Chapter Five
Answers
I've never willingly lied to mom before and can't bring myself to do it now, time-line or no.
"Yes."
"How?"
"You said one question."
"Don't argue with your mother."
How easily she slips into the role. "How did you know?"
She considers for a moment. "I suppose, beyond the resemblance, I could say I'd felt the connection - just like I felt you were in danger - but there's more." She reaches into the back pocket of her pants, pulls out a familiar leather case, opens it and points to a spot on the lower left edge of the gold shield. "See that?"
I look where she touches and find an almost imperceptible scratch in the metal. I pull the badge from my belt and can hardly be surprised at what I find. The metal of the shield in my hand is dimmer for want of years of polishing, but that's the only distinction.
"Parker?" she asks.
"Palmer. Susan Linda. I go by Su Lin."
"Your father–" she cuts herself off and I resign myself to the most surreal conversation I'll probably ever have.
x
"Very much alive, and running this place along with Sammy." At her expression I recall that she hasn't met Samantha Marsters - or rather Samantha Sky - yet.
"When did–?" she looks me over, probably having a harder time with this than I am. "You look about my age. When did–?"
"You mean did I almost interrupt my own conception?" She nods, clearly refusing to blush, but there's never been any question of my legitimacy. "You and dad were married for almost two years before I was born."
"But how–?" not even giving herself time for relief, she moves on to the next mystery, tries her best to put chaotic thoughts at this madness into words. "What you did, that's not Wicca. I've known people of power. No one has this kind of power. What you did here is impossible!"
"You taught me almost everything I know."
She glances at the cooling units and our prisoner within. "I don't know that! How did–?"
"I shouldn't tell you."
"If you don't want to wind up across my knees, you'll tell me!"
I'm too painfully aware that that's no empty threat. Uncle LeeJay has his target, but though it's been a lot of years, with me, mom had hers.
x
"I was something of a problem baby," I confess, leaning back against the silver table. If I'm going to annihilate my future, I might as well be comfortable. "Not a problem child, I was a problem birth. I hadn't turned and I was breach. My heart stopped once and you were having a really rough time. Dad and uncle Ducky had to deliver me by C-section on this very table." I tap the metal with my fingernails and watch the color drain from her face.
"That was the same day you'd arranged for Rising Star to tour Headquarters. You'd never been able to explain, not even to dad, why you'd insisted on arranging for the entire Coven to visit on that of all days, the day you went into Labor. But they were here, all of them, in this room.
"High Priestess Little had them gathered in a wide ring about the table while dad and uncle Ducky worked. Dad was frantic."
"I'll bet."
"The power raised by fourteen witches in a Circle sustained my life. They gave both of us their strength in what was probably the wildest thing to ever happen in this room.
"It was never clearly understood why - there are six or seven good theories - but you and I retained the power that was raised that afternoon. One theory I like is that it had to do with you and I using the Scrying mirror so much for Mobius Transitions. The bottom line is that you retained much of the power, but since most of it was focused on me it charged me more than most other witches.
"You and dad raised me to respect equally both your Christian faiths and Wiccan beliefs and practices. Dad never followed it, but he didn't object when you introduced me into the Coven. I was five years old when my powers started to develop and it became clear that what had happened at my birth had made all the difference.
"My strength leapt to unheard of proportions. I was ten times as powerful as a Priestess long before I was old enough to be a legitimate Neophyte. There's no scale of measurement for what I can do now."
x
"And what do you do with your power?" she glances at the badge at my belt, though her concern goes a lot deeper. I know how she feels, what she's thinking. She'd saved me, I'm her daughter, but was Carson the good guy hunting the fugitive - me?
"I became a Paranormal Private Investigator, and two years ago I opened 'Otherworld Investigations'. Witches are not 'underground' as they are today, as you're used to, and there are many people with great power. Some of them even turned it into legitimate businesses."
"Incredible."
"More than you imagine."
"In your time–" She breaks off. "That is so weird. But in your time, are your father and I…?"
"You're both very much together and never really stopped loving each other like newlyweds. You have uncle LeeJay's old job–"
"Uncle LeeJay?"
