hand resting very, very low on her abdomen. He knows what that means. "You're pregnant?"

She nods.

Herc withholds the urge to chide her for allowing herself to get pregnant and take on extra financial burden when she's already living in such austerity, intentional or not. Instead, he says, "I didn't know you were dating."

Her brows draw in slightly. "I'm not."

For a flash of an instant Herc feels panic—that she's been raped—but he doubts she would be so quietly accepting of such a thing. Nor would there have been reason to mention her boyfriend or fiancé or whatever he was. If she's only just learned of her pregnancy, which is how it appears, then the conception must have occurred not long before he was killed. That couldn't have been more than two or three months ago. The shock of that realization is bad for Herc, so it has to be a thousand times as bad for Jazmine. "Should I go?"

She bites her lip and shakes her head. So softly that it's almost a whisper, she says, "Please stay. You don't have to say anything—I just need to know someone is here."

It makes Herc very uncomfortable, because if she breaks down he doesn't know what he's going to do, but he does stay with her.

It works out in the end, both of them more comfortable watching Jason than speaking of anything at all.

That's the last time she mentions her pregnancy. Herc brings it up a time or two over the next few weeks, courteously asking after the baby, but her responses are concise and definitive. He gets the message that she doesn't wish to discuss that particular topic and lets it go.

"What?" Herc says, clipping the last letter in his disbelief and irritation.

"I know," Darryl Westin, his attorney, replies. Darryl is an old, old friend of Herc's, and when he was starting his own law office Herc was one of his first clients. Herc feels that they're relatively close, seeing as Darryl guided him through all the legal obligations associated with the deaths of his wife and son, which had been plenty traumatic even without every government in creation wanting to be paid for that particular offense to their revenue stream. "I have no idea. Chuck never said a thing to me, and if he had I would've at least drawn up something for him to sign so that you and I would be prepared for it.

"But I saw the original document," he adds. "It's Chuck's hand or I'm blind."

Herc trusts Darryl, but . . . "I know his hand better. Do you have it?"

"No, the other party's attorney does."

"Who is it? Where can I find him?"

Darryl picks up a pen, scribbles something on a nearby notepad, then rips the paper off and folds it in half. He looks at Herc. "I know this woman, Herc. She was a year ahead of me. Worked her arse off. She's firm—at times comes across as a real cunt—but she's honest. If this is a forgery, she's been snowed too. Don't be rough with her. For my sake, if not hers."

Herc promises, even though he isn't sure he can keep it.

Darryl hands him the paper and reaches for the desk phone. "I'll call ahead—"

"No, don't. I don't want her knowing my name yet."

"In that case I have to call, or you'll never get in the door. Her secretary is even tougher than she is."

Herc acquiesces and studies the information on the notepaper. The address is for someplace in Ryde. When his friend finishes the call, he asks, "Herbert Hoover?"

Darryl throws his hands into the air. "All right, it wasn't my most genius moment, I admit, but I had to give her a name or she wouldn't've agreed to fit you in. Go on—she'll see you as soon as you get in, as long as you're there in the next two hours."

Herc gets there within two hours, and a rather young woman dressed so sharply she could cut canvas shows him—with a scowl of suspicion—to her employer's office. She knocks on the door twice and then enters. "Mister Hoover, Miss Callaghan," she says as she leads Herc into the room, placing an unnecessary and disdainful emphasis on his assumed name.

Miss Callaghan looks up from something on her desk and smiles. "Thank you, Aya. I'm sure you know the information I need."

"Yes ma'am." Aya strides out of the room, her stilettos stabbing at the floor. She closes the door.

Miss Callaghan is still smiling, but at Herc now. He can't tell whether or not she recognizes him, but either way she greets him with, "Hello, Mister Hoover. Please, have a seat." She gestures at the two armchairs in front of her spacious desk. "Water? Coffee?"

He sits down and finds himself saying, "Coffee's fine, thanks. Black," even though he meant to stay furious at any and all persons involved in this theft.

Miss Callaghan fixes him a fresh cup from a small machine in the corner of the room. Herc can tell by the smell of it that it's high-end, which he rather expects in a law office. She brings it to him in a Styrofoam cup, along with a few napkins for extra insulation, and says demurely, "It's hot, of course."

Once the cup has switched hands, she says as she returns to the other side of the desk, "I know Darryl runs a somewhat casual office, and I'm the same. Feel free to address me as Evelyn; everyone does, except for Aya—she's an old soul and has some views I believe are outdated, but it pleases her and does me no harm, so I let her have her way about it."

As she sits down, Aya knocks twice on the door and enters with a file folder in hand. She crosses the room and sets the folder on the desk. Evelyn barely gets out, "Thank you, Aya," before she's turning away and clicking off to the door again.

When it's closed, Evelyn opens the folder and pulls out a sheet of paper. She offers it to Herc. "I imagine this is what you want to see."

Puzzled, he accepts it. Sure enough, it seems Evelyn and Aya both recognize him, because the paper is the document bearing Chuck's signature. And it's only the last page of something more, but Herc can tell from what he can see that it has to do with money. He scrutinizes the signature, but if it's a forgery it's the best damned forgery he's ever encountered. He looks at Evelyn. "How . . .?"

