Chapter 9

Later that night at 6 p.m. she left the store, the guy whose shift was next came in, relieving her for the day. She had officially gotten the job, as soon as her test trial was done the manager congratulated her on a job well done that day and her hours would be from noon to six.

While it was only part-time it was better than nothing. Liz hoped in the future she'd be able to go for full time but until then she had to get another job. There were still a few places that she'd applied to that hadn't gotten back to her yet.

Liz made it back home in thirty minutes; thankfully she didn't hear any screaming coming from inside. Cautiously she opened the front door, preparing for hostile looks from either Rath, Jamie, or both.

She shut the door behind her and wandered into the living room. Immediately her eyes went to the still child lying on his stomach on the couch. Little drool bubbles went in and out of Jeremy's mouth as he breathed. Smiling she went over to him and gently petted his back.

Where was Rath? She glanced up from her son sleeping soundly and looked around, nothing too out of place. A chair was pushed back and the walls had blue handprints on them that weren't there when she left. Carefully so as not to wake Jamie she lifted his hands, she found the culprit of the decorative handprints. Blue chalk covered his palms.

Chuckling she left her son sleeping and went in search of his babysitter. She set her things down on the pushed back chair and made her way through the first floor. In the kitchen she found the wayward babysitter.

Rath chugged three mouthfuls of whiskey before setting the bottle down and staring at her with menace in his eyes. "Your kid is a hellion." He growled out.

"Rough day?" She teased.

"Oh shut up. Do you have any idea what he's like?" Rath pointed angrily at the living room where the sleeping kid rested.

Liz nodded. "I gave birth to him and he spends almost every waking minute with me so I'd say yes I do know what he's like."

"Then why did you leave me alone with him?" Rath questioned.

"Tell me what happened today." She decided to ignore the question. After all from what she saw Rath got off easy. Liz recalled once when she had to clean spaghetti off the ceiling, don't even ask her how it got up there, somehow though Jeremy managed to.

"First you left him here crying for a half-hour. That was hell on my ear drums; if I go deaf I'm suing." He threatened. He took another swig of alcohol. "Then he finally shut up. Figured everythin' was cool. Wrong. He asked me ta paint wit him, I thought great, he's gonna be calm but oh no." Liz made her way toward the fridge. "Hey where ya goin'? I'm tryin' ta tell ya what your menace of a son was up ta today."

"And I'm listening. But while I'm listening I'm making dinner." She explained.

"Anyway your kid grabs his paints and I tell him I don't want ta paint but I'll watch him paint." Liz nodded and waited for the inevitable outcome of Rath's refusal to paint with him. "So I start dozin' off, after all its paint how much trouble can he get into with that? All of a sudden I wake up with pink nails and different colors of paint on my face."

Liz laughed at Rath's expression of horror. Her body shook and she held a hand to her quivering stomach. When she saw his immediate anger she stifled her laughter. "Continue please." She managed to eek out.

"It's not funny."

"Yes it is." She wiped tears of joy from her eyes and went about gathering more things for dinner.

"Anyway…" He glared at her and went on to tell her the rest of the tale. "I fixed the mess he made." He waved his fingers so she knew how he fixed the mess on his body. "I told him that I need to fix him up too, he tells me 'no'. Little shit started running with his paint brushes in his hand and ran da things all over the walls and furniture while I'm chasin' his ass."

Liz nodded. Jeremy loved his paints and she knew from experience that the only way to keep her walls, furniture and herself relatively clean was too watch him like a hawk.

"Finally I caught him, cleaned him up, cleaned the furniture up, and put his paints away. There was no way he'd get da chance to put me in pink and sky fucking blue again." He took one more swig from the bottle scoffing angrily when Liz took the bottle away. "Hey."

"You've had enough. If you want to drink more go find a bar. Last thing I want is a repeat of the St. Patrick's Day incident." She complained shoving the bottle on top of the refrigerator.

"It wasn't that bad and you were able to clean it up afterwards." Rath argued.

"Just because I did before doesn't mean I want to again. And if you do go to a bar you better not come back here, you find yourself a hotel where other people can clean up…everything." Liz grimaced in disgust. Having a repeat of Rath losing control of his stomach wasn't on her list of fun things to do after work. "Anyway you were saying about your day with Jamie?"

Although pissed that she took the bottle away he told her the rest. "I finally catch him, wave a hand over him and the paint is removed. I ask him if he wants something to eat. He says yes, I figure great, something I can do without a problem."

"You left him alone didn't ya?" She smiled knowingly.

"Maybe." He grudgingly admitted. "So I come out with a sandwich and he's split. No fucking idea where he scampered off too."

