AN: Ok guys, such a long pause again, I know. And I admit that this one was really, really long. I thought the story from this point on would be so easy to write, but well, it wasn't. I was waiting so long and had written so much to get here, and when I did, I simply lost my motivation. It took me some time to regain it, but it seems to me that now it's fully back :)

Things happened in my real life in the meantime... I passed my final exams and I'm through the the major part of my postgrad studies. Things got a bit worse in my job, so this year I'll probably have to look for something else (and finish the thesis in the process). As you can see, I expect a busy time again, so I cannot give any guarantee about the next updates. However, I mean to continue this story of mine, so don't be sad if there's another long pause - the update will appear eventually.

And now to the story itself. As you remember, I have inserted also a set of interludes into the storyline. They describe some of the earlier events, and taken together, they make up a little separate story on their own, and follow their own timeline. This new chapter is an interlude, too, but this time we abandon all the familiar timelines and are going much deeper into the past than we've ever been. I think you may also expect one or two important answers. Well, you'll see :) And of course, I strongly suggest listening to the song cited here. Apart from being absolutely badass/cool/amazing, it served as a really big inspiration to me.

Enjoy!

Chapter 14: The Sixth Interlude

Letting go,

What's defining me, letting go
I can't make them believe, or reason
I can tell by their reaction
They don't have my back
I'm letting go,

All that I am

(James LaBrie – Letting Go)

ooOOOoo

It was a mistake. Another and final terrible error closing this downward spiral. He knew now. He should not have done that.

Everyone else had forsaken him, but those blue eyes had never been able to. And Loki could see it. He saw that Thor would never let him go.

However, Loki chose otherwise. He chose to leave – and to leave all the responsibility behind. It was just too much to bear… Or was it?

Now there was nothing. He felt it in his soul there was nothing left for him. The hope was gone with the last remnants of light, and only darkness that had swallowed him remained.

It was outside his imagination what would come now. All the legends seemed so pointless at this moment. There were no stories about what happens in the nothingness. Those who fall in there are lost. And there he was, endlessly falling into the land of nowhere. His fear was melting into madness. He never wanted this. Not like this.

Suddenly, something happened. A glimpse of reality; of a different world Loki could not recognize. And there was someone, someone who was looking back at him.

But then, just before those unknown, grey hands could reach and seize him, just before his senses could leave him, there came a pull. The darkness embraced him once more, and then he could truly feel he was falling. Uncontrollably, Loki was approaching the ground below him, no matter how hard he tried to reach out through the green, misty light above and hold onto the shimmering stars on the night sky.

The impact was hard. He could feel his ribs crack – the same sound and pain as when Mjollnir had been laid on his chest. But the pain was good. He could not have wished for a better cure from the previous madness.

A woman came to find him. She was armed, supposedly a soldier, but still just a subtle, fragile, Midgardian lass. If he were in the mood for such thought, he would consider it laughable.

But then, for a pitifully short moment, he let himself sink into slight interest and even a touch of amusement at her stirred emotions. Clearly, she was experiencing a shock, a situation she was completely unprepared for. And yet, she was surprisingly good at suppressing her fear. She would not scream and run. Such a brave little thing. He felt prompted to try her courage a bit more, and the outcome was intriguing. Even though he made her weapon useless, and even though he blocked her contact with her comrades, she was still ready to oppose him. How bold, and how foolish.

Well, and what a fool he was. How could he expect that his reality would not follow him to this world? The dying Bifrost emerged from the hole in the sky like a roaring monster, and made the land below a place of sheer destruction – the building before him shattered under the force of the Bifrost beam, and the weapons the humans had made to kill one another were ignited, and awakened with deafening roar and blinding fire.

For a moment, he was able to protect the fierce little woman, but then his shield disappeared under the last flicker of the Bifrost, his skin and flesh cracked open and she melted away.

A quick death, Loki managed to think. Lucky one.

