Chosen
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Chapter 19: Homecoming
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Calhoun quietly opened the front door of the family home and walked in. Compared to the hot humid day outside, the darkened, air-conditioned living room seemed cold and artificial. He set down his bag, hung his car keys on the hook on the wall, and headed toward his office.
Mrs. Jackson came around the corner from the dining room, her arms full of folded linens, and on seeing Burns there she shrieked. The pile of tablecloths and napkins scattered to the carpet. "Calhoun!" she cried and ran to him, throwing her arms around his shoulders. She kissed his cheeks and fussed with his shirt, showering him all the while with tears and broken sentences. "They said there had been trouble! That you had been lost!" she finally managed. "The last I heard was that Mr. Trakker was going back to Brazil to look for you. Oh why do you keep running off with him on those crazy sightseeing expeditions of his! My hair's white enough already without having to worry about you." She hugged him tightly, squeezing him in her plump arms. "I thought I'd lost you."
"I've been found," he said calmly, putting his arms around her. She had always been his favorite of the housekeepers. "You know I always come back in the end."
"You do," she agreed. She looked up at him and stroked her hand through his hair as she had when he'd been just a small boy.
"Is Ma'maw home?"
"She is. She's out working in her rose garden. Shall I go fetch her? She's going to have a heart attack when she hears you're home."
He smiled at her. "Thanks, but no thanks. I'll go see her there."
"Oh Calhoun," Mrs. Jackson said again, hugging him tighter than before. "I'm so glad you're back."
Burns kissed her on the forehead. There had once been a time when he had to stand on a chair to do that. Now he stood a full head taller. "I'm glad to be back too."
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Later, after things had quieted down, he finally got into his office and sat in the large leather chair at the desk. How strange it all seemed after being gone for a month.
A month of living in the Amazon jungle, most of which was spent in the company of the alien creature and the Amazon River...the mother river she called it. He swam in it. He slept upon it. It brought him food. It brought him a wife. It was always there, never more than a few steps away, the great artery of the rainforest.
He sighed. Hopefully Melusine was happy, now reunited with her people and joined to her rightful husband. Sector and Trakker had done their best for her, doing what they could to make her happy.
Burns spread his hands out over his empty desk, all tidy and awaiting his next project. Then he rose and went to the drafting boards where the project he had left behind still sat. Hopefully his client had not canceled on him. At least he had a good reason for being gone and the medical records to prove it, enough to excuse him even without MASK's or Melusine's involvement.
Melusine...the woman who had been his jealous captor and loving companion during the time there. He closed his eyes and thought back to her touch—her webbed hands against his bare chest, her clammy lips against his warm ones. Her golden eyes would stare into his and he found himself staring back through history, back to a time when there was no good nor evil, only survival. A time when successful survival depended strength, luck, and the ability to find a mate.
Such beautiful simplicity it was...such a beautiful simplicity to her world. All she wanted was someone to hold and cherish and look after, someone who would do the same for her.
He winced. He could have done so much better for her. It had taken so long to get past his mores and upbringing, that at the end, when his heart was finally opening up to her, the time to return to his own world had come.
Burns rose and went to the French doors, pulled aside the lace curtains, and looked out over the broad lawn. All was as he had left it. Manicured green grass and white fences. Broad oaks casting deep shadows and rolling meadows for the horses to gallop in. So little changed here. The view was the same twenty years ago when this had been his father's office.
He turned back to the room. There was that dark corner. An aquarium would look good there—an aquarium filled with bright Amazonian fish. For a moment he glimpsed Melusine there, looking in at the fish. Why stop at an aquarium? He could keep her...there was that pond between his and the neighboring estate, the large winding one that connected to the river at the far end. The water was clean and fairly deep. He would be Mr. Peabody and she would be his mermaid. No bikini top for her though—nothing to put into it.
And then he caught himself in his fantasy.
No, the time they had shared was over. She didn't belong to his world any more than he belonged to hers.
He wiped the welling tears of loss from his eyes and trudged back to his desk.
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The End
Thank you for reading!
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Commentary (and a few bonus scenes) follows in Chapter 20
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M.A.S.K. and all related concepts, characters, worlds, and events are property of DIC Enterprises, Inc and Kenner Toys. Original characters and story elements are property of E. Potter, writing under the pen name of Miratete.
This fic is dedicated to Ben Chapman (1925-2008), Ricou Browning, and Tom Hennesey (1923-2011)
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