"Retired or not, no serviceman is going to let something unacceptable go unaddressed. I knew that as soon as I spoke to Darryl he'd have to alert you, and that if you didn't know you would challenge it; my client warned me that your son wasn't very proactive about keeping you informed." Evelyn hands him an envelope. "And it seems my client was correct. This note was placed in my custody—at my request, as a precaution—before his reassignment to Hong Kong."

The envelope has 'Dad' written on the front in Chuck's hand and is sealed with standard desk tape. Herc starts to open it, then realizes what he's holding. He scrutinizes the paper and tape, but it doesn't look like either has been tampered with. "Who touched this?"

Evelyn tilts her head. "Only Chuck and myself. And Aya, when she filed it. My client wasn't with him that day. And now you. No one else I'm aware of. Why?"

"I want this dusted for prints."

"Oh," she says. She doesn't seem particularly surprised. "In that case, Aya only ever touched the envelope. My prints would be on the paper inside because my notepad was used. The remaining prints on it would, to the best of my knowledge, be your son's."

"Then that'll make things easy."

"Agreed. I can call a friend—"

"I'll call a friend," Herc snaps.

Evelyn raises one eyebrow. "Very well, but you'll have it collected right here, in my office. I can't permit anyone who isn't law enforcement, even family of the deceased, to walk out of here with an item entrusted to me." She does something on her computer while he calls Derrek, then says, "While we wait, perhaps you'd like to watch this video." She turns the monitor toward him.

Herc watches the first few seconds of what he identifies as a recording from a security camera. It's of the office he's currently sitting in. He turns in his seat to find the camera, and though it's camouflaged the effort wasn't great, so he does see it. He looks at the monitor again.

He sees Aya walk into view, and though it's mostly her back to the camera she's clearly exasperated by the way Chuck—or someone very similar—veers around her and drops into the same armchair Herc is sitting in.

"Thank you, Aya," video-Evelyn says. Aya leaves, and Evelyn says to Chuck, "What can I help you with this afternoon, Chuck?"

"I've been reassigned," Chuck says. Herc's heart trembles, because it certainly sounds like his son. "I'm going to Hong Kong. There's a— Well, I can't discuss it. Classified."

"I understand," Evelyn assures him, her voice warm. She seems to be fond of him in a way Herc doesn't encounter in anyone who hasn't spent extended periods of time with him or with someone who truly knows him and has explained his personality. "Like doctors, attorneys are required to keep their clients' information confidential."

Chuck nods, anxious. "I'll just say there's a chance I . . . I might not make it back. I need to make sure they'll be all right."

"All right." Evelyn begins to shuffle papers on her desk. "What do you have in mind? Or is that what you need help with?"

Chuck shakes his head. "I don't have anything to give them—I don't own anything—except money. And even that is . . ." He sighs and moves on. "I need a way to give them as much as possible if something happens to me. You know, avoid taxes and the like."

Evelyn nods. "That's a standard request. I can definitely help you."

Chuck's shoulders slump slightly and his head drops a bit. "Thank God . . ."

She smiles. "Goodness, even if I couldn't have helped directly I could've at least referred you and put in a good word. You worry too much."

"There aren't too many people I trust to not tell the whole planet."

Evelyn concedes the point with, "Yes, that is a concern, unfortunately."

Herc watches as Evelyn asks him questions and works at her computer, prints something up, then lays out some paperwork for him to read and patiently explains everything Chuck questions. If he doesn't understand, she rewords herself until he does. When he gets to the end, Chuck doesn't hesitate to put pen to paper, and Herc feels no anxiety about it. He may disagree, but he doesn't feel that Chuck didn't know what was being signed.

"Now that you've signed away your soul," Evelyn says as she collects the papers, "I feel it necessary to ask if you've mentioned this to your father yet."

"No," Chuck admits. Evelyn gives him a look, and he says, "I will! I swear! It's just too busy right now, with all the prep we're doing . . ."

"You make a lot of excuses, Chuck. What if something happens to you and he expects to have access to your money, only to discover that it's vanished? He won't be happy."

"That's why I'll tell him once we're in Hong Kong," Chuck vows. He then sighs. "Not that . . . I mean, if I don't make it back then he won't either. We're copilots. It's rare that only one dies."

Herc feels a stab in his heart. Rare, yes, but it happened, and in the end they'd joined that horrible club.

Evelyn stares at him, then hands him a notepad and pen and fishes an envelope from a desk drawer. "Here. Do me a favor and write him a note."

Chuck balks. "What? What the hell would I say?"

"Just tell him that you really did choose to give your money to people he's never met before. Because he isn't going to meet them now, is he?"

Chuck hunches his shoulders. "No . . ."

"So write."

Obediently, Chuck grabs the notepad and pen and composes a short letter. When he's done he tears it from the pad, folds it, and tucks it into the envelope Evelyn hands him. He tapes the envelope closed securely and hands it back to her.

