A/N: Holy cats! Thank you so much for the feedback and kind words! Thanks especially to Loonyloops, LeeMarieJack, Alice of Scots, and LyleRay for reviewing, but also to anyone who took the time to read this. Unfortunately (for you, not me, since I know what happens. Perks of being the author.) this chapter will not tell you what happens to Parker. I know, I know, but everything will be revealed soon enough. Now, onto chapter two!
Nate felt warm and safe. Slowly opening his eyes, he was greeted by warm morning rays of sun that cheerily shone through a window to his right. He groggily pushed a duvet away from his cheek. His brow wrinkled when he realized where he was.
But that wasn't possible.
The room (Nate knew it wasn't just any room, but that thought was just to ridiculous to entertain, even for a second) was a pale yellow, painted in happier times than the last time he had seen it. It was surreal. His life was split rigidly in two by Before and After Sam's death. Waking up in this room, in this bed, was dangerously crossing the streams. He thought back to last night. He couldn't recall how he had ended up on a feathery mattress that smelled like lilacs and home; all he could remember was downing a good portion of a bottle of scotch and a blue light. Despite the sleepy fog in his head, he felt better than he had in years. Apparently that scotch hadn't left its mark. He hadn't woken up feeling so good since Before. Something warm stirred next to him in the soft sheets.
"Nate, it's Saturday," a disturbingly familiar voice murmured. "You promised you wouldn't wake me up before eight." He shifted uneasily toward the voice.
"Maggie?" Okay, maybe the scotch had left its mark. Nate quizzically took in his wife's tangled blonde morning hair. "What are you doing here?"
Maggie rubbed her eyes wearily. "Not sleeping, thanks to you." She leaned over and kissed his cheek. Nate stiffened. That didn't seem like the Maggie he knew and divorced.
"I need a drink," he groaned, rolling away from her.
"Ha ha," she replied with the tone of someone who had heard a joke one too many times. "Very funny." His wife (ex-wife, he mentally heard Sophie's habitual correction) pushed off the blankets and sat up with her legs dangling off the bed. Which brought up another point: Sophie.
She was going to kill him. Right after she emptied his bank accounts and slashed his tires. That is if she came back. At this point Nate suspected she would never return from her soul-searching journey.
"Oh, this is not good," Nate muttered, his head falling into his palm. It occurred to him that Maggie had said something. "What'd you say? Something about ham?"
"I said, 'You might as well get dressed since you said you'd take Sam to his soccer game today,'" Maggie wrapped a silken robe that Nate recognized from Before around herself. "I'll be downstairs making breakfast." She paused at the door. "Make sure he's ready before he comes down, okay?"
Nate's mouth opened and closed a few times. He couldn't form the words "Is this some kind of joke?" so he settled for the far more articulate: "Ngh." Maggie gave him a funny look.
"Alright," she drew out the vowels, "I'll take that as a yes." She flashed him a sweet smile and went into the hallway. She smiled like she did Before, not guarded or pitying like After. Nate got out of bed. This didn't feel like a dream, but how else could he wake up in his old house with his ex-wife? Sam was dead. That was the painful truth, and this was just a different version of the twisted nightmares he had every night.
Nate blinked back a sudden wetness in his eyes. Damn allergies. Of course, it wouldn't hurt to be sure. A powerful force greater than himself propelled him out the door and down the hallway three doors down. He paused outside of the door. His breath came out hitched and uneven; when he reached for the doorknob his hand shook. He opened the door like one might open a tiger's cage.
His breath left him completely when he saw a wiry dark-haired boy curled up under a superhero patterned comforter. It was Sam; a few years older and a nearly a foot taller, but it was Sam, alright. Nate did the math in his head. His son would be, what, twelve? A middle schooler, he thought affectionately.
"Sam?" Nate's voice cracked. "Sam, it's time to wake up." He gently reached down and shook the boy's bony shoulder, fearing the illusion would disappear the moment he touched him. That's usually how his nightmares went. Sam stayed where he was and Nate let out a sigh of relief. Dream or not, in that moment Nate decided he didn't want to wake up.
"Go 'way, Dad," Sam covered his head with the blanket.
Nate crossed his arms. He had forgotten how stubborn his son could be. "Mom's making pancakes." Well, he hoped she was.
The pre-teen shot out of his tangled sheets. "Why didn't you say so?" Sam grinned impishly. He stood about five foot four (which was huge for a twelve-year-old with the Ford family genes), had Maggie's eyes, and Jimmy Ford's smirk.
Maybe he was experiencing a coma-induced hallucination, Nate had read those could be deceptively vivid. He wanted to thump his head against the wall. Stop thinking and enjoy this while it lasts, he told himself sternly.
"Whoa, slow down there, Sam," Nate never wanted to stop saying his name. "You have a game to get ready for." His son grumbled, but started pulling a jersey and other clothing from small piles on his bedroom floor.
"Are you going to be at the match this time?" Sam pulled knee-high socks over his shin guards. "It's the final qualifier round before the big one."