I shrug. "I was born in this room. I visited Headquarters more often than some agents do. Your friends were like my family too. Uncle LeeJay was my Godfather, aunt Abby was my Godmother, Mother McGee Christened me–"
"Mother McGee?"
I wince. "Please. Forget I said that."
"I can't, not about any of this."
"And there we have a problem."
x
I hadn't wanted to think of it, but the more truth I told the worse things became. I'd come here partially to keep Carson from changing the past and I've blabbed far too much of mom's future.
"I can keep this to myself, don't worry about that."
"I'm not. But aunt Abby's told me about what she calls 'MOAS', the Mother of All Secrets and what it does to a person. Now I've told you decades of information and I have to go."
"Go?" It's obvious she hadn't considered that, and that she doesn't want me to go.
"Now. I've already contaminated the very things I came here to save. The others will be back from La Chateau Julienne and I have to be gone - with Carson - before they return."
"I - I suppose it's for the best," she admits with heavy wistfulness. "I just wish I had a couple more hours to get to know my - well, my daughter."
"You'll have the rest of our lives." I reach out to her. "Mom."
We hug each other, neither of us wants to let go. I press my left hand to the back of her head. "I love you, mom," I whisper in her ear.
x
She sighs and her body goes limp against mine. Very carefully I bear her down to the floor, gently lay her upon her back. I wish I could cover her, but I have to leave her like this. I can't take her anywhere, that's impossible, so I have to leave her here and take my chances with the time line. I press my lips to hers in a goodbye kiss, come up to my knees, close my eyes and reach out with my thoughts. It's no problem at all to touch a very familiar mind.
Then I hear uncle LeeJay's impatient demand in my mind. "Where would someone get Eldrad's 'Dragonclaw' and Legolas' arrows?"
"Specialty houses?" dad says. I hear his thought first, then his words in an eerie duet, time-delayed by barely a quarter second.
"On-line and published catalogues," uncle Tim speculates, this time a clear voice.
"Fantasy conventions," that same duality of mind and word.
"Re-creation shops."
"Collectables dealers."
There's a moment of silence, then I hear uncle Ducky's voice. He sounds very amused. "What's wrong, Jethro?"
"I've seen a lot of scary things in my time; but Palmer and the 'Elf Lord' working the same wavelength - that's scary."
'Not as much as you can imagine, uncle Leejay,' I think, focusing on dad and hurtling the spell.
Epilogue
About a half hour later, from just within the Mobius Transition barrier, before starting down the vortex of light and matter, I watch as the double doors across the room open and uncle Ducky and dad wheel two gurneys into Autopsy. When Ducky turns on the lights he jumps as dad practically hollers in his ear. "'Chelle!"
There's no subtlety at all in him as he shoves his gurney aside and runs to mom lying on her back a few feet away from me. I have to smile, watching him rapidly trying to perform the impossible task of simultaneously listening to her heartbeat while checking her pulse, her respiration, temperature and attempting to awaken her.
Fortunately uncle Ducky - oh, how wonderful to see him Alive again! - has far more skill with both the dead and the living; his check of mom is far more efficient. It's not more than thirty seconds before she starts to regain consciousness.
"'Chelle, are you all right?"
"Give her a moment, Mr. Palmer," Ducky advises dad, who in his frantic concern is about to blow their presently so-carefully-maintained secret.
"What - what happened?" she asks, quite thoroughly dazed.
"I was rather hoping you could tell us," Ducky replies. "We've only just arrived to find you passed out upon the floor."
"What happened?" Dad tries to make it not quite a demand. It doesn't work.
"I don't know."
"Why are you here?"
I sympathize; the spell made him only remember they'd spent some private time here, but that they'd left together. All memory of my interruption is gone.
"I…." She looks around. I can see in her eyes that she's utterly confused, just as I'd hoped. "I don't know…."
"Mister Palmer suffered a brief spell a short while ago," uncle Ducky says, having no idea how right he is. "Could there be something –?"
"Honey! Are you okay?" Mom throws her arms around dad.
