In Summer Cove Hospital, Ellie and Sarah were just getting as settled as they could in the room that had been prepared for them. With Al still in critical condition, Ellie had steadfastly refused to leave the hospital until she could speak to him and check on him herself. It would be at least a few hours before the anaesthetic would wear off, but after that, when Al came around was largely down to him. A nurse came in carrying a couple of cups of coffee.
"I brought this from the staff lounge." He informed them. "The stuff from the machine is terrible."
"Thank you." Ellie said in a small, barely audible voice as she took the cup from him and set it down. Sarah sat on the bed and took a sip as she tried to settle.
"I got a hold of the on-call doctor after his rounds. He said that so far Mr Thompson seems to be responding well." He told them, trying to keep them both optimistic. Sarah wished she could be more optimistic about it. Explosions were bad enough, and she had seen people affected by the blasts that came from errant shots. Her dad had taken a direct hit from one of the blaster shots. When he should have been running, she had seen him standing on the spot, looking around in circles and guessed he was probably looking for her, hoping to get her to safety. It was a horrendous irony that he had probably only stayed at the attack to try and save her when she was probably one of the safest people there. He had probably risked himself for her.
"I keep hearing a lot of maybes and ifs and platitudes..." Ellie responded sadly. "I'd love it if just one person could say 'he's going to be alright.'."
"Hey, I've only been working here a couple of years and in that time I've seen a lot of people come and go." The nurse assured her. "In my experience the ones that tend to make it are the ones that know there's someone waiting for them worth fighting for. Looking at the two of you, I'd say he's got that."
He didn't get an answer, but instead Ellie just started to pull back the covers on her bed. The nurse took this as a hint that it was time to leave them to their own devices. As he left, Sarah watched as her mom lay down and covered herself, but although she turned away, Sarah could just tell her mother wasn't sleeping. She doubted she would be able to. Sarah took more after her mom than her dad. Her mom was something of a scientist, although most of it was more tinkering and experiments in her spare time in her garage than anything else. She hated not knowing things. She hated wooly and unspecific things like 'ifs' and 'maybes'. She liked definitive terms. She'd only be able to rest once she knew one way or another what was going to happen to her husband.
As Sarah finally lay down, turning off the light and trying to get some rest, the nurse watched them for a moment. Another nurse stopped by them.
"The Thompsons?" He asked. The other nurse just nodded. "Man, I'd hate to be in their shoes."
"I just wish there was something I could tell them." The first nurse replied. "I'll tell you one thing though, that Mr Thompson is one lucky guy."
"Lucky?"
"Yeah, having a family that's sticking by him like this." He commented. "That's something worth fighting for alright."
Panorama Court, 2012, It was now a good couple of months since his initial arrest and Al was on trial for his crimes. With the sheer scale of the crimes, the media buzz had erupted, and the District Attorney's office was keen to get the trials underway to try and limit the outrage over the crimes.
Thousands of clients had their money invested with Al and with the firm he worked for. By failing to get their money out of the Ponzi Scheme before it collapsed, millions of dollars in retirement funds for everyone from schoolteachers and office workers to veterans had disappeared in a matter of moments. Millions of dollars that people had pinned their hopes for the future on had been lost, far more than was ever likely to be recovered.
Al looked over to the public gallery where his wife was sitting. She wasn't hard to find, despite public interest in the case; Al's courtroom was sealed to the public. He had turned State's Witness and as such, they were keen to keep him as isolated from people that might seek to do him harm as possible. Sarah wasn't with her; she had been left with a sitter. He still couldn't believe that Ellie was willing to stick by him. She had to come to the police station to hear from him what had happened. It was now April and he had been held on remand since his arrest in January. There had been a lot of screaming, she had hit him, she had screamed at him for what felt like days straight as he explained to her in detail how his greed and his need to 'win', to get the payoff had led to him destroying a lot of people's dreams, all while he neglected their daughter long enough for her to end up in the hospital.
He was sure she would leave him; he wouldn't have blamed her if she did, but in the end she had managed to look past his reckless and selfish actions to the fact that through everything, when his daughter needed him, his first thought had been to see to her. As misguided as he was, as horrendous as his actions were, he had been picked up while trying to get her to the hospital as quickly as possible to get the help she needed.
"Would the defendant please rise." The judge declared, leading to Al and his attorney standing up. "Mr Thompson, in all my years I have presided over a number of fraud cases, but never in all my career have I seen such frankly breathtaking level of criminal behaviour."
Al just stood, with his heart in his throat. He had flipped on his company, and in the process many of his friends by turning State's Witness. He knew that his only way of avoiding a sentence measured in decades was if he was willing to give the DA something more interesting than one crooked investment broker. He had done that in spades, there had been no less than sixty eight felony level arrests based on Al's written confession. It was rumoured he had all but guaranteed the DA's re-election in November and that his main opponents had already pulled out of the race.
