If there was an image for tranquillity, then this was it.
The lake yawned out before him, pristine azure and still as glass. The sky was cold blue, painted with feathery white wisps of cirrus. It wasn't dusk yet, but the noon warmth was starting to dissipate and the sun hung low over the horizon. A cool breeze drifted in off the mountains, carrying with it the scent of pine. Not the smell you got from those cardboard trees people hung on their rear-views either. Something real and earthy. Refreshing.
Wasted on you, old man.
His best and oldest friends were fighting corruption half a world away, and he was here, in hiding. They'd told him he belonged with his family, as a husband and a father, not in the trenches. He knew that war was a young man's game. Even the quiet kind. But as he'd watched them climb aboard that plane and fly out of his life, it had felt like he'd betrayed them all over again.
It was hard to find peace when you felt so torn.
He rocked back in his seat on the porch, listening to Moira and Polly playing just beyond the tree line. They always seemed to find something new to keep themselves entertained. He didn't really mind what they did, so long as he could hear them giggling. So long as he knew they were there.
Sarah stepped out of the lodge and let the screen door bang shut behind her. She set a bottle of water and a soda on the table beside his Smith & Wesson. Then he felt her hands on his shoulders.
"I was thinking," she said, working her thumbs into the knots in his upper back, "maybe the girls would like to spend the weekend at the Harrisons' lodge. They've asked a couple of times now, and it's been a long, long time since they visited friends."
He was shaking his head, before she'd even finished. "That's not a good idea. I don't want to take any unnecessary risks. Besides, doesn't Bob Harrison ship chemicals for the Company?"
She sighed, but kept up the massage around his neck. "I guess you're right."
It took him a few moments to realise what he'd missed.
We haven't had a night alone in a long, long time either.
He took her hand and touched his lips to the back. She circled him and lowered herself into his lap, draping an arm around his neck, then kissed him on the forehead.
She smiled and tucked a loose strand of dark hair behind her ear. It was one of those habitual motions people tended to carry with them. He'd always loved it when she did that. It reminded him of High School and the Prom and all those moments they had shared between then and now.
Everything she'd had back then, she still had and more. It had survived two children and more than thirty years of worrying if her cop husband was coming home night after night. She'd aged with all the grace he'd expected when they'd been kids themselves.
If there was a problem with their marriage, it was him. Life had wrung the energy out of him, turned him grey and weary before his time. He'd taken early retirement to try and recapture the years he'd lost, just in time to be dragged into the disaster in Raccoon.
It seemed like he could never give her the break she deserved.
His ears twitched. Not at a noise. At the absence of it.
The girls... Where...?
Polly started calling for them, her voice high and strident. Sarah leapt to her feet and started running towards the trees. He paused just long enough to grab the S&W and then he was following her.
He'd broken out in a cold sweat. His fingers felt numb around the revolver's grip. The adrenaline shakes were setting in, the immunity he'd built up during his three decades on the force dulled by a handful of years on the shelf.
Oh God, what happened? Be okay, girls. Please be okay.
He weaved between a cluster of thick trunks, spreading branches so tangled overhead they smothered out the dying sunlight. The forest floor was spongy with needles and cones. He shot past the hollowed out trunk where the girls had ambushed him during a hike one weekend and the spot where Moira had found the injured bird. It was all a blur.
He found Sarah kneeling next to Polly, arms wrapped around her. He could see a streak in the dirt from the top of the hill down to the bottom. She'd fallen. Her dress and jacket were covered in dead leaves and she'd grazed her knees. She was crying, probably because the tumble had shaken her up.
"Where's Moira?" he asked.
Sarah looked up at him, surprised.
He dropped onto his knees next to them and put his hand to Polly's shoulder. "Polly, where's your sister?"
She sniffed and pointed to the top of the hill. His stomach lurched. He'd always told them not to go this far on their own. He couldn't see or hear them from the lodge out here.
He didn't wait. He scrambled up the hill, heart hammering, still clutching his pistol.
Hadn't she noticed that her sister had fallen? Why hadn't she come back for her? Maybe she couldn't. Maybe she'd fallen too. Worse than Polly had. Or maybe...
He'd been hearing rumours for years. Grizzlies, roaming these woods. He'd always thought it was nonsense, but... If there was truth in it... If Moira had stumbled across them...
What if it's the Company? What if it's Umbrella? What if they've finally caught up with me? With us? What would they do to her?
"Moira!" he yelled, panting as he clawed his way to the top of the hill, "Moira!"
