Welcome to the final installment of this story. Thank you to everyone who has read and reviewed so far and to those who will in the future. A quick note on my other stories: While I have every intention of finishing them eventually, my life is actually extremely busy right now and I had to hack out a space in which to write this little ditty. Patience, grasshoppers.
Chapter 4
I wrote back to Phineas to thank him for his email and urge him to bring my son home. I know it was unnecessary; his first letter was already so guilt-laden, but I also assured him that he was a good man, and requested updates on his progress whenever he was able. I knew I could have all the progress reports I wanted from Carlos and our men, but somehow I felt that Phineas's words would be truer. Carlos would be worried about feeding me false hope or dashing it away all together. Phineas, from what I could tell from the first email, would tell it to me straight.
I also wrote to Elias using that last address he's used. Every night I sent him a new message of encouragement hoping that even if he couldn't read them, the mere fact that I was physically sending my thoughts out in his direction would bolster his strength.
Every night for two years, I wrote him. I told him about life back home. I sent him birthday greetings, and Christmas wishes. On my weaker days I flat out begged him to escape and come home to me.
His continued absence was a constant strain on all of us. The girls and Frankie looked up with hopeful expressions every time my email alert dinged. I took to reading all of Phineas's updates aloud with them.
At work, Carlos had organised an eight week rotating roster of volunteers to aid in the task of searching for Elias. Every eight weeks a new team would ship out to meet up with those already searching and swap information before the old team could come home and rest.
And also update everyone state side on minor things that might have been glossed over in emails and phone calls. We had one of the meeting rooms set up just for reviewing evidence. More often than not, when men were on break, they could be found in there pouring over reports. Everyone was working themselves into exhaustion. Carlos especially.
He'd pulled a considerable number of favours in that had been owed to him over the years. I swear he had half the military lending a hand in the case. And he was making regular trips to DC for meetings, briefings, and whatever other official business needed to be attended to while he was there.
By the time eighteen months had passed, I had all but given up. For my own mental and emotional health, I needed to face facts and assume he would never be coming home. The men were like a dog with a bone, though. There was no way they were going to give up until there was concrete evidence either way. I started avoiding the evidence room, couldn't stand the fervent looks on the men's faces as they combed through the papers looking for something they'd missed the last thousand times they'd read it.
I found myself at the bottom of a deep well of depression, unable to sleep at night, unable to find the strength to get up in the morning. The only thing that kept me moving, going through the motions, was the knowledge that they needed me. The kids. Carlos. The men. Elias. Even Phineas, with whom I'd corresponded regularly over the long months. If I gave up what, what would it do to them?
The day Chelsea, now seventeen and nearing the end of her high school years, came to me asking for advice on her college applications I almost fainted on the spot. It was this exact topic with Elias that had started this whole mess. I couldn't lose another baby. Especially not while Carlos was away on an extended trip to DC, working out some issue that had arisen.
"Mom?" she said, repeating my name when I didn't respond. "Mom, are you okay?"
Slowly, my vision cleared and the roaring in my ears died down enough that I could hear her. "I'm fine," I assured her. "I think I just need to sit down."
She helped me to a chair at the kitchen table, making sure I was stable and not likely to fall out of my seat before moving away to fetch a glass of water.
"Do you need me to call Dad?" She asked as I alternately gulped down mouthfuls of the cool liquid and cool air. "Or Uncle Bobby?"
"I'm fine," I repeated, setting the empty glass aside and folding my arms on the table. "You just caught me off guard."
"Is it because of Elias?" she asked quietly. Almost timidly. "I almost didn't ask you, because I know college application discussions are where this all started." She made a vague gesture with her hand, that I guessed was supposed to encompass everything that had happened the last four years. "I don't want to upset you."
"Sweetie," I sighed, pulling her chair closer to mine so I could wrap my arms around her. "Chelsea, don't ever worry about upsetting me. If there's something you need to talk about just say the word. I don't want you live in fear of breaking me. I've been through a lot over the years. I'm tougher than I look."
"That's not what Uncle Lester says," she reported, a slight smile on her face. We both knew Lester Santos was full of shit.
"He's probably still sore about the time I accidentally ruined his chances with a girl. Besides, if it weren't for the fact Lester is a valued member of the team, I would have incapacitated him for such comments a long time ago," I informed her. "Lester's stories are all hype."
"Yeah," she agreed, and we lapsed into a brief, slightly tense silence. I could tell she was hesitant to mention college again, so I took the ball out of her court and served.
"So college?" I prompted. "Applications are due soon? I thought they were still ages away."
She nodded. "They're still a while away, but I want to be prepared."
"Well, what do you need help with?" I asked.
"A bunch of stuff," she said with a shrug, staring at the table, a small furrow wrinkling her forehead. "I'm not really sure what I'm doing, to be honest."
This shocked me – she was always so confident and assertive and knowledgeable, I'd just expected her to breeze through this process like it was yesterday's crossword – but I tried not to let it show on my face. "Oh," I uttered. "Well, I'm not really sure where to start." I glanced down at my hands, recalling the argument Id had with Elias about college. To think that all this started because I wasn't ready for him to leave the nest, not because I thought anything particularly bad would happen to him, but simply because I was unprepared for the conversation. "Have you spoken to Tank about it?" I asked.
"I didn't want to go behind your back like Elias did," she explained, staring at my shoulder rather than look me in the eye.
I sighed. Of course. "Elias didn't go behind our backs, honey," I said. "HE just didn't think to tell us. I fully recommend taking advantage of Tank's apparent expertise. Just keep your father and I informed."