"Thank you." Evelyn sets it aside.

"So is that it?" Chuck asks. "Just like that?"

"Just like that, yes," she replies. "If there was more time I'd have you do more, but you've taken care of the most vital part. What they'll lose to taxes won't be a third as much as they would've lost without it."

Chuck hesitates, then nods. "All right. Good."

Evelyn looks at him for a moment. "You're a good man, Chuck," she says. "There are men twice your age who could stand to at least attempt to be as mature as you're being right now."

Chuck shakes his head. "I just want them to be safe."

"I'll do everything I can, Chuck. I promise."

Chuck nods stiffly, thanks her, and rises from the armchair to leave. He turns toward the camera to face the door, and the high-definition video removes all but the tiniest smidgen of Herc's doubt.

Chuck leaves the room, and the video ends. Evelyn turns the monitor back toward herself. "I'd show you a few others, but my client is in all of those and I don't have permission to reveal that person's identity to anyone."

Herc finishes the coffee while he waits for Derrek, but barely tastes it.

When Derrek arrives, Aya is very angry because no one informed her that the police would be showing up. Evelyn steps from her office to intervene and apologizes to her secretary with such formality that Herc questions her sincerity. Aya, however, accepts it. Evelyn then grills Derrek for his name and badge number before inviting him in. She lets Herc explain the situation, then observes with vague displeasure as Derrek dons nitrile gloves and eases the letter into an evidence bag.

"I expect that back," she says. "In one piece. Unmarred."

"It'll be fine," Derrek assures her. "I'll take personal responsibility for it."

Once Derrek leaves, Herc has no further business there. He can't protest or concede until he gets that last bit of evidence that proves Chuck had done what Darryl and Evelyn assert he had. He thanks Evelyn for her time and sees himself out.

Herc stares at the two images, baffled and—if he's being honest with himself—a bit hurt.

"They're his prints, mate," Derrek tells him, apologetic. "Almost one hundred percent certain. And if you look at the whole . . ." He clicks around until the entire sheet of notepad paper is visible. Small computer-generated ovals indicate the locations of the fingerprints. "You can see that he was holding the paper down with his left hand while he was writing. It wasn't just something that was handed to him and then taken back."

"He was twenty-one at the time," Darryl adds gently, sympathetic. "Evelyn sent me a copy of the video she showed you, and the discussion of Hong Kong dates the image more reliably than the video stamp ever could. Since he was a legal adult and in good mental and physical health, you have no official recourse."

Herc's heart sinks. ". . . All right . . . thanks."

He doesn't understand.

It doesn't particularly bother him that he's lost so much of Chuck's money to a total stranger—he knows how to make money, if he needs it—it's that Chuck never once hinted at whom he had found so desperately in need of it. Herc wonders if he had ever seen the person—people—in the drift but failed to grasp their significance, and if Chuck's uncharacteristic silence regarding them meant that he had been waiting for Herc to say something for lack of a good way to approach the topic. But Herc could not think of anyone Chuck, who had generally been at home during his leaves, might have spent so little time with and yet found so deserving of his money; few relationships could be worth money as much as time.

"I can try to find out who the money's going to," Darryl offers, though he doesn't sound sure.

Herc shakes his head. It doesn't matter. It really doesn't. Not even what's in the note. Chuck was an adult, therefore it's none of Herc's business.

"I'll return the note later today," Derrek promises. "You go home and take it easy, Herc."

Not something he usually hears from his friends. "Do I look that bad?"

Both men seem pained by the question. "Mate," Darryl tells him, with the sort of honesty only a true friend would feel confident offering, "you look as though the Devil's come and danced on your grave."

Derrek nods his agreement.

Herc isn't surprised. He hasn't been sleeping well. He nods and turns to leave Darryl's office, and the only thought on his mind is to curl up somewhere safe until this jolt to his head and heart fades away.

"Herc? Jesus, you look awful. What's wrong?"

Herc looks at her blankly, then twists in place to look back at his truck.

It's in his drive, exactly where he thought he had parked it.

He blinks and looks again at Jazmine. "Sorry, I didn't mean to come here and bother you."

"I don't doubt that," she says, "but apparently you need to. Come on." She steps back and opens the door wider, and gestures him in with a jerk of her head. "Come in. Have a seat."

He doesn't want to—doesn't want to take up the time of a young working mother and burden her with all the horrors of being isolated and adrift in a sea of intact families—but his feet move him into her half of the duplex. When he hears the door latch closed and the lock snap into place, he suddenly feels exhaustion that's accompanied by a sense of profound relief.

Safe.

Jazmine steps around him, gives him a once-over, and says, "I know that look. Off to bed with you."

Herc heads for the couch.

She grabs him and steers him toward the end of the unit. "Nope—couch sucks. Bed."

She guides him to a bedroom furnished with a full-size bed. There are probably other things there, but Herc has eyes for the bed alone. He knows he shouldn't—he should resist or at least make a verbal protest—but his mouth fails to work even as one side of his brain makes every logical excuse as to why he shouldn't lie down on any bed in her home. The other side is all for it, because there's apparently no reason to be concerned. Herc is certainly unable to think of anything, as he doesn't find her very threatening.