"In your selfish, arrogant and frankly disgusting disregard for the money entrusted to you by hard-working citizens you and your accomplices have damaged and even destroyed a great many lives. Nothing would give me greater pleasure than to put you in prison for a very long time." The judge continued. "However, I believe you have shown remorse. Your ill-gotten assets have been seized to return as much as possible of your clients' money, and I have to take into account your unprecedented cooperation with the authorities and the extensive corruption your testimony has uncovered. It is for this reason Mr Thompson that I have elected to extend you leniency. It is for this reason that I am sentencing you to four years imprisonment, suspended for three years under parole conditions to be set."
All Al could do was breathe a sigh of relief. He had been in a remand cell for three months, but now, once he heard his parole conditions, he was going home. He looked to Ellie, who was making her way down to join him. She hugged him tightly as he was preparing to leave the dock. McGee and Bishop stood before him.
"You dodged a bullet Thompson." McGee said, looking rather less than happy with the sentence. Although they had been given plenty of credit for the career-making case, he looked like he still felt like Al had walked away virtually unscathed when all was said and done.
"Agent McGee, I've lost just short of everything." Mr Thompson reminded him. "I lost my home, my job..."
"And a lot of people lost everything." McGee snorted in disgust. "A lot of those pensions you lost belonged to people that served our country."
"I know..."
"Those people fought and bled for freedom, one of them left his legs in the desert, and you treated them like walking piggy-banks." McGee interrupted him. "I want you to think about that when you're sitting at home with a nice cold beer."
They escorted Al from his courtroom, but as they were going, nearby there was another courtroom letting out that was a decidedly different story, and was getting a lot more attention. Jerry had been on trial the same day, but he had taken a little more time and some more convincing to make a deal with the DA. As such, he didn't get the same anonymity from the press.
Al looked to him, their eyes locking and he nodded, before holding up four fingers. However, he couldn't help noticing the fact he was wearing handcuffs and that the bailiff didn't let go of him. His four years was not suspended, he would be going to prison. Just then, there was a ruckus and a man broke through the cops surrounding him.
"You sold us out Goodwill!" He screamed, launching himself at Jerry, tackling him to the floor and starting to pummel him, looking like he had every intention of beating him to death right there with his bare hands. Cops pulled them apart, but from what little could be heard, it looked like they were in support of the guy that attacked Jerry, like they didn't want to arrest him and wanted him to leave before he did something that would force them to arrest him. The man struggled in their grip.
"This man screwed up so many lives with his dirty deals, now he gets a crappy four year jail term because he cuts ANOTHER crooked deal?" He screamed. Al made to leave, but McGee grabbed him and forced him to watch.
"Oh no, you don't get out of this that easily." He told him. Al watched as the man continued to rant, venting his entirely justifiable anger.
"He probably won't even serve two! He gets to go back to his life after that! What about our lives? People have lost their homes! People have lost their livelihoods!" He screamed as the cops pulled him one direction while the bailiffs dragged Goodwill off to a waiting prison transport. "Your days are numbered Goodwill! Mark my words, Goodwill, you'll get yours!"
"I guess it's easier to sleep at night when you never have to face your victims." McGee told him, shoving Al away. "Have a good life Mr Thompson."
Back in the present, Brody drove the truck all the way back to the Romero farm in the nearby town of Millport. It had now been a couple of months since he had been back here. Once he and his friends had discovered that the Ninja Steel and Aiden weren't there, there really was no reason for him to go back there. While it was his home once, without either his dad or Aiden there, it was basically just a building, and he was already much more used to staying in the school by now anyway. It was more convenient to just continue living there than it was to move back to the farm out of some misplaced sentimentality to a family that as far as he knew may not even exist any longer.
As they pulled up into the yard and Aiden got out, he let out a long, low whistle.
"You were not kidding when you said this place needed some TLC." He commented. While the house and the workshop were still standing, a testament to their sturdy construction, the farm had sat unoccupied for a decade, and in that time it had become over-grown and more than a little run-down.
"I was amazed the place was still vacant at first." Brody told him. "With dad being gone so long I'd have thought it would have been picked up long ago, but apparently the locals saw the place as cursed."
"Cursed?" Aiden asked him.
"You know, a family just disappears without a trace, no explanation as to how it happened?" Brody commented. "I guess I can understand people being a little superstitious."
"So we're the Mary Celeste of Millport?" Aiden asked, looking to Brody. It was a reference to an old maritime mystery that still baffled and fascinated people to this day. It was a merchant ship that had launched from New York for Genoa on 7 November 1872, only it never arrived. It was found floating abandoned on December 5 the same year, with its final log entry being written ten days earlier, though citing nothing about an evacuation or any explanation for why one might be necessary on a vessel that was otherwise seaworthy. The only things that were known was that the lifeboat was missing, and the crew had left so abruptly that they left all their belongings, and even uneaten meals. Many stories as to what could possibly have caused the crew's disappearance existed, but as they were never recorded as having been found, it was a tale that existed as a legend to the present day.
"That's one way of putting it." Brody answered. "Sorry I never started to fix anything up. With you and dad gone, and this place being so far from the city and the others..."
"Hey, it's kind of a big job for one person." Aiden said with a smile. "I guess it's just as well there are two of us now. Maybe we can get this place back to being home."