And then, the pain had taken over him. Nothing had ever hurt so much. There was a crack in his chest, he could feel it too well, but before he could realize anything else, he crossed the verge of fainting. He dreamed nightmares of Odin swinging a large axe and hitting his back again and again, and of Thor smashing his chest, crushing the ribs and lungs. He could not breathe, he could not move. He could only watch as hungry worms emerged, finding their way between his broken bones to feast on his insides.

His own cries awakened him. Lying on his side, Loki squinted through the receding darkness. Plain, barren land was about him, and last, fainting stars shone on the western sky. There were no detectable signs of the disaster whatsoever. The Bifrost beam must have pushed him someplace else. He was alone.

Complete exhaustion overwhelmed his body and mind, but his wounds and everything inside him burned, and kept him from falling asleep again.

If only I could… he thought after a while. But what? If he could, would he take back all the things he had done? Would he return to his home? But how could he do that? Asgard was not his home. Jotunheim could have been, but he wasn't welcome there from the very start. Where was his home then?

Nowhere.

The answer was so awfully simple.

He let out a painful, short laugh. The Bifrost was gone. Gone! What can they do now, the great Odin and mighty Thor? No one can chase him here. They can just sit and watch.

Just watch me burn this place, watch me destroy what you protected, Loki conspired and laughed again, until his body twisted with spasm. He choked on his own, clotting blood, but each attempt to cough was equal to setting his chest on fire. He thought this horrible moment would finally be the end, but eventually, squirming and grimacing with pain, he managed to calm down, his hands full of grass and dirt.

Sucking in the air in quick, jagged breaths, he lay still. This was madness, and he knew that.

No matter what, nothing he could do to this world would change the past. He could rule and enslave all the humans here, he could see that, but would that make any difference? Nothing could change how he felt, nothing could change who he was.

And that was it. He could no longer stand this – the weight of his existence felt just too much. To be Loki was unbearable. One second, he wished he had never learned the truth, and could continue his former life as the young prince of Asgard, and the other, he realized what an enormous lie it all had always been. Odin was not his father, Frigga was not his mother, and they had always been aware of it, and Odin had always treated Loki accordingly. It all made sense now, it all made sense… Thor and Frigga had shown true affection and concern, and one day, he could perhaps overcome this wall of lies and consider them a true family, but that chance had been eliminated by his rebellion. Loki was aware he had betrayed their trust, that he single-handedly destroyed what might have been saved.

And now he was alone, without any home, without any future, in the world of mortals.

He wanted to escape, if just for a moment; to become someone else, if just for a minute. He would even trade places with one of the pitiful mortals… what did they actually had to care for? Just to feed themselves and get some sleep each night? To pursue a pointless ambition, work until exhaustion, and then die? Disgusted with the prospect, he rolled carefully on his back, hissing with the stabbing pain, and looked at the brightening sky. He held his arms before him and inspected the last tatters of his clothes in the first light of dawn. But then again, many of these humans seem to feel genuinely happy like that, he thought and fell asleep.

When he woke again, night hovered above him and he knew what he must do.

He could erase his memories, but that would serve nothing. He would still remain the person he was, not to mention his memory would eventually – and no matter how unwelcome – return. No, he had to do something more effective, and he finally found out what.

He had seen it in one of his dreams, and now he recalled it. It was something the teachers and Frigga had been always hesitant to talk about, but still, Loki had learned enough on the subject himself. It would be painful, but the pain was the least that mattered to him now. What could be worse than his current situation? And so he set his jaw and focused. He needed to search his mind thoroughly, assemble all the information and experience he had, and plan the experiment.

And then, when the stars started to fade again under the new dawn, he was ready. Ready to kill a part of himself – the part that was unwanted, the part he had never asked for, the part he hated, the part that represented all he wanted gone from his life.