"Lie down," she tells him. "Rest."

He's so tired he can't be bothered to fight with her. He settles onto the bed with a groan and tension leaves his body. He normally prefers firmer mattresses, but hers is softer and it cradles him in a way he finds comforting at that moment. He drapes the back of one wrist over his eyes to block out the light and wishes he had the energy to tell her she doesn't need to take his boots off—or that he would do it if she, understandably, doesn't want filth on her bed. Thanks to panic, he almost does find the energy to stop her from unbuttoning and unzipping his jeans, but she does it with clinical efficiency and then moves off so quickly that he never manages to do more than think about sitting up. She doesn't actually attempt to remove his jeans, and while he suspects that she would've been fine with him doing so he just can't bear to go that far. It's too weird.

Her windows have sheer curtains, but also heavier ones to either side. She pulls the latter over the room's two windows, and Herc is relieved to discover that they're blackout curtains. The room is significantly darker now, the remaining light easier to ignore. He puts his arm down on the bed beside him and looks for her. She comes back with a thin comforter in hand, unfolds it, and lays it over him.

"There," she says as she smooths the fabric across his shoulders and chest, one step from tucking him in. Her voice is gentle. "Now go to sleep. I'll have something ready for you to eat when you wake up."

She walks out of the room and pulls the door closed until only a sliver of light shines through. Herc closes his eyes and feels himself relax even more.

Safe.

It turns out to be the best sleep he's had in years.

"Do you often invite people to sleep in your bed and then feed them?" Herc asks as he eats a fine dish of beef stroganoff. He awakened from a two-hour nap just half an hour ago, and he feels amazing.

"Absolutely not," Jazmine says. "Too paranoid."

"Then why?"

She sighs. "My fiancé would show up at the door looking like you did. He couldn't stay awake once he was seated, so I learned to put him to bed right away. And when he woke up he was always ravenous, so I learned to prepare some sort of meal while he slept so I didn't have to listen to him whine while he was awake."

"Very domestic of you."

She rolls her eyes. "I know. Never thought I'd see the day. But he was always grateful, or else I would've told him to take care of himself. I'm no house slave."

Jason babbles at the room while he mashes his stroganoff in his hands, and Herc can't help smiling at him. The kid still has the same volume-control issue as every other child Herc's ever met.

Jazmine looks at her son and says, "I don't know why I even bother to put a bib on him. It doesn't help."

Jason has certainly managed to get the food not only on his bib but all around its edges. Herc chuckles and points out, "It reduces stains."

She smiles at him. "I never would've imagined you worried about something like that."

"I didn't, but my wife did. Our son was very proud of his messes."

Jazmine's eyes roll back toward Jason, who cackles victoriously before cramming a fistful of noodles in his mouth. The sauce from the stroganoff is almost in his eyes. "That sounds eerily familiar. Must be a boy thing."

Herc's mobile rings, much to his embarrassment. He should have turned it off. "Sorry."

Jazmine blinks. "Oh my God. People call you?"

He realizes he's never received a call in her presence before and snorts. "From time to time." He retrieves his phone and checks it. Raleigh. "'Scuse me. Gotta take this."

She waves a dismissive hand. Herc hasn't offered much detail, but he's shared with her that he occupies a position of influence in a military structure. "It's fine if you don't want me overhearing anything, but don't leave just to be polite. I'm hardly a stickler for that sort of thing."

While he does assume it's a work call, Herc doubts it's sensitive; Raleigh will probably just ask him to find a computer, and they'll videochat that way.

A computer Herc doesn't have, because before his phone had been enough, or he borrowed Chuck's laptop. The laptop he emptied wholesale into his part of the PPDC's cloud, formatted, and gifted to a friend's preteen for schoolwork. He sighs and answers the call. "'Lo, mate."

"Good evening, sir," Raleigh says. One day, Herc will determine that it's all right to ask why Raleigh, upon agreeing to jockey again, had consistently shown more respect to Herc than Stacker. Herc assumes that it's some combination of Yancy and the Knifehead fiasco plus the team drop in Manila—that's the most logical possibility—but has so far decided it better to not ask for confirmation. "How've you been?"

Herc has always hated that question, especially after his wife's death and now after Chuck's. He hates it because obviously he's not all right when his entire family has died practically in front of him, when he could have done something if he'd just been faster or more cautious, but he doesn't snap at Raleigh because the tone of the younger man's voice indicates the question is a courtesy rather than a pitying probe meant to satisfy the asker's sense of guilt; the kid knows what it's like to just not want to talk about something and isn't going to offer idiotic platitudes. So he answers honestly. "Not too bad. Better than I was six hours ago."

"Good!" Raleigh tells him with far, far too much cheer. "You're going to need it."

Herc groans. "What happened?"

Raleigh briefs him on the situation, then asks the dreaded question. "Can you get to a computer?"

". . . I don't have one at the moment."

Raleigh laughs. "C'mon, you're young enough to be comfortable with computers!"