It was hard to catch his breath. He didn't run much these days. There was never really a need for it. But it wasn't like he'd spent the last few years sitting on his ass watching football and drinking beer, like some ex-cops he knew.
The gauzy feeling in his lungs. The way his breath seemed to rattle in his throat. He hadn't felt like that in a long time.
He reached the crest, but he couldn't see any sign of Moira, or any clues to which direction she'd gone in. He tried to suck air into his lungs so that he could call for her again, but all he could manage was a gasp.
He barrelled on, hoping, praying that she was okay, wherever she was. He was running so fast he almost ran right past it.
It was caught on a branch, fluttering in the breeze, a pink streak against the mottled green of the trees all around. The ribbon from Moira's hair.
He snatched it from where it was anchored. For a moment, all he could do was stand and stare at it. What did it mean? She always wore a ribbon. She'd pick hiking boots over shoes, and jeans over a skirt, any day, but the ribbon was a must.
He jammed it into his pocket and ran into the wind, hoping he'd find her in that direction. Hoping she'd dropped the ribbon or the breeze had pulled it out of her hair.
He was heading towards the lake again. It covered whole acres out here, filling the bottom of a natural bowl between the mountains. A lot of guys like him had lodges along the bank, but most of them were only there during vacation time. He was the only one in this area whose cabin was full all year round.
He didn't like cities. He'd had all he could stomach of them after Raccoon. Sarah had only just managed to convince him to let the kids attend school in the town at the head of the valley.
He caught a glimpse of navy blue through the trees. Moira's battered jacket, the one with the patch of brown fabric on the back, hanging on a branch. She'd ripped it while they'd been hiking and begged her mother to sew it up, so that she could keep wearing it. She loved it because the hole in the pocket was big enough for her to keep a bag of M&M's in the lining.
"Moira!" he called, starting to slow when he realised that she was standing at the water's edge.
She didn't turn around. As he watched, she stooped and picked something up from the ground. Then, she pitched it across the water. He watched the stone skim, bouncing once, twice, three times, and then vanishing beneath the surface.
Just like he'd showed her.
She rolled her sleeves up and went to grab another stone.
"Moira," he said.
She started. "Dad? What are you doing up here?"
Relief flushed through him. She was fine. She'd just wandered off, exploring, just like her old man. There was nothing to worry about. She hadn't fallen. There was no bear. And no one from the Company. Everything was fine.
The revolver slipped out of his hand and thumped into the dirt. He dropped onto his knees in front of her and grabbed her by the upper arms. She was taller than him when he was like this. She was growing more and more with every passing year. Pretty soon, she wouldn't be his little girl anymore.
"Moira, don't you ever run off like that again, you hear me?"
"Dad, I..."
"I don't want to hear any excuses, young lady. Your sister fell down back there. What if she'd gotten hurt?"
"Dad..."
"And what if something had happened to you? I've told you again and again not to wander too far from the cabin. These woods can be dangerous. There could be bears out here and God only knows what else."
You know what else, old man.
"Dad..."
"You need to stay where I can see you. You need to stay where I can protect you. Do you know what it would do to your mother and me if anything happened to you?"
"You're hurting me!"
The words stung like a slap in the face. He let her go. Four streaks of bruising marred the faint tan of her skin on each arm. His fingers.
The apology stuck in his throat as he looked, first at her, then at his hands, then back at her. Her eyes filled with tears, her lower lip trembling, and then she ran away from him. He watched her go, watched her smother her face into her mother's shoulder. Sarah was staring at him, Polly clinging to her waist. She wrapped an arm around Moira's shoulders and kissed her on the forehead. Then, she led the girls away, back to the lodge.
And he knelt on the bank, whispering useless apologies, until he had the strength to climb to his feet, numb with cold, and follow them. By then, it was already dark.
-x-x-x-x-x-
A/N: Much as I'm glad Billy's chapter got such a great reception, I am more pleased with this one. I really love Barry, possibly because of working with him at length in the Untold Story. I suppose you could call this chapter an unofficial epilogue to TUS, except that TUS will be getting a chapter of its own eventually.
Some of this was inspired by certain thoughts on family life that appeared in CJJS's "A Corrupted Summer", which I recommend. Hey, C, is this what Canada looks like? The M&M's reference is because we've been watching Supernatural recently.
Many thanks to the wonderful Shakahnna for being so helpful in my work. Writing is a passion, and there is nothing more wonderful than a partner who will be passionate about your passions.