First he had to focus even more, and sink deep into his core. He had to precisely map his personality, to discern what he wanted to keep and what should be erased, like a surgeon drawing lines on a body he was going to cut. However, this initial step turned out to be much more difficult than Loki expected. The borderlines were blurred and obscured, almost impossible to trace. He was determined to get rid of everything that was binding him to the past, and so decided that it was better to cut more than less, but in the end, he was forced to draw his line rather vaguely. And then, it was time to cut.

A powerful energy source was needed for this – he alone was too weak, and even at his full strength, Loki doubted he would have accomplished such a task without exhausting himself to death. However, the Casket still lingered within him; he had just to reach through the layers of the dimensions, grasp its force and make it serve his purpose.

Soon a dim light started to illuminate the close surroundings – his own skin radiated it. The grass around bristled and the earth underneath his body was getting warmer and warmer with each heartbeat. But then Loki had to be honest with himself – the procedure felt unbearable; impossible to do. He himself was fighting against it. Each fraction of his mind twisted violently in protest, all his muscles and inner organs felt like being ripped in two. What a fool he was, again! What had he been thinking? That this would make him happy, that this would make this place feel like home to him? No, this was nonsense! He should stop it while there still was a chance!

He held up his hand, reaching out, as if to try and catch something that was escaping him, but he had to squint against the sharp light. His skin and the earth below him shone and burned. The tears that streamed down from his eyes felt like boiling. The energy flow could not be reversed. It was too late. It was done, almost done… He still saw Thor reaching out to him, screaming his name, he still could see all those recent events – Laufey, Odin's weary eyes, the Bifrost, Thor's rage, the Destroyer, the mortal woman, the one whom Thor will never see again – but they were all fading away, and he was falling, falling again, ever faster, ever deeper.

First, he realized a rather sharp light, penetrating his eyelids. He was awake. And so he opened his eyes. After a moment of gazing aimlessly into the blue sky above, he decided to sit and look around.

A plain wasteland. The blades of grass were moving with the gusts of wind. Clouds were slowly gathering in the south. For a moment, he was trying to figure out where was this place, but then he realized something else. He was in pain. Each time his ribcage moved to breathe in and out, it felt like being stabbed. He removed a few remnants of some kind of leather jacket that remained on him, and inspected his torso. He was bruised all over. Reaching behind his back with much difficulty, he tried to touch the area that felt like being on fire. The first touch nearly cost him his consciousness, but at least he found that he had also an awful gash across his back, and that it was deep, but not bleeding.

After some time, he gathered what strength he could find in him, and stood up. Upon looking down, he discovered a strange kind of pattern embedded into the ground in the shape of a circle around him. The grass was burned to ashes there, and the pattern in the earth felt very rigid. It did not show any signs of falling apart or flattening under his weight. He could only guess what that meant. Anyway, he did not see any chance to really find out, and thus he decided to start walking. He did not know where, but tried to keep in mind the position of the sun to ensure he did not walk in circles. And as there was an extreme lack of ideas as to where he was and how he got here, he simply focused on his stride. To keep going, that was all that mattered.

Finally, sometime after noon, he saw a slight change in the landscape. It was a road, or something very similar to it. He decided to consider it his goal and resolved on reaching it. Those last strides felt uncountable, impossible. But then, he did it, he was there. A sound and a movement caught his attention for a second. But even turning his head was a too laborious thing to do now. And why even bother? He was at the end of his journey. And as a reward he let himself give up to the overwhelming exhaustion and sweet oblivion. Hitting the ground felt like falling into silky cushions.

"Is he dead, mom? Mom?!"

"Are you calling the police, daddy?"

The meaning of the words came to him with a considerable delay, he realized. The voices were kind of small, thin, but nonetheless urgent. Annoyingly so. But the appeal in them was pulling him back to the reality.

There were two other voices, but significantly softer and harder to focus on. Then one of them approached. Someone touched his face, and he opened his eyes once more. The sun was on the same spot when he remembered it to be the last time he had seen it.

"He's conscious." A woman above him spoke, clearly and calmly. "Sir? Sir, can you hear me? Can you hear my voice?" She asked again, studying him intensely.