"My phone is enough, usually." Herc could do anything on his phone that he had once done on a computer, so he had streamlined his technology options.

"Screen's too small," Raleigh counters. "You'll need something bigger."

Naturally. "I don't have one. It'll have to wait."

"At the risk of seeming like an eavesdropper," Jazmine puts in, "you're welcome to borrow mine."

"Thanks," Herc says, "but I can't. It's work—classified."

She shrugs. "You can always track what you did and erase it."

"Who are you talking to?" Raleigh asks.

"My neighbor," Herc replies. "I break into her home three times a day and she feeds me for my effort." He glances over at Jazmine and finds her smiling.

"Lucky," comes the response. "My roommate always tells me it's my turn to cook. Every night."

Herc grins. He knows damn well that's because Raleigh is a better cook than Mako, and enjoys it besides. Mako can cook but prefers to work on tech even while off duty, so they have an arrangement similar to the one Herc has with Jazmine; Mako repairs the variety of technology Raleigh manages to break—and any other tech anyone brings or she finds, which she either fixes for a fee or sells afterward—and Raleigh pays his way by cooking for her and being a general housekeeper. He's surprisingly good at and content with the arrangement, and though Tendo teases him Herc lets it be. That Raleigh has made peace with the past gives Herc hope.

"Use my computer," Jazmine says as she gets up and reaches for Jason. "Jason needs a bath anyway. If you do anything top secret, just clean up after yourself, or when you're done you can let me know and I'll delete it while you look over my shoulder and tell me what has to go."

Herc really shouldn't put off work. And he believes it's safe to trust Jazmine—at least enough to watch her erase his footsteps. He doesn't want to be the one to destroy any parts of her work, after all; not when it's her entire livelihood. "Thanks."

"Leave the dishes—I'll get around to them one day."

Jazmine vanishes down the short hallway with her son in her arms. Herc circles the peninsula and crosses the sitting room to the corner in which her computer sits. He sets up a video chat with Raleigh, and they get down to business. Herc completely loses track of time and location, so he's startled when he hears Jazmine's raised voice.

"Is it okay if I grab Jason's cup from the kitchen?"

Raleigh chuckles at him. Herc scowls in response, though he keeps it out of his voice when he says, "It's not that classified. Just keep your eyes forward."

Herc sees Raleigh's expression change and his head tilt, but it isn't until Jazmine passes behind him that the younger man's eyes widen.

"Zhasmeen!" the blond cries, injecting some sort of non-American accent into his voice.

Herc blinks. In the inset frame that shows him himself, he sees Jazmine freeze in the background. She's still for a moment, then pivots toward the computer.

"Raleigh?" she wonders, in a way that suggests she's surprised to see him, though in more of a why are you here? fashion.

Herc doesn't understand how they didn't recognize each other's voice earlier.

Raleigh, at least, can't be more excited. He proceeds to chatter in what Herc eventually identifies as French, while Jazmine comes to the desk and leans her weight onto one hand. Raleigh stops as abruptly as he started and stares, then demands in English, "Are you pregnant?"

Herc looks at Jazmine. He hasn't really been paying much attention since she made it clear she didn't want to discuss her baby, but he realizes she is beginning to show. There's just a small curve in her abdomen, but the fact that she hasn't packed on fat anywhere else on her body makes clear what she's been up to, and being bent over only emphasizes things.

"Yes," she snaps. "Not that it's any of your business."

Raleigh looks from her to Herc, silently accusing.

Herc opens his mouth to explain that he has nothing to do with her condition, but Jazmine leans around him and snarls, "Back off, asshole. Who I fuck is none of your fucking business."

"I haven't touched her," Herc puts in reflexively, just to be clear.

"You don't have a right to give a damn about me, you bastard," she adds. "You abandoned me, and that's fucking fine, but don't come back into my life expecting to pick up where you left off."

Raleigh is appalled. "I didn't abandon you."

"I beg to fucking differ."

He grimaces. "Jazmine, language?"

"Sure," is her completely reasonable answer. Her voice hardens. "Va te faire foutre."

Raleigh sighs and says to Herc, "I'm sorry. I know it's awkward when this sort of thing happens."

Jazmine makes a disgusted noise and walks away. Raleigh, clearly distressed, scratches his head.

"Wait," Herc says finally, as it occurs to him that he's been left behind. "What am I missing here? How do you know her?"

Raleigh sighs. "She's my sister."

That doesn't sound right. He realizes why. "She said her surname was Lapierre."

Raleigh nods. "Mom's maiden name. She and Dad . . . Well, it's a long story, but suffice it to say Jazmine doesn't want to be associated with him."

Herc isn't going to get involved with another parent-child conflict. He muses instead, "It probably wouldn't help, would it, if I told you that you had a nephew already?"

Raleigh looks completely gobsmacked. "A nephew? Already?"

"'Bout yea high," Herc clarifies, and lowers his hand out of Raleigh's sight and behind the desk. "Blond, but not for long, I don't think. I expect it'll darken to a light brown eventually. Chuck did, though obviously there's room for error since they aren't related."

Raleigh is very interested. "Where is he?"