"I wouldn't miss it for the world," Nate said truthfully. Sam gave him a doubting, but simultaneously hopeful, look. He shrugged, quickly masking his emotions with a blank look. A natural grifter, Sophie's voice murmured to Nate's ears only.
"Good, 'cause Mom said that if you miss another she'll personally hand in your two-weeks," the boy tugged on a blue shirt that displayed his number (eight) and team (Santa Ana Electric). "Whatever that means."
Santa Ana, Nate mused, the old house in the old town, just like Before. He must still work at IYS. Of course that made sense, the only reason he left (read: got fired) was because of Ian Blackpoole's role in Sam's death. He did wonder what Sam meant by "another"; the thought made him frown.
"Hurry up, kiddo," he ruffled his son's hair, marveling at how quickly he accepted what was happening. "Don't want Mom to eat all the food, do you?" Sam grinned.
"I'd like to see her try," he said. "Race you down? First one down gets first pick."
Nate's responding "You're on," was cut off by Sam slamming the door in his wake. Nate grinned.
Maggie had not, in fact, made pancakes, but both father and son settled for french toast without argument or complaint. Breakfast was a pleasant blur to Nate. It was like someone had pressed rewind on his life and set it back to Before. He wanted to ask Sam so many questions: who were his friends, what did he like to do, how had he survived his illness? Nate figured there would be time, pushing away any doubts that there wouldn't, and asked the standard questions a father would ask his son over breakfast.
Sam answered him eagerly, still at the age when sons wanted nothing more than to please their fathers. From the odd looks Nate received from Maggie, he had a feeling there was more to it than that, but like all his negative thoughts today, he ignored it. Sam was in the middle of recounting the story of how he had rendered his English teacher speechless by only answering questions in fluent pig Latin when Maggie interrupted.
"Boys," she said firmly, but kindly. "The game's in twenty minutes and you have to check in with Coach Mathers at 9:50, remember?" Sam rolled his eyes. He and Nate sighed at the same time.
"Yes, Fearless Leader," Nate replied in his best Russian accent (which was not necessarily inaccurate, but unarguably terrible). Sam smiled shyly at his father, sneaking a sidelong glance in Maggie's direction to see if Nate's actions were throwing her off too. Her surprised laugh confirmed it.
"Well, Spasiba," she managed to say. "Now go."
Sam was quiet on the ride over to the youth soccer fields. Nothing Nate said drew him out of his head.
"Sam?" Nate parked a sensible silver mini van he hadn't known he owned next to another sensible navy blue mini van. "Is something wrong? Are you nervous? It's normal, you know, if you-"
"Are you leaving or something?" Sam said so softly that Nate thought he had misheard him. "Do you have another business thing this month and that's why you're acting like this?"
"What do you mean, 'acting like this?'" Nate heard something he never thought he'd hear in his son's voice: accusation. "I'm not acting like anything."
"Dad," Sam sighed, in a tired and resigned way that made him seem older than twelve, "the only time you do this is when you're leaving."
Something broke inside Nate.
The picture became clear in his head. In whatever dream or alternate universe he'd found himself in, he was an inconsistent figure in his son's life. He was the absentee father, the here-today-gone-tomorrow insurance investigator, and Sam knew it. Nate thought back to Before. It had been like that then too. His guilt about it was one of the many reasons he reached for the bottle. Here (wherever that was), Sam was alive and healthy, but Nate was the same as he'd been four years ago.
"No," he said finally. "I'm not leaving."
Sam let himself smile sheepishly. "So you're just being nice?"
"I'm making up for lost time," Nate said. He meant every word. Satisfied with his answer, Sam grabbed his sports bag and hopped out of the car. Nate followed slowly after, thinking back on the exchange. His cell vibrated in his pocket. He took it out, saw the name that came up, and looked to see Sam talking to a twenty-something woman with a whistle and a clipboard before he answered.
"Sterling, if this wastes even a second of my time, I will ruin you," he warned. He'd been telling the truth more often than usual since he woke up. What an odd feeling.
"Nate," Jim Sterling's voice held none of the menace he expected. Nate realized that, in this universe, he and Sterling were more than likely still friends and partners at IYS. "You're terrifying when you're sober, you know that?"
Sober?
"Right," Nate settled with, after debating how to answer him.
"Anyway, I think you'll be interested to learn that you're hunch was spot on," Sterling continued. "You'd better head over to that little museum home to the missing Manet or you'll miss all the fun."
"And what kind of fun can I look forward to?" He said uneasily.
Nate could hear Sterling's conceited smirk even over the phone. "The kind involving our favorite femme fatale, of course."
Somewhere dank and dark and dangerous, Nathan Ford smiled dreamily as his head lolled to the side. An unearthly pale hand trailing blue fire delicately caressed his face and neck before sliding the needle out of a major artery in the latter. The hand brought the tube to a mouth set in a heavily tattooed face. The Djinn closed his eyes, tasting the man's happiness and anticipation.
Yes, the Djinn knew, he would savor this one.
A/N: It's funny, this was actually the first thing I wrote for this story. I love the whole "Be careful what you wish for" aspect of the Djinn. I won't normally write author notes at the end of chapters, but I just wanted to share that bit. Reviews are appreciated!