"Where'd you find him?" Not worried because it was clear that Jeremy was perfectly fine sleeping away his busy day on the couch.

Rath raised his hand and gestured heatedly toward what would hopefully soon be Jamie's room. "In that room over there. I hear him gigglin' and I can't find shit in that box filled room. When I actually do find him and try ta grab him he runs passed me back ta the living room. I, of course, chase after him and there he was sweet as could be eating his damn sandwich."

"And the blue chalk came in where?" Liz wondered.

"That was after the glue and sparkle incident." He sneered. "Never leave me alone with that hellion again. No amount of graveling or promise of sexual favors will get me ta say yes ta babysitting him again."

Liz giggled in a similar fashion that Jamie had giggled earlier in the day. "I'm sorry my son traumatized you. If it'll make you feel better since my parents are coming up here in a couple days it's unlikely that I'll ask you to babysit." She promised.

"Good." Rath nodded enthusiastically.

"Mm, before I forget." She left the kitchen for a moment and then returned with her purse. "While I was walking to the job I found some things a vendor was selling. Thought you might be interested." Liz pulled out the two items she bought and handed the objects to Rath.

"Whoa." His anger at the day's events evaporated. "Some vendor just sold these to ya?" He held the flat disk face up on his palm and he held up the necklace with the symbol.

"Yea. She had the necklace on display but the disk she had in a box underneath the counter. Do you know what it means?"

Rath shook his head negatively. "No. But I remember something about this disk. There's three more. It's useless without the other three."

"The necklace has the same symbol on it," Liz pointed out, "are these two things linked in anyway besides the design and being from your planet?" She wondered.

"From what little I remember there were four necklaces too. They don't do nothin' to my knowledge but they each represent our families crest or our personal symbol, I'm not certain but I know it has somethin' to do wit our family or our former selves in some way not necessarily our planet."

"I know that Max, Tess, Isabel, and Michael have a necklace with a different symbol on it. Looked like it was made of the same materials and you said there would be two others?" Liz questioned, her curiosity bubbling right to the surface, dinner preparations forgotten for the time being.

"Yeah."

"Could there be six more?"

"Six?" He stared at her strangely.

Liz nodded and turned back to dinner. "Since there were two sets of four sent down then it would stand to reason that there were necklaces for both sets."

"Hmm, sounds like a good theory." Rath stared at the objects again.

"Is anything familiar jumping out?" She saw his deep probing stare of the items in his hands.

Rath shrugged and put the disk and necklace on the table. "I feel like I should know what these mean or are but it's like a memory that's locked away." He kicked at the chair he leaned on. "Dammit."

Liz bit her lower lip, she couldn't believe she was about to suggest this but it might be Rath's only way to get some answers about the things she bought that day. "Do you want me to call the others?"

"What?"

Liz swallowed and pushed past the lump of dread in her throat. "I still have a number where I can contact them. Tess is really good at memory retrieval it might jog something loose. Or there might be some information in the Destiny Book."

Although Rath thought about it and was seriously considering taking her up on that offer he saw the fear in her eyes. She didn't want to call them, she didn't want the others to come to Seattle and find out about Jeremy, namely whose genes he had flowing through his veins. One look at him and it would be clear who his father was.

So in a move uncharacteristic to Rath he declined her offer. He set aside his own desires and needs for his friend, it was weird turning his back on getting information but Liz had done so many things for him he would do this one thing for her. Besides, although he wanted information about his original planet he wasn't obsessed over it. There were plenty things on Earth that captured his attention that made his interest in Antar pale in comparison.

"Nah, it's all right. I have some things dat I can look at that came from Kal. If I can't find it in there I might say, yeah call em' but for now let's not."

Liz visibly sighed with relief and Rath felt a little better about not bringing the others into this. "Ok." She smiled at him. "Thank you."

Rath smirked and lowered his head in a bashful manner. "It's nothin'. Listen I'm going to go find a bar." He picked up the alien objects and put them in his pockets. "I'll see ya tomorrow."

"You know Rath, despite my earlier comments you can come back here after you're done at the bar. We've got plenty of room." Liz offered.

"Thanks but no thanks Sweetness. I'm looking ta get laid tonight. Don't think you'd like it much if I brought some pretty little thing here to bang." He hugged her quickly and gave her butt a sharp spank.

She squealed in surprise and smacked his chest. "Asshole."

"Don't you forget it." Without a smirk and a wave he left the house and headed for the closest bar.

TBC

Note: This fic is now up to date. Hopefully I'll another update sometime after I come back from vacation.