2.
The life of a Cahill, I later understood, was a secretive and dangerous – and sometimes short – one. It had to be. The burden of the fate of humanity depended on Cahills. That's a lot of pressure for a 14 year old, don't you think?
If I'm being honest, I felt secret excitement at first. I loved feeling trusted. I loved being important. I loved how all the puzzle pieces in my head just clicked. I loved helping Dan out and saving people's lives.
I was given a safe little desk job soon. A genius and a child. It was to be expected.
I remember feeling annoyed at the relieved expression on Dan's face. I remember making tea and awkward small talk with my "coworkers".
Whenever Dan stopped by to report to the HQ in person, he'd always insist on either a coke or hot chocolate. "Do I look like a Kabra to you?" he'd exasperatedly ask.
I'd pause for a moment, and firmly say, "You most definitely do."
He'd steal one of my biscuits in retribution.
I still always offered him tea, though, because I liked the small exchange and I loved how we already had fixed habits. Two goofy kids messing around, having fun, fiddling while Rome burnt.
While a goofy sixteen year old was falling in love, there was a war going on. Our side was losing.
I don't think I truly felt it or cared about it enough until Amy died, and took a part of the Cahills with her. I saw Dan cry for the first time. He thanked me for being there for him. I felt selfish and ridiculous. I felt guilty. I don't know why, but I did. Our small exchanges all but ceased to exist. There was no time for laughs. He spent all his time on the field. I remained shut up behind a screen, because I knew I could be of most help there.
He was changing, though - fast and in a terrifying way. Amy's death broke him completely. They always had each other; through their parents' death, through Grace's death, through the Hunt, they were the only constants in an ever-changing world. And then that changed.
The funeral was a quiet event. The Janus branch had made a beautiful statue. About 20 feet tall and made of silver, I believe. It looked exactly like her, though it had neither her kind green eyes nor her comforting words. It still stands today, watching over Boston.
The death of Amy Cahill shook us all, but her brother took the brunt of the grief.
"She doesn't," he said one day, "belong to the Janus because they built a stupid statue. She doesn't belong to the Vespers for taking her life. She doesn't!"
I nodded silently. Words didn't seem to be enough.
3.
I noted his change with anxiety. Nellie noticed – she grew even more attached to him after Amy passed away – but she dealt with it in a bad way. She tried to make him listen, to force the life back in his eyes. She couldn't. The therapists couldn't. I wouldn't.
I was too busy – or at least, I told myself I was. I showed my affection in strange ways – always making sure their cars were bomb-free, practically stalking Dan, working overtime to defeat those bastards who killed Amy and so many like her.
It was so easy to hate.
4.
Children had no place in battlefields. But most of us were no longer children, no matter what our age.
A few were excused, protected in return for nothing, just enough to convince us we were the good guy. The better guys, at least.
They tried to do this with Dan, and he hated it.
I will never forget the first conversation we had in months. It was the second and last time I saw him cry, except he was screaming and so was I.
He was on the roof of a skyscraper, both literally and metaphorically.
"ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND?"
The words he replied with were easy and calm in a way that frightened me. "I wish I could escape my mind. Why shouldn't I? Who would care?"
"I would! Amy would-"
"You'd both be better off if I was dead!"
"Put the gun down. Please just put the gun down, talk to me!"
"We haven't talked in months, and now you want to start?"
"Please."
"Okay. Start talking. Remind me why I shouldn't just-"
"There are a million reasons why!"
"So name a few!"
"Do you think this is a joke? A game? You have your whole life ahead of you and you're just – "
"I'm a danger! I'm just another betting chip for the Vespers, I pulled you into this sick cult – "
"No, you didn't."
He looked at me with eyes that were too damn young to close forever.
"Life is worth it. You'reworth it. Please put the gun down, "I whispered. He didn't respond, so I walked up to him and gently put my hand around him.
Hours passed, with us just standing there and talking. If he'd had any secrets before in our friendship, they spilled now. Eventually, I drove him home. He looked over his shoulder as he closed the door, and smiled. "Goodbye, Atticus!" he called.
Relief made my heart loose.
Sometimes I imagine a different scenario in my head, where I was better. Where I stayed with him until dawn, until I knew for sure he was safe. Where Dan Cahill didn't give himself brain damage on his second suicide attempt, which happened right after I drove away. It haunts me.
He made it to the hospital alive, and I spent an hour more worrying and being torn apart on the inside by what-ifs. I joined a wrecked Nellie and Fisk. The moment the doctors told me Dan Cahill would live was the happiest of my life.