"In bed, I imagine. She just gave him a bath, and in the past this was about the time."

"Oh." Raleigh looks at some point below his HUD and frowns slightly. "So she's married?"

"No. They were engaged, but he's gone."

Raleigh bristles. "He left her?"

He must have spoken too loudly, because Jazmine snaps from the kitchen, "Stop talking about me!"

Herc keeps his voice low after that. "I don't know the details, but it seems he was in law enforcement or the like. And things . . . went bad."

"Oh." Raleigh droops slightly. "Damn. She doesn't need that."

"Nobody does," Herc replies.

"No, I mean . . ." Raleigh sighs. "She gets pretty strongly attached. When someone she's close to doesn't say goodbye in the right way, she takes it really hard. She doesn't get sad—she gets angry."

Herc frowns slightly. "She doesn't seem to be angry."

"Her anger is calm," Raleigh explains. "Quiet. I don't know whether she's just naturally like that or if it's that thing women do because it's not ladylike to show the ugly emotions. Our mother didn't believe in withholding feelings, but she did believe that there was a time and place, and that wouldn't be in front of you. Our father wasn't exactly more traditional, but the things he taught us included firm self-control. He was particularly hard on Jazmine, so those lessons are really embedded in her."

Herc glances over his shoulder. "She hasn't acted unbalanced."

"She isn't," Raleigh assures him. "That's what makes her dangerous."

One of Herc's eyebrows lifts. "'Dangerous' isn't a word I've found reason to associate with her."

"That's the point," is the response. "Just don't do anything to make her think you mean her or her kid any harm and you'll be fine."

"Are you trying to scare me?"

"I'm trying to warn you, sir. You seem to think she's harmless just because she hasn't flipped out on you over anything. I'm telling you she isn't, because failing to know that could put you in a bad place."

"Mister Dillon was fine, except for the fact that he grew senile and kept trying to come into my home . . . then he started threatening to beat Jason if I wouldn't. I drew the line there . . . I couldn't risk him hurting Jason. Because if he had been able to, I would have killed him."

In hindsight, the way she talked about her first neighbor suggested the clinical assessment of an enemy as opposed to a simple, emotional recital of incidences. There's certainly something not right about that as far as the reaction of a normal person.

"I'll keep that in mind," Herc says.

Jazmine passes back through the sitting room without looking at or addressing Raleigh; he makes no effort of his own to reach out to her either. Herc decides that he should wait to ask about that as well and turns his attention back to the reason for Raleigh's call.

They don't achieve much, leaving Herc little choice but to wrap up with plans to get to it the next day. He's about to close down the chat window when Jazmine reappears, heading again for the kitchen. Raleigh squeezes in a quick, "Night, Mimi."

"Kiss kiss," she replies, sounding entirely uninterested. She doesn't pause or look over.

Raleigh doesn't seem bothered. Does, in fact, seem pleased that she answered him at all. He wishes Herc a good night and closes off his end of the chat.

"Can you delete everything or do you want to watch me?" Jazmine calls.

"I don't think there's anything that needs to be deleted," Herc says, "but I suppose it's a good precaution. I don't want to risk ruining your work, though."

"Okay. One second . . ."

Jazmine finishes rinsing something and then steps into the sitting room. Herc vacates the chair for her, and she goes places Herc—who considers himself at least average as far as computer knowledge—would never dare to go without expert accompaniment.

"Okay, here's your session," she says, and points at some file names on the screen. "We can tell by the time stamp. Do you concur?"

"I do. But the files seem a little small."

"They're so small because they're mainly indicating that something happened at that particular time," she explains. "They aren't saying exactly what happened, obviously, but they would contain traceable information like chat duration and the locations of both parties." Jazmine hums a bit as she works. She deletes the files from the temporary folder, deletes them from the recycle bin on her desktop, and then runs some sort of deep scan. It comes up clean but for a few fragments, which Jazmine again deletes twice. Another scan shows an all-clear.

"Now I won't lie—there are probably still shreds of information in there," she warns as she spins the chair to face him. "But wherever they are, they should be digital gobbledygook. This is as far as my knowledge extends, so I can say with confidence that I couldn't possibly make anything of whatever's left. And considering the client information I have to have to work and therefore am obligated to safeguard, I like to think I have enough in the way of malware protection to defend those shreds until they become obsolete."

Herc shrugs. "Like I said, I doubt there was anything sensitive in there. Not sensitive as of now, at least. But I thank you—it does ease my mind." He glances at the clock on her computer. "Well, I don't want to wake the sprog, so I better be on my way. Unless you need something . . .?"

She smiles and gets to her feet. "Nope. I'm good, thank you."

They meander to the back door. Anymore, Herc rarely uses the front door to get to her half of the duplex; he's usually there to eat and knows Jazmine's expecting him, so he doesn't hesitate to be casual, and if she needs to discuss anything she saves it until then so neither of them has to make extra trips. It's also safer in general, because with the back yard surrounded by a tall privacy fence it's unlikely someone will climb over it to break in, so they're able to leave their back doors unlocked with relative confidence during the day.