He parted his lips and from some place full of pain deep inside him, there came a feeble sound.

"Look at my finger." She said, and held her hand in front of his face and then moved it to the side. He did as he was bid, following the movement. She wore a tight, white glove. "Have you difficulty in breathing?" She asked, a line appearing between her eyebrows.

"Slight." He sighed.

"Did you walk across this field to get here?"

"Yes." He answered.

"Do you remember what happened before that?"

"No." He said truly, after some hesitation.

She smiled lightly, running her thumb over his cheek. "Don't worry now, the help is coming. You'll be all right."

He could tell she was confident about her statement, and he chose to believe her.

"You remind me of someone I knew." She said, aligning his arms and inspecting his body.

"Who?" He asked, mildly curious.

"My husband's son." She answered simply, the line between her brows appearing again. "What about your back? Any injuries there?"

"A cut." He replied. "I think."

"Yeah. Can you turn just a bit? I'll help you." She announced and then he felt her hands slide under his shoulder and side to provide him with the additional strength to roll slightly. The movement made him hiss with pain.

"Well, it's a big gash, but it's not bleeding." She said surprisingly peacefully. "Looks like burned…" she thought aloud, then shifted a bit and touched a spot on his chest. "Strange…" she muttered to herself.

"What's his name?" he asked then. "Of the one I remind you of."

"Well, he's not among us anymore, but it was Leonard. I'm Julie, by the way. You?"

"Leonard," he spoke hoarsely, frowning.

"You're Leonard, too?" She asked, obviously intrigued.

"No, I– " he tried, but then his eyelids started to feel immensely heavy again. However, one thing was certain – Leonard wasn't his name. Because as far as he knew, he had none.

The sun shone brightly, and the subtle breeze was inviting him outside. And so he stepped out the door, looked around, observing the day, and then sat down, the wooden planks of the veranda floor squeaking a bit in protest. The white of the house contrasted with the blue of the sky and the green of the field. All the colors were so bright and intense, shining sharp into his eyes, reducing the recent events into a mere shadow. He was back to his full health now, and what had happened in the hospital belonged to the past now, no matter how painful and frustrating it had been. But the past… for everyone else it meant a great land of all their experience, so rich, and both sweet and sad. But to him it was like a dried-up riverbed – something used to be there for sure, but now there was no sign of it. But when the rain pours, even the dried-up riverbeds come back to life; he thought and looked up and toward the blue, cloudless sky. Smiling bitterly, he rested his back against the wall and sipped on the coffee he brought with him.

The sounds of horse's neigh and people's chatter spread around with the mild wind, and mingled with noises from a laptop. The said device sat on a small table just a few feet from him, and a well-known person of those last few days was watching and enjoying her regular dose of cooking shows, which was still kind of enigma to him, as she cooked rather scarcely. She was well over fifty, and was related to the family that had found him and helped him. Her name was Sheila, and she was the owner of this place.

She was nestled comfortably in her chair, and had her thin legs on the table before her. A tress of her dry, rough, sandy hair was wrapped around her finger. "Ah." She said at a sound of an incoming message, and then leaned over to read it.

"The Greenhills will be calling in about 20 minutes." She announced, and took a sip of her coffee. "Julie says they have something interesting to discuss with you." She added.

"Oh." He nodded. "What might that be?"

"Hard to tell… Either Lena drew a new picture for you," Sheila speculated, "Or something really interesting."

"Nah, don't be so cruel." He smiled. "Lena does have some talent, you must admit that."

"I used to draw similarly, and do I seem to you like having my paintings displayed in Louvre?" Sheila asked, peering at him.

"I've known you just for a couple weeks. You may still have some secrets before me." He observed playfully.

"Hey, look who's talkin' about havin' secrets!" She laughed, watching him over her shoulder. "But as for mine, you don't really wanna know them."

"Oh, truly?"

"Believe it or not, these old bones have lived long enough to make some experience, no worries." She assured him, stretching her arms.