I almost didn't notice the 'but'attached.
He was on life support and when – if – he woke up he could have serious brain damage.
I distrusted those who were close to Dan. I was always sure someone was about to order them to pull the plug on him, and I would be able to do nothing because we weren't technically related. It was a constant struggle, a feeling of constant dread in the pit of my stomach.
I did what I always did: buried myself in work. Tried to take revenge.
In my head, it was the Vespers' fault.
They took my mother. Now they're trying to take Dan too?
The more I raged, the better I was at my job. I quickly rose in ranks.
5. Now
The Vespers have fallen apart. There are a few crazed fanatics who try to rekindle the fire, but we get them every time. No longer united by a single goal, the Cahills fight again, though more carefully this time. The serum is no longer such a prize after what happened to Dan Cahill. He took the serum, look what happened to him… Some have started a rumor that it's cursed. Anyone that drinks it or even seeks it receives a fate worse than death. Rumor has it…
I ignore rumors and whispers. I ignore admiration and jealousy. I ignore the mess that is my life. I ignored the constant fear and I even ignored the spec of hope that still lives on in my heart.
I start to drink, to try to drown it. To try to drown myself. If he wakes up, he'll wake up to his insane genius gay drunk best friend who is in love with him and a catty powerful family that swears he's been cursed or something.
But he'd be awake.
Maybe he wouldn't remember me. Maybe he'd be a different person.
I wonder if I would love him still after he awakes, or if I would have to fall in love again with his new personality, or if it would even matter since he would probably never love me back the way I love him.
I like wondering. It keeps me busy when sleep is far away and the memories of my "work" are too near.
Thinking back, I'm horrified to realize my actions and orders probably killed someone else's Dan.
I try not to think back on it.
I think of nothing else.
You judge me. Maybe I deserve it.
6. Now
The phone rings, and it's my contact. My heart thrashes in my skull. It's late. Normally, reports are every Thursday, 6:15 pm. I'm not sure what day it is, but it's well after midnight. I turn the show off with an aloof click of the button.
"Hello?" I say, detached.
"It will be pricey. Highly illegal. Not many people are going to like it. The general public will be outraged, of course, but the people who actually know what's going on will be pissed beyond belief. Dangerous people – he gets out of that hospital room, you might be heading to the hospital morgue."
Yes, I'm fine, thanks for asking. Oh, and thank you for not being completely obscure or calling me in the dead of the night or anything! But I shake my sarcasm away. I didn't invest in this for pleasantries and social interactions. I invested in this for results.
"I can worry enough for myself, thanks. I knew what I was getting into. What's your report?" I snapped.
"It will be ready in a month."
I tightened. "I've heard empty promises before," I warn.
"It will be ready in a month. I do not like repeating myself." Hangs up in my face.
I'm too busy containing my excitement to care. Don'tgetyourhopesup, don't get your hopes up, don't get your hopes up again –
Too late. There's a grin a mile wide on my face. I laugh, genuinely euphoric. I don't need a glass today. I want one anyway, and take a swig. My eyes tear up from laughing too much. I slide on the floor, hiccupping and laughing and crying because in four months' time, I might have him back.
Of course many other people will benefit from this and it will be a gigantic leap to finally destroying cancer cells.
And I might have Dan back!
This will save people's lives.
Like Dan's life! And my life!
I will finally get the billions I invested in this project back, with interest.
AND DANIEL BLOODY CAHILL WILL WAKE UP WITHOUT SO MUCH AS A DAMN MUSCLE SPAM!
I actually let out a whoop, then catch myself.
Then I whoop again, because I can't remember ever being so happy.
7. Now
The nurse won't let me in at first. I tip him a 100 dollar bill, and he chooses to turn a blind eye.
Dan's room is cold. I wonder how long it's been since someone last visited him. Myself, it's been a year since I last visited, to try a more basic treatment – the only one that did not slowly kill any of the white rats. We'd progressed to (illegal) human experiments, and they'd all survived as well. It hadn't worked for Dan. It hadn't worked for most of the other patients.
I couldn't handle it.
I take out the needle and serum out of my bag. Very discreetly, I puncture his arm with it.
Nothing. I wait.
I lose track of time. Eventually a doctor comes in to check his tank, and she lets out a surprised squeak when she sees me. "Just visiting an old friend," I say simply.
"Visiting hours are over. You'll have to come back tomorrow at 7, I'm afraid," she says firmly.