Brody smiled hearing this. It did sound good, home. It was a word that was largely meaningless to him. The Warrior Dome was where he had been imprisoned for ten years, it wasn't a home, and as much as he loved being with Mick and Redbot in the workshop, having their own space, it still wasn't the same as having a family home. Unfortunately, there was just one thing that nagged on his mind; one thing he really wished wasn't on his mind. As Aiden wandered around, looking at the farmhouse and commenting on the jobs he could see that needed done to return the farm to the way it had been when they were kids, it kept playing on Brody's mind what Mick had said.
Brody more than anyone knew that there was a difference between "unlikely" survival stories and "impossible" survival stories. He knew that his own escape from the Warrior Dome was so close to what most people would consider impossible that it was only the fact he had lived through it that would convince him and many others that it was true. Aiden had been on his own from the age of twelve. He would have had to fend for himself as a kid for all that time. While his dad had taught them both survival techniques, ones that he was confident would allow him to survive, he had to wonder how long a child of Aiden's age would really be able to be by themselves without anyone finding him. As much as he desperately wanted this to be true, he couldn't shake what Mick had said.
"Look at you, wanting to build this place up." Brody said with a smirk. "I guess that makes sense, you always did love Monopoly."
"Monopoly?" Aiden asked. Brody reached into his pocket for his Ninja Star as he awaited Aiden's answer. "Yeah, I liked it...up until dad threw out all our board games."
Brody just looked to him curiously.
"I made you sleep under that tree because you couldn't pay rent on Park Avenue." Aiden said, pointing to an apple tree. Brody relaxed his grip on his Power Star. He couldn't think how anyone other than Aiden would know that story. "Don't worry; a decade of sometimes never having a roof over your head at all makes you think a lot about your attitude to property."
"So where do we start?" Brody asked.
"Well, I say for tonight we just make the beds usable." Aiden suggested. "We can work on the rest tomorrow."
With that, Brody put his arm around his brother and headed into the house with him. When he brought him back to the others, he would be able to tell them about what Aiden had said. There was no reason to lose his friends over their desire to keep him safe. Once they apologised to Aiden, it would be back to normal.
May, 2012, Blue Bay Harbour. It was the first of many times Al and his family would end up moving over the next few years. While his trial had been closed to the public, the family knew that sooner or later people would start to connect the dots. It wouldn't take long for people who had very real reasons to resent his freedom to come after him, or worse, his family. They had to make sure the Justice Department knew where they went to satisfy his parole conditions, but as long as they had permission, they were as free to move as anyone else.
Al was at home, bored and alone. Needless to say it was somewhat difficult for him to get back into work with a judgement against him, and also while he was trying to keep under the radar as much as possible. Ellie had to get a job working in a local market, and Sarah was at school, leaving him alone in the house with his thoughts.
He had never been particularly domestically minded. He really didn't know what to do with himself while he was at home, and he was finding that daytime television was every bit as horrendous as the stories said it was.
He threw the handset aside as he got onto the local news and got up to stretch his legs.
"We're here outside Central Panorama City High School which until moments ago was under armed siege." The reporter began. "The siege, perpetrated by Ryan Hudson, a veteran and one of the victims of the Yaxley Investments Scam took the school with a group of armed accomplices and took the entire school hostage, in particular student Melanie Goodwill and demanded that the authorities hand over her father Jerry Goodwill."
Al stopped stock still and his whole world ground to a halt as he stared at the screen.
"Oh God no!" He rushed out. "Oh please, oh please..."
"The Authorities managed to end the siege, but unfortunately it was not without casualties. Another student was injured in a struggle for a gun, and nineteen year old Clyde Williams, one of the hostage takers and son of one of the fraud victims was shot dead by a police sniper."
Al couldn't hear what else was being said. All he could think of was what he had heard. Jerry's daughter had been taken hostage in their efforts to hold Jerry to account for their losses. The last part though was the part that hit him straight at his core though, a nineteen year old kid, a kid who should have had his life ahead of him was dead, and it was all because of him.
He went to his cabinet and grabbed a bottle of whisky, taking off the cap and pouring himself a large glass, gulping it down as he sat to listen to the story being reported in more detail. It would be two years before he would finally stop drinking.
In the present, a doctor was doing his rounds, checking on his patients when he heard a sound coming from Al's bed. He rushed over, just as Al started to stir.
"El...El..." He was muttering through the fog created by his disorientation and the cocktail of medication in his system.
"Mr Thompson?" The Doctor asked. "Mr Thompson, can you hear me?"
"Ellie." He managed to mutter. The doctor turned to one of the nurses that was with him.
"Mr Thompson's coming around, go and get his wife." The doctor told him.
"Doctor..."
"This is the first signs of response he's shown since he came in here!" The doctor told him. "Get his wife, if anything's going to motivate him to fight that will."
He leaned over Al's bed as the nurse went to get his family.
"Your family's on their way, they never left." The doctor told him.
Al couldn't really understand much of what was being said to him, but he understood enough to know that now was the time to fight. He had fought for the life he had now, and he was damned if he was going to give it up now.