Pursing his lips, he ran a thumb over the rim of his cup. "Perhaps I also have an interesting past."

"No doubt about that." Sheila agreed, running her fingers through her hair. "What happened to you lately is interesting enough itself."

"It is." He answered, not knowing what else to say.

A long pause followed then, until she broke the silence with a rather unexpected question. "Do you like your new name?" She said simply.

He frowned. In truth, he hadn't got around to give this matter a proper thought yet. Moreover, this question seemed to come a bit late now, and he couldn't see much sense in it. "I'm used to it." After a while, he gave the most honest answer he could think of.

"Of course you are! I'm used to it, too!" She said, apparently not accepting his reply. "But do you like it?"

"I don't know." He shrugged. "I think it's too early to judge that."

"Okay." Sheila muttered, reaching out to make the program on her laptop continue. But after a moment she paused it again. "You can change it, you know." She offered. "It was kinda the first thing we came up with."

"Like I said, I'm used to it." He said, shaking the coffee in his cup. "But then…" he hesitated a moment before making this thought official. "I think I do like it. I like being Leonard."

..Two weeks later..

It was dark all over, late at night, but his consciousness refused to retreat in the land of dreams, his eyes would not stay closed. Lights moved along the wall opposite the window, and then disappeared, together with the noise of the vehicle.

This place was utterly different from the fields of grass he had come from. Everything here was so much busier than the silent, slow pace of life he had encountered in Texas. But it was not worse. Just different. In fact, he very quickly had come to like Boston and its noise, the lights, all the bustle and never-ending tumult. And he liked the Greenhills, who had taken him in. He had always welcomed the on-line conversation with them, and now he was even happier to be with them here. It was never quiet around them, they just kept his mind occupied all the time.

Well, until the night had come. And now, Leonard and his thoughts were finally alone again.

"Now, where shall we start?" He asked himself quietly, staring into the ceiling. It was futile to oppose his mind in its obvious eagerness to discover something, just anything, about his past.

Lately his investigation focused on his accent. It was undeniable his way of speaking was quite different from the people who surrounded him. He was told his accent was British. And thus, Leonard's main topic for those last few days and weeks became the United Kingdom and anything concerning it.

He sighed, frowning. There were just so many possibilities. He could have been born in the UK, and raised, to be sure, but then he could have moved to someplace else. Or he could have been born to British people who lived somewhere else. Or he was born somewhere else, and then moved to the UK…

Well, this was nonsense. He must have come from somewhere. Everyone's, or nearly everyone's origin on this planet could be traced back, taking all the information technology into account. So why no one had found anything about him yet? Or they had already, but refused to tell him? Or they had always known, but had their reasons not to tell anyone else?

Leonard jumped from his bed, holding his head in his hands. Sometimes it seemed to him he was unable to control the flow of his own thoughts. All the possible ideas and scenarios came to him in such a quick succession they threatened to melt in one big mass of chaos.

Was this a sign of his memory coming back? Julie said it might feel like that. She was a physician, perhaps she should know at least something about it. Or perhaps he should see a psychologist, as Julie suggested.

Or maybe just a glass of cold water would do, Leonard thought when he found himself in the kitchen.

It was kind of relaxing to hear the sound of the water being poured. He gulped one glass quickly, and poured another. Then he turned, and his eyes stopped at a postcard that was stuck to the silvery surface of the fridge door by a piece of magnet. The sign on it said that it had been sent from London. He walked toward it, sipping at his glass of water, and watched. There was a bridge, a big wheel, a tall tower with a clock… But none of those seemed in any sense familiar to him. No matter how much he focused and studied the pictures, they refused to trigger any cascade of recollection whatsoever. Confused and sad, Leonard finally decided to turn away. He paced to the dining table, and sat down. He ran his fingers through his sweaty hair, and eventually, he folded his hands on the table and laid his head down, forehead first. Then he turned to the side and stared blankly out of the window.

The sound of someone approaching nearly woke him up. He was tired after all.