"Understood," I mumble. It's pointless.
I'd gotten my hopes up again.
8. Now
It takes all I have not to fling the stupid vial to the walls and give up forever and just crawl under the sheets with a bottle of vodka and my own vomit and nothing else, for the rest of my life. So when the buzzer rings, and it's my stupid oh-so-important contact, I slam the door on his face.
What did you think, Atticus? I angrily demanded of myself. Did you think the cure would work, you'd get a Nobel prize, and Dan would wake up with perfect memory and be like, "Hey, gee, thanks for that! Let's get married and have six kids now."
Idiot. You're an idiot no matter what the IQ test says.
The knocking on my door gets louder.
"We're working on it – we just need to up the dose, that's all –"
The door swings open. The look on my face silences him.
Good. People like that are like leaches. Snakes. They feed off of people's blind hopes.
"Listen," I say, finally getting really angry, finally finding the words, and maybe it's because I finally hurt too much to think but there you go. Anger. "Listen. You've been promising results since you were in your mother's womb. You've been making false threats and stupid excuses before you could walk. And, worst of all, you've been treating me like an idiot before we met. You're fired. I'll take over the research myself."
9. Now
It feels good to be doing something, I think.
I had resigned myself to a life of pining away and trying to get over the past. This project is reminding me that it's okay to dream of the future, too.
It is nothing like the impersonal Rosenbloom Ink. It is nothing like the brief time I spent teaching seminars, always under my father's shadow. It's definitely nothing like the time I was the leader of the Cahills.
I am finally doing something I love, to save someone I love. It's frustrating, difficult work at times but I can see the problems with my own eyes.
I know it's a stupid analogy, but it's like that time in kindergarten where I realized that being different isn't always bad and being "cool" isn't always good, and I asked my teacher to be sent to a higher grade. It has a sense of acceptance on it, a sense of control, a sense of hope.
Hope is nothing to be afraid of, because I am depending on myself not a serum this time.
I finally stop blaming Dan for not waking up. I haven't forgiven my younger self for being smarter, more aware, but I'm on my way.
And Dan's on his way to waking up.
Hope is nothing to be afraid of anymore, so I use it as jet fuel. Every day, I get closer to my destination.
10. Now
It's the first time I've seen Jake since Christmas, and I stop to blink.
He has worry lines on his forehead, though he's only thirty-two. His suit is dirty and wrinkled, like he hasn't changed for days. I pour him a cup of tea he doesn't touch.
"Dad's dead."
No.
No, he is not dead. You must be confused. He's invincible, all right? Haven't you noticed? He's the best professor in the field, he's the smartest man in the field, he's my inspiration, my hero, he can't be dead, it's impossible-
Even as I think it, I know it's true. My father's dead. Gruesomely, it's like a weight's been lifted off my shoulders –at the same time the Earth collapses under my feet.
Who is there to impress now?
11.
I have been to exactly 58 funerals in my life.
A few stand out: Amy Cahill's. And now, my father's.
The wreath is beautiful and it was not chosen by me. His death was tragic and it was not chosen by me, either. An old friend says a few words, and they are not the words I would have spoken.
But when I try to speak so many things fly through my head and my throat closes up. I leave the stage in shame, determined not to cry. Hypocrite, I tell myself, you haven't even tried to love him since you turned eighteen. You're choosing now to cry? Hypocrite.
It hits me that both my parents are dead. I make a wish – a half-prayer – that they end up together. Happy. Where they happy when they were together on Earth? I can't remember. I can't remember.
I have lost my chances to be a good son.
12.
I take one look at Jake's face, and realize we cannot confide in each other any more than we can confide in strangers.
I turn to leave, not sure where to go.
That's how I end up in Dan's hospital room. I start to talk. And talk. And talk. About my father, about death, about my AAA meetings, about how much I missed Dan, ninjas, mathematical equations, the Holocaust, our life, his favorite TV shows…
It's like old times, except I get no response except his steady breathing and the beats of the machine.
He's asleep, I tell myself. Certainly not dead like my father. Just taking a nap, because you bored him too much with all your talk of central Asia's trading bloom in the middle ages. Certainly not dead like my father. Somewhere in between.
For the first time, I can't help but wonder if it would have been kinder to let him go.
I am not that kind, I decide, and that's that.
13. Lucky number thirteen.
After the third dosage, patient's eyelashes start to flutter. Some finger movement has been shown. Brain patterns are stronger and clearer. Heart beats are stronger and more defined.