I turn, holding my control over Carson next to me and focusing my mind on my office. The cosmos starts to flash past me. Everything will be fine.
o
I step through the Scrying mirror with my spell-bourn burden and my heart leaps into my throat on a burst of adrenaline as I see my mother seated upon my daybed an instant before the TV slams me and I stagger back into the now solid mirror.
I struggle to stay conscious and mom stands, grabs my wrists as I do hers and I feel the stabilizing power flow from her into me. It doesn't protect me completely, my knees give out and I slam to the floor, bite back a pained curse only because mom might whack me if I say it.
I don't pass out but it's still a near thing. It takes half a minute for the worst of the TV to pass - it probably should have laid me out for over an hour - and I swallow again to pop my ears.
I didn't consciously select a time to return, letting natural time make that selection for me, so I'm not sure what time it is now.
I do know, however, that though Tina wouldn't allow just anyone in here while I was Transitioning, saying 'no' to Michelle Palmer, well, let's just say that at NCIS she'd had a very good teacher.
x
If I hadn't just left her fifteen seconds ago I'd have been startled. Instead, I decide to leap right to flabbergasted, that and still stunned enough to fall flat on my face. Mom gives me the time I need to recover; she just stands waiting patiently, my hands clasped to her wrists and hers to mine as she feeds me power until the world stops telling my inner ears that I'm moving at thousands of miles a second in the wrong direction.
Taking a deep breath, I manage to force my body back to normal; at least enough that I don't feel like smashing my face on the carpet.
x
When I can focus again I climb to my feet and, with a wave, I place John Carson upright in a corner until I can figure out which Law Enforcement Agency could possibly have jurisdiction over him. An immobilization spell coupled with a dissociative one is a great step up from the plastic restraints I'd originally planned. With him thus dazed we can speak freely with no worries about interruption or lost privacy.
"Welcome back," mom says as casually as if I had just seen her moments ago. This version of my mother may not have even a touch of grey in her long, straight black hair, but unlike the young woman I'd left behind, she is very much the mature mother I know.
"Been waiting long?" I ask as casually as I may, seeing her look of disapproval as she glances at the immobile Carson. She doesn't like my using my powers flagrantly against mundanes.
x
"I was sitting at my desk about an hour ago, reviewing a report from Bill Parsons when," she raises her hands head high, opening both quickly, "BAM! This whole flood of 'new' memories pours into my head from a quarter century ago: your father and I were together one evening after work when suddenly we had an unexpected visitor."
"Oh, yeah."
"Oh, yeah. This man," she points to Carson, "was in them too."
"I, er," Have you ever known how, no matter how old and independent you are, your parents can make you feel like a klutzy kid again? "kept the Temporal Prime Directive intact by making sure you'd only remember when time caught up to the present."
"I know." Her tone is surprisingly mild. I look at her closely.
"You're not mad?"
"No. You were very professional. You even kept enough on a subconscious level so I would even buck Gibbs in insisting on taking Rising Star on a tour of Headquarters on April 23rd. Good catch there; it could really have screwed things up if you'd let that one slip."
"Yeah," I grin, utterly relieved and going with the flow. I'd expected a dressing down worse than those that uncle LeeJay was famous for; the kind that only a mother can lay on you.
x
"Also, a nice touch in getting me to keep my old shield and give it to you."
"Thanks."
"I called your father; seems he's remembered a lot today too. He's not mad, though. He sent you a message: 'Good control, even unseeing over a distance'."
"Thanks." It means a lot to me to hear this, even if it does leave me even more confused. "But if you approve of what I did - and how I did it -" I bite the bullet, "why are you here?"
The mild mannered attitude falls away and her steel shows through. "I'm here to discuss your flagrant use of magic on your mother and father."
I was right about what I'd thought earlier.
I am so going to Hell.
Fin.
Author's Note: To understand what Su Lin did to Jimmy, read my episode 'Fantasy Affair'.
Next Episode: Penalties. A murder in Shenandoah Park hits too closely to home for Su Lin Palmer and the NCIS of the late 2030's in a heartbreaking tale of deception and betrayal.