"Hey. Can't sleep?" Julie greeted him, taking her seat by the table. Her fair, slightly reddish hair was bound in a braid; her grey-green eyes were weary but shining with friendliness and empathy.

"Hm." He confirmed, studying her. She did not appear to him as feeling well. "And I'm not alone, I guess."

"Yeah." She nodded with a soft smile. "Same old reason. Or maybe I am just a bit old for it."

"Oh, you're right." Leonard replied casually, with slightly elevated eyebrows. "As I think about it, you're actually one of the oldest persons I've met." He explained.

"Wha – "

"I recall I met." He added promptly, grinning wearily.

"You…" Julie breathed out, shaking her head with disbelief. She got up then, poured a glass of water for herself, and sat back with a light sigh.

"Seems your child insists on keeping you busy even before it's born." Leonard guessed then.

She grinned at that. "Trust me, only when the little one is born I'll know what it means to be busy."

"Still," Leonard sighed. "I envy you." He said, fingering the rim of his glass.

"What, being pregnant?" Julie laughed softly, lifting one brow.

"Well…" he shrugged, "your state has a definite end. And quite a happy one for that matter. The living being inside you keeps your mind occupied… Your thoughts are focused on your child. You are looking forward to the future. I, on the other hand, feel lost. I have no foundations to stand on, and this state may last for next few weeks, years… who knows. And when my memories come back, will it be something worth celebrating? What if there's something terrible in my past – which is quite likely, considering that no family member or friend of mine tried to contact me so far. I am afraid of what my past might be hiding, and I am afraid of what the future may reveal to me. And so – "

"So the only point in time you must stick to is now." Julie cut in resolutely. She was not exactly frowning, but her eyes were hard. Leonard watched her in silence.

"It's the only logical outcome of the deduction you just made, isn't it?" Julie went on, softening a bit the tone of her voice.

"It seems it is." Leonard had to admit.

"Precisely, sir." She smiled. "So?"

"So what?"

"So stop thinking about it!" Julie explained, somewhat surprised her thought hadn't been obvious to Leonard. "I know it's easy to say, but I mean it." She insisted. "It seems that in your case you can't really speed up the recollection – so why even bother? Why let your life slip away while you agonize about the past?"

"Hm." Leonard murmured, his eyes cast down.

"Hm..?" Julie repeated, a bit amused. "Some may even envy you, you know." She added.

"And could you please enlighten me as to why would anyone do that?" He asked, the sarcasm bubbling in his tone.

"Well, you'd be surprised how many people would give anything for a new beginning." She answered calmly, her confidence unshaken. "A chance to start all over again, to erase old, depressing memories, memories of something horrible… There are lots of reasons, you know." She paused, piercing him with her meaningful stare. "Anyway, our lives are short. Too short, sometimes." Julie said then with a sad undertone. "So I believe we shouldn't waste our time on something we cannot change. Just take this all as a chance to start anew, and let the past be."

"The thing is," Leonard sighed, rubbing the surface of the glass with his thumbs, "I only wish I had the certainty that I'm justified to do just that."

"And why not?"

"I don't know… I just have a feeling that as soon as I build a new life my old one will come back to destroy it."

"Oh, come on!" She frowned now for real.

"No, Julie, I'm being serious. Don't you… Aren't you afraid of me?" Leonard asked a bit louder than he intended, and a soft echo could be heard after he finished his question. "I'm a complete stranger after all, aren't I? With an unknown past… I would be very cautious about myself if I were you."

Julie said nothing, but kept on viewing him with her mild, yet uncompromising eyes. "Afraid?" she spoke at last, softly but clearly. "No dear. Quite the opposite. The moment you joined us was a relief you cannot imagine."

"In what sense?" Leonard asked, letting out a short laugh of disbelief.