After the fifth dosage, patient opened his eyes and talked to a nurse who was changing his sheets. They had a 5 minute conversation about "Amy, ninjas, where am I?". Patient does not seem to remember causing his injuries. The last things he remembers is being driven home by Atticus Rosenbloom, founder of the experiment, the drug, and Rosenbloom Ink..
Visit: day 12, dosage 6 not taken yet, Atticus Rosenbloom.
Release: day 16, patient escorted by Atticus Rosenbloom.
14.
He doesn't remember much. He remembers names but not faces, or vice versa. His muscles are deformed from lack of motion. He is still beautiful.
He's been staying in the guest bedroom. Every day, he wakes me up at 8:30 AM and we work on his memory, muscle exercises, and getting Dan familiarized with 2031. His laughter is easy, but one day he mentions that the reasons he's always awake at 8:30 is because nightmares promptly wake him each night.
He comforts me about my father's death, and I finally have an honest talk about it.
We talk about that night. We talk about the Vespers. When he finds out that they've been demolished, his face goes ice and he says, "Good." It's all he will say about the subject. He says he doesn't want details, so I don't provide him. Eventually, when he's ready, I'll tell him what it felt like to kill someone, even from half a country away, even a Vesper. To order someone's death.
He'll understand why I started drinking.
He's been nothing but supportive about my AA meetings. Sometimes it seems downright impossible, but I haven't drunk anything but water and coffee since Dan woke up.
My therapist agrees that he's good for me
Having a best friend is good for me. Even if that's all we'll ever be. .
We have survived everything together, including being apart. As friends or as lovers, that will never change.
But then again, if this has taught me anything, it's that hope is nothing to be afraid of.
15.
Author's Note] This is nothing like what I normally write, but I had to do this one.
I think I did pretty okay. I'm really sorry if I insulted anyone by making any details ridiculous, e.g. the suicide scene, the medical facts.
I'd like to point-out something: in this fic, Dan had made the ultimate vial already and drunk it. However, it goes horribly wrong and he faces many side-effects. Such as, constant headaches, insomnia, hallucinations, and suicidal thoughts.
I might do a fic from his point of view. Probably not, though. I might also continue this, or at least have a happy fluffy epilogue. Depends on what my darling readers think!
Since there has been some confusion:
1) Is Atticus shortly before Dan wakes up, addressing the reader and remembering the times before he knew about the Cahills.
2) Atticus remembers discovering the Cahills, working for them, and Amy's death. After Amy died, Dan takes the ultimate serum. He becomes the number one field agent, but the serum is faulty. It is not everything that was promised. It is much less effective and needs to be taken on a monthly basis or so.
3) Dan has been really suffering from the side effects of the serum because he feels that he should have beaten the Vespers by now. This, and grief for Amy, takes its toll. His "home" – the place he has property and where he sleeps when not on missions – is in Boston. He rarely visits it. He is forced by his legal guardians – Nellie and Fiske – to have a therapy session once a week through web cam with an Ekaterina. It's not working. Atticus keeps his distance because he has no idea what to say that will help Dan.
4) Atticus received a suicide good bye text from Dan. He knew which sky scraper he'd jump off of because a particular one had had significance to them. He reaches Dan in time. He thinks he talked Dan out of it and drives Dan home. Atticus planned to call Dan's guardians and therapist after. However, Dan had actually used this to say goodbye to Atticus, and attempts suicide again. He half-succeeds. Atticus blames himself for not sticking around. This part was somewhat inspired by the song "How To Save A Life" by The Fray. Atticus took over as leader to the Cahills with an "official" job as the world's best software developer. Dan was plugged in.
5) This part is in the present tense. Everything onwards will be present tense.
Timeline:
When Amy died, Dan was 16 Atticus 15. Dan took the serum age 16. Dan tried to commit suicide age 17. Atticus visited him every day at first, but when Atticus turned 17 (Dan 18) he stopped. Atticus began trying to find a cure (17 and a half). Atticus did a few seminars about his project, he and his father fight and their relationship is hurt (age 18). Atticus gives up on finding cure (age 19) focuses on destroying Vespers. Atticus becomes Cahill leader (age 22). Vespers fall (age 23). Atticus begins Rosenbloom Ink. (ages 23-25) and invests in a group that claims to help find a cure for brain damage and therefore be able to help Dan. Age 25, scenes 6-9 happen. Age 26, Atticus' father dies. Age 28, the cure is found and the last scenes happen.
The story took place over the course of thirteen years, overall.
Please review and tell me how to improve this!