"How are you feeling now?" she asks out of the blue.

"Oï?"

"You were so exhausted earlier. I don't suppose it's anything I can help with?"

He shakes his head. "Thanks, but I don't think so." He isn't going to explain, at first, but then feels an urge to tell just one person, and she's a convenient audience. "My son . . ." He has to pause there, sorrowful and guilty all over again. He should have been there. He should have died too. "My son did something I don't agree with, which is probably why he never told me he'd done it. I've known about it for a week or so, but I just got official confirmation of it today. It's not . . ." He frowns. "It's none of my business, really. He was an adult at the time. It was his right. And what I lost isn't going to ruin my life. I just feel . . ."

"Left out," Jazmine murmurs.

He shrugs a shoulder and shakes his head. "Something like that. I don't know if I can explain it any better. But we did . . . know a lot about each other. More than most people know about anyone else. That I never noticed he'd done what he did just makes me wonder what else he might have managed to hide from me."

Jazmine sighs softly. "Jason's father wasn't keen on speaking to his own father either. As far as I know, the man died unaware that he was a grandfather."

Herc grimaces. That's certainly no good. "Kids," he sighs, before he realizes how it might be interpreted.

Fortunately, Jazmine only snorts. "Well, in my case, there was some sort of concern about Granddad being disapproving or guilty or both."

"Why?"

"When Jason was born, his father was nineteen. My fiancé believed his father would stress over that."

Herc hems and haws a little. ". . . That is young. I was twenty-three when my son was born, and I can't be sure I was really ready." He then concedes, "My wife was, though, and she was a year younger than me."

"It depends on the person," Jazmine replies. "I don't know that I was ready myself, and I was four years older than him. But he was ready . . . or that's how it turned out."

Herc blinks. "There's that much of a difference between you?"

"You're surprised?"

"Young men aren't known for their maturity," he points out.

She laughs. "Well, I won't deny that he had his moments when it came to me, but when it involved Jason he grew right up. 'Understood his priorities' is the best way to put it, I imagine."

"So long as you're satisfied," he says. His opinion isn't really important anyway.

"I am."

"Then that's all that matters. I'll say good night and let you get to bed."

She smiles.

He kisses her.

It's a quick kiss and happens just that suddenly, as though someone else nudged his soul out of his body and used the latter for his own purposes. The near-physical sense of detachment is something Herc is actually used to, but only in the narrow context of the drift. And there is no reason for the drift to impact his life anymore—not when both of his copilots are dead.

Jazmine blinks and tilts her head slightly.

"Sorry," he says quickly, and takes a step back from her. "I . . . I don't know why that happened." Which is a lie, because he knows perfectly well. But telling her why would require explaining how he could have convinced himself that he's supposed to kiss her whenever she smiles 'that way.'

Whatever 'that way' is.

She shrugs. "Okay." She turns her head to give him a side eye and adds, "I'm not going to freak out on you, if that's what you're worried about. I admit I was surprised, but I don't let unwanted contact run its course."

The confidence with which she says it suggests she has experience in hand-to-hand combat. Herc recalls Raleigh's warnings and says, "I'll keep that in mind. I just don't want you to worry that I'm some dirty old man trying to take advantage of you."

She smiles again, but in an almost predatory fashion. "Oh, if that happened then it'd definitely be the other way around."

". . . Sorry?" he says again, sure that he has seen and heard what he thought he has, but not sure where it's come from or if he should be concerned.

She laughs. "Forget it. No worries, all right? We're still friends. Or at least our status as 'good neighbors' hasn't changed. Whichever you're most comfortable with."

". . . If you're sure . . ."

"Absolutely. Good night." She kisses his cheek, sees him out, and locks the door behind him.

Herc stands out on the back porch for a time, baffled, before returning to his side of the duplex and putting himself to bed. He must need more sleep, after all, if he's randomly assaulting women half his age.

The first few days after the kiss are awkward, but apparently for Herc alone. The sole change it appears to have in Jazmine's life is that she's more likely to touch his shoulders. That's it. They don't discuss the incident any further, and Herc eventually puts it aside.

He tells her that Raleigh told him she and the young man are siblings, and Jazmine confirms it. She adds to his knowledge by revealing that she's the youngest of the three Becket children, but only by about a year, and that she was desperate to be like her brothers, so she lacks a lot of traits that society considers necessary for "ladies." She has made peace with that, however, and she muses that perhaps it worked out for everyone, because her fiancé was an only child.

"I'm not saying that to feel comfortable all only-child men need a woman who isn't terribly feminine," she says, "but he did. Our interests weren't identical, but they were similar enough that we didn't have to feign interest. We'd wrestle occasionally. That sort of thing. My ability to connect with him in a way he was comfortable with was thanks, in part, to having two older brothers who treated me more like a brother than a sister." She wrinkles her nose and adds, "Sorry, that got off track."

Herc lets it go. He understands perfectly how easy it is to dwell on lost loved ones, especially those who are only recently lost.

Herc signs the last line and slides the paper across the table to Darryl. "Anything else?"