"Do you think Uncle Tank has time for me, what with everything that's going on?" she asked nervously.
"I'm sure helping you plan your future will be a welcome distraction from his current stress," I assured her gently. "In fact, why don't we head over to Haywood now and talk to him together? We've got some time before I have to pick Sophie up from basketball practice, and Frankie is at a sleepover until tomorrow."
"I think I'd like that," Chelsea replied gratefully.
Nodding, I stood and patted my pockets, checking for keys and my phone. Both were there, but my feet were bare. "I'll go throw some shoes on and meet you at the car," I told her. "We can grab some donuts on the way, too."
I jogged upstairs to my bedroom and had just opened my closet door when a shout carried up to me. "Mom!" Panic laced the single drawn out syllable. "Mom! You need to come down here right now!"
Forgetting the shoes, I turned on my heels, my feet slapping all the way down the stairs and into the front entrance way. Chelsea was stood at the screen door, gripping the handle in a white-knuckled grip. In the second I paused to take in the scene, wondering what exactly was wrong, her shoulders jerked and she made a sound that was somewhere between a sob and a laugh.
"What?" I demanded, my heart thundering away in my chest. "What is it? What's wrong?"
"Come and see," she insisted, beckoning me over with a wave of her hand.
I stepped up behind her, peering over her shoulder – when had she gotten so tall? – out at the front yard. A black SUV had pulled up in the driveway, which was not an uncommon occurrence. The Merry Men were always stopping by. The detail of not here, though, was who was in the car. As we watched, both of the front doors opened. I noticed first, as I always did, the angular silhouette of my beloved husband, stepping out of the driver's side. My gaze lingered just a moment before skipping over to the man he'd brought with him and my heart stopped.
"IS that-" I tried to get a question out, but my throat was closing over, choked with tears.
Rather than reply, Chelsea pushed open the screen and dragged me out onto the porch. I couldn't stop there, though. Now that he'd rounded the car and I had an unobstructed view, I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt who it was. His hair was longer, his frame leaner, his eyes more weary, but there was no mistaking that the man standing before us one the lawn, among the fallen leaves I'd asked Frankie to rake up before leaving for his sleep over, was Elias.
He reached up to flick his curls out of his eyes and I was a goner. Tears crowded my vision as I stumbled down the stairs. In my hurry to reach my son, I missed the last step and landed on the path on my knees, a sobbing mess. I'd only just made impact when his arms were around me, drawing me back up to my feet. I hugged him so tight I was worried he would suffocate from it, but he just chuckled, wiping away my tears and letting me kiss his forehead and cheeks.
"What are you doing here?" I managed to squeak out after several long moments.
He leaned back to look me in the eye, holding up a thick wad of paper to show me. "I'm following orders, Mom," he told me, serious. "Every one of your emails told me I had to come home. And I was taught never to disobey my mother."
"You read them all?" I asked, thinking about how terribly desperate they had become.
"Every single one," he confirmed.
"But how did you-?"
He hesitated a moment, his expression pained as he glanced over at his father. "I… don't know if I can-"
"It's classified?" I clarified. He nodded. "It's fine. Half your father's life is classified. I can deal with another mystery to add to the pile."
"Thanks, Mom," he said, his shoulders slumping with relief. "You're the best."
"I'm glad you noticed," I agreed, squeezing him a little tighter and then stepping back. "Now let me look at you. You better hadn't be hiding any injuries or wounds under that uniform of yours." My gaze roved over his body from the tip of his spit shined dress shoes all the way up to his perpetually messy curls and then I started back down again. My eyes caught on something shiny on his collar.
"What's this?" I asked, reaching out to run my fingers over it, smudging the polish.
"Captain Bars," he stated, matter-of-factly.
"Your son got a promotion for his service," Carlos explained, coming up behind me with Chelsea tucked under his arm. "The last two years he's rescued more civilians than we can count. He was determined to get as many innocent people out alive before he would escape himself. That's why he was so difficult to find."
I speared my son with a questioning glance.
He shrugged, tucking his hands in his pockets and rocking back on his heels. "It appears being a self-rescuing princess runs in the family," he said easily.
Chelsea stepped forward then, to hug her brother, leaning up to whisper something in his ear that made him frown. Then she stepped back and punched him hard in the gut. "Never do that again," she scowled. "Or you'll wish you'd never saved yourself, Princess."
"Ow," Elias complained. "You'd think you'd be a little more grateful to have me back alive."
"I'll be grateful when you retire," she mentioned flippantly, taking a step back again. "I can't deal with the worry."
It was like she was plucking the words straight from my brain. I hadn't had the chance to say them myself, yet, but I thought that maybe hearing it from his sister would be better anyway. A mother was supposed to worry. It was my job.
"Well then prepare to be grateful," Elias announced grandly, a grin crossing his face as he threw out his arms. "Because as soon as we receive the final paperwork, I am done with the military."
"Thank God!" I exclaimed, rushing forward to hug him again, inadvertently spreading more tears over his shirt. "I can finally sleep again."
He laughed and hugged me back, opening his arms to accept Chelsea as well. "I'm thinking of going back to college," he added. "Just so you know. I don't want you freaking out me again when I tell you I've made my decision."
Craning my neck to glance at Carlos, I said. "You should tell Tank to clear his schedule for double college planning sessions. We have two lots of applications to get through."
"Not tonight, Babe," he said. "We have a welcome back dinner planned."
"I hope you don't mind," Elias said, pushing his curls back once more to gaze down at me (I wasn't ready to let go just yet). "I invited my team to join us."
"Sound perfect," I assured him.
The End