"You see," Julie breathed in and out, sorting her thoughts. "Let me tell you something my husband never would. The thing is, Mike and his late son used to have very different views on things. They argued a lot, until they stopped talking completely. They stopped seeing each other, and then the accident happened and Lenny died. Just like that, without warning. It was an ordinary evening, just like any evening before… It changes people when they lose their children. Mike blamed himself and I thought that the guilt will choke him to death very soon. I was trying everything - to break that wall, to get near to him, to remind him of his other two children… When I got pregnant I thought that the new child could get him out of it, if nothing else. But I was wrong. It didn't work." She said, and gave a shrug, lowering her eyes. "But you did." She added.

Leonard lacked words to break the following moment of silence, so he just turned his head and looked Julie in the eyes, and then back out of the window.

The silence was getting intense, and so Julie considered it appropriate to explain her statements further. "He suddenly seemed so focused ever since we'd found you." She began again. "To me it was like… like he resolved to help you, and that resolve became a new anchor in his life. He never spoke to me openly of how he truly felt about it all, but I know that in this way he got a chance to make some kind of amends, you know; to fill the gap of what he should have done or said before."

"It won't bring his son back though." Leonard commented right away.

"Yeah, I know." Julie admitted quickly. "And he knows. But at least he can ease the remorse a bit. See what I mean?"

"Seems that I am chance personified." Leonard answered after a moment, focusing on his glass again.

"Yeah… yeah, that fits pretty well." Julie nodded, letting out a quiet, weary, but merry laugh. She sighed then. "So, chance personified, what about going back to bed?"

Leonard blinked. "I don't know." He said lazily.

"Oh!" Julie rolled her eyes and stood up. "Come on, this city has plenty to see." She announced, patting him on his shoulder. "We have a busy schedule for the morning."

In the end, he followed her, and back in his bed, he had to admit his eyelids felt much heavier now. His last effort was to try to imagine the things to come rather than dig in his mind for the events of the past. And it went pretty well. There were so many possibilities, after all. And perhaps for the first time he realized how much luck he had encountered so far.

He could have never made it to the road, back in Texas. He could have been found by a very different sort of people. He could have been stuck in the middle of nowhere. He could have died. Yes, he could have.

But instead, he met a family that seemed to need him as much as he needed them. And Leonard was finally able to admit that.

With these thoughts, so strangely satisfying, he eventually drifted off to sleep.

The air was warm and humid, and the vivid chatter of countless voices filled the space to the last bit.

Leonard chose to let the noise just pass by, and was focused on the flowing motion under the glittering water surface. The rays glided just above the tank bed with amazing synchronicity and ease, as if all of them put together made up a higher order organism. The Aquarium as a whole had been wonderful, but this just seemed like an appropriate ending. But then, a new sound came to him, disturbing him from his thoughts.

"Now, will you show Lenny the trick?" Mike asked his little son, supporting him so the child could reach into the water.

"Yeah." The little Danny confirmed, biting at his lip as he focused to steady his hand palm down just below the surface. He seemed so absorbed by this task that the desired result in the form of one of the rays coming up startled him. However, he calmed down immediately and enjoyed the interest his hand in the water stirred between the rays.

"Who would have guessed rays enjoyed being touched." Leonard observed, watching with keen curiosity.

"Clearly, everyone needs a little back scratching sometimes. " Mike commented, watching the creatures move under the tiny hand of his son.

Leonard answered with a soft smile and leaned over to dive his own palm under the surface.

"Speaking of," Mike started again in a somewhat clearer voice, "the deal has been made."

"The job in the docks?"

"Yep."

Leonard closed his fingers and opened them again. "When do I start?" he asked, his eyes fixed on the creatures in the water.

"Well," Mike shrugged. "Whenever you wish to. I suppose you'd like to see a bit more of the city…"

"Tomorrow is perfectly fine." Leonard cut in, smiling lightly, and turned his head to exchange looks with his companions. "It's about time I started my new life." He added then in a slightly lower voice, turned back and watched as the rays swarmed and rubbed their soft backs against his palm.

ooOOOoo

AN: So, my friends, end of chapter 14! What do you think? Let me know! :)