Darryl sighs as he scans the collection of papers in front of him. "Not at the moment. I told Evelyn to send everything at once, and she promised she'd do the best she can. To me, it doesn't look as though anything was left out, so you shouldn't have to come back."

That's good, though Herc doesn't say as much. Darryl is his friend, but it's been a long time since they got together as such and had a beer or something. Herc would like to chat with him and catch up, but for the moment simply doesn't have the energy. He's as emotionally exhausted as he was the last time, which is the way he always seems to get when he dwells too much on his wife or especially his son.

"Well, if there's anything more you'd like to do . . . a formal protest, or . . ."

Herc snorts. "And go to court just to be told it was all done legally? No thanks."

Darryl shakes his head. "No. It'd just be something that goes in the file. That way, whoever this client of Evelyn's is will owe you this exact amount should it come about that they were engaging in fraudulent activities."

Herc frowns. "But Chuck signed the money over."

"But your name is on the account," Darryl explains. "Chuck's actions take precedence because he was the primary account holder, but if it comes out that Chuck was coerced into signing away his money for some illegal investment scheme or the like, you may get some of it returned. At the very least you'd have the satisfaction of knowing that whoever tricked him got caught, because you'd be informed."

Herc considers it, but not for long. He shakes his head as he gets to his feet. "I don't care. It's just money. If someone else wants it that badly, they can have it." He'd hand over all the money he had, down to the last coin, and live in financial poverty for the rest of his natural life if he could just have his son back. "How much do I owe you for your time?"

Darryl spreads his hands in a gesture of refusal. "Evelyn already paid me. She said she wanted to express her gratitude for what you and Chuck did for Australia and the world."

Herc isn't impressed. "If she wanted to express her gratitude she would have found a way to let me keep my son's money."

Herc and Jazmine resettle into what has become the usual routine, and after a month or so Herc has more or less forgotten about the kiss. In the meantime he gets to know Jason a little better, and the toddler is clearly thrilled to bits to have a friend who is apparently more playful than his mother.

"It's just . . . not something I'm good at," Jazmine confesses. "I play roughly and for keeps, and you can't do that with a kid his age. I can't figure out the proper balance, so I always make him cry. I don't want to stress him, but that essentially means not playing with him at all. And since I don't go out much and take him out even less, he's really in desperate need of a buddy."

Jason isn't quite as ambitious and competitive as Chuck was, so Herc has to tone down his energy, but they find a happy medium. Herc remembers enough about Chuck's toddlerhood that he recognizes when Jason is getting frustrated—the tiny, furious scowl is almost identical—and he can usually head off a tantrum. On the occasions he's too late, a pinning hand and a firm command of, "Enough," brings an end to the fussing in short order. Once Jason quiets, Jazmine invariably cuddles him, and after questioning her reasoning Herc decides that it's not going to make a brat of the boy and holds him as well.

Seeing as he gets food and companionship out of the deal, he sees nothing wrong with just how close he's getting to both mother and child.

At first.

He takes his usual evening walk one day, and stops to chat with one of the neighbors down the way who's out doing some light gardening that seems to have started out as novel-reading on a porch swing. Small talk about the weather turns to talk of family, and part of Herc cringes away from it. But the focus is on the neighbor's kids and grandkids; Herc determines that the neighbor is so busy talking that he won't be asked about his family and relaxes. The conversation soon narrows down to the quirks of a specific child.

When the other man pauses to laugh, Herc chuckles himself and says, "My son does this thing when he's tired—" He realizes he's talking about Chuck in the present tense and stops.

Then he realizes he's describing a behavior of Jason's, not Chuck's.

He makes hasty excuses and hides in his home for the rest of the evening, frightened by and guilty for his slip. He sits on his bed and stares, unseeing, at the wall, and ignores Jazmine when she knocks on the back door to summon him to eat.

Long after she gives up and leaves him to himself he props his elbows on his knees, drops his head into his hands, and in a whisper says over and over, "I'm sorry, Chip. I'm sorry. I'm sorry . . ."

Of course, Chuck doesn't answer. He forbid the use of that particular nickname after his mother's death and stopped answering to it immediately. Also, he's dead. Forever.

For that reason, Herc is prepared to do anything in his power to not replace Chuck with Jason.

He begins in the morning.

To Be Continued in . . . Chapter 3 – The Disorderly Identity

Herc is an early riser and has been all his life, but he values his sleep more the older he gets. His brain isn't quite functioning properly. "Sorry, but what, exactly, are you asking me about?"

The young officer gestures at Jazmine's unit. "Someone from next door called our nonemergency line and told dispatch to send someone to pick up the body of an intruder. When we arrived, the body was on the front step."

Herc goes cold, finally fully awake. "Jazmine? Jason?"

Answers To Questions You Didn't Even Know You Wanted To Ask:

"Va te faire foutre."

French. Google Translate says it means, "Kiss my ass"; my D!rty French book says it means, "Fuck off" (literally, "Go make yourself come"). Obviously, it's not a nice thing to say.

—

If you find this fic to be somewhat fine, please take the time to drop me a line!

~RN (LS)