Aurelan leaned out the back door. "Dinner's almost ready!" she yelled.
Sam caught the baseball one last time. "Go wash up, boys. Remember, we've got company over tonight."
His twin sons ran inside, abandoning their mitts and shoes outside, already trying to guess what their mother had made tonight. As the door shut behind them, he heard tires crunching on gravel. Turning to look at the driveway, he watched his mom pull up and get out of the car, followed a moment later by two men. He vaguely recognized the dark-haired one, but the blond struck a devastatingly familiar figure.
He forced himself to walk calmly, tossing his own mitt and the ball towards his sons' as he approached the house. He hugged the side of the house, trying to get in unnoticed and delay the inevitable, although he thought he saw Mom glance over as he slipped into the front door.
He passed through the living room, stubbornly not looking at the picture of Jim, and entered the kitchen/dining room – only a small island separated the cooking and eating areas. The same light hardwood flooring that was in the living room continued in here, though he'd replaced the rotting wooden walls with warm orange tile years ago, making it the only room in the house without wooden walls. Tile kind of detracted from the farmhouse look in Sam's opinion, but Aurelan had fallen in love with this kind when she saw it on a TV show. The appliances were somewhat outdated, stainless steel instead of whatever the newest trend was. It wasn't a roomy kitchen, but Aurelan and Mom made do. The only thing in the dining room was a long, antique wooden table passed down from Sam's grandfather, surrounded by a set of eight matching, ornately carved chairs. Aurelan was just setting it now.
"Did the boys have fun?" she asked absently.
Sam nodded, picking up a handful of silverware and placing it beside the plates Aurelan was setting down. "Henry's getting real good at throwing curveballs."
Aurelan chuckled. "He's always been good at that."
Sam flashed a smile, remembering their shock when the doctor said they were expecting twins. Every preparation they'd made up to that point (which had started when they first decided to try for a baby, well before Aurelan actually became pregnant) had been for one kid, so they'd spent the last few months of her first pregnancy scrambling to set up something that would work for twins. They'd finished mere hours before Aurelan went into labor.
"Are they here?" Aurelan continued, trying for nonchalant but not quite hiding an edge of anticipation.
Sam bit back a sigh, knowing she had every right to be excited to meet her brother-in-law after twelve years of marriage. "Yes."
She paused in her task to kiss his cheek. "It'll all work out. You'll see. Why don't you go see if Jane is up to eating with us?"
Obediently, Sam turned and climbed the stairs. They led up to a hallway, each side broken up three doors, with a seventh at the end. A sign hung on each door, stating whose room it was, and Sam turned into the first door on the left, adorned by a sparkly pink paper sign with "Jane's Room – Girls and Dad ONLY!" scrawled on it in purple marker. The room wasn't large; a dresser and a shelving unit each taking up its own pale pink wall, the door and a unicorn painting on the third wall, and Jane's full-sized bed pressed against the fourth, below the room's only window. Jane was just a lump beneath her teal-and-purple floral blankets. Sam perched on the edge of her bed.
"Hey, sweetheart," he murmured. "You want to eat dinner?"
Slowly, the lump shifted, and Jane's tiny face emerged. Bright blue eyes blinked at him, her tan face set in a tired expression. She sniffled. "Do I have to?" she rasped, her voice hoarse from a sore throat.
Sam shook his head. "Not if you're not up to it. But your uncle is visiting, remember?"
He didn't really think of Jim as their uncle, because they'd never met him, and he hadn't been a brother to Sam in seventeen years. Aurelan wouldn't let him deny it to the kids, though, and Sam hadn't argued. He didn't want to make things any more complicated for the little ones than he had to. In his opinion, the sooner Jim was off in space again, the better for Sam's family.
"'M tired," she mumbled.
"Ok," Sam murmured. "I'll bring you some chicken noodle soup later, yeah?"
She nodded. Sam reached out to stroke her forehead, and nearly jerked his hand back.
Jane was burning up.
-LLAP-
Jim stared at the house as they pulled up. "Y-you didn't move?"
Gravel crunched beneath the tires. As his mom turned off the engine, she quietly replied "No."
Nope. Nope, nope, nope.
"Just another thing you forgot to mention, right?" Jim muttered, clutching his seat. Bones moved to gently pry his fingers open.
"I- Sam's redone some of it," she offered half-heartedly.
"Right, because that's going to erase the memories of nearly dying at the hands of my stepfather," Jim snapped, feeling his heart and breathing rates accelerating. Bones got out of the car and leaned back inside, unbuckling Jim's seatbelt and half-guiding, half-tugging Jim out behind him.
"Jim, you're not that kid," Bones assured him. "No one's gonna hurt you now, and even if they do, you can easily fight back."
Jim's gaze slid to the house, remembering huddling in the corner, the rain of blows, Frank's drunken shouting, his futile pleads for mercy, tears burning down his face-
"Jim. Jim, look at me," Bones ordered. Out of habit, Jim's eyes snapped to Bones's face, locking onto the unwavering comfort his hazel eyes brought. "You're safe. I promise. Hear me? You're safe. I promise."
He forced himself to nod.
"Say it. Tell me you know you're safe."
"You know you're safe," Jim managed to whisper.
Bones snorted. "You little brat," he laughed, patting the side of Jim's head. Jim smirked feebly. "But seriously, Winona, anything else panic-attack-inducing you wanna warn us about?"
Jim glanced up, seeing his mom hovering anxiously by the car. "Uh, does his brother count?" she checked, only half-joking.
"No idea," Jim mumbled. "Does he still- I mean, you told him that I didn't want to leave, right?"
She nodded. "Definitely. He's still… It hasn't done much to change his mind."
"How am I supposed to fix what isn't my fault?" Jim whispered rhetorically.
Bones opened the trunk. "Only one way to find out, kid."
Jim took a deep breath, calming himself as best he could. Bones handed him his suitcase, and he forced himself to follow his mom and Bones into the house. They paused on the wooden front porch as she opened the door. It had been expanded since Jim was thirteen, with a new screened-in section containing a full outdoor dining set. Jim turned, taking in the endless landscape of farmland underneath a cloudless sky before the door creaked open. Then Bones was gently tugging him inside, and he was back in the house of his nightmares.
Except, it didn't look like that house anymore. The house he'd known had been dark, gloomy, dirty, and empty. This house was crammed with bright toys, happy pictures, and it was carefully cleaned, not a speck of dust to be seen. Coats and shoes were arranged by the door in a sort of haphazard neatness. The couch was worn down by use. In short, it looked like any other happy homestead, the likes of which Jim had always dreamed of as a little kid.
Still didn't change the fact that he had almost been beaten to death underneath where the TV now hung. That he'd spent countless days and nights huddled in his bed, nursing his wounds, wondering when Frank would go into his next drunken rage. That he'd been utterly alone. That his brother had never been there when Jim had needed him.
And now, when he was finally moving on, he had been dragged back to his childhood hell.
As his mom shut the door behind them, footsteps pounded towards them. Jim instinctively tensed up, relaxing upon hearing a cry of "Grandma, did you bring them?!"
A pair of identical boys raced into the living room. Short brown hair topped their heads, excited blue eyes set in faces still thickened by some baby fat. Their skin was tanned, their hands sporting the marks of labor and rough play – clearly, they did their fair share to help with the crops. Farming was much easier than it had been a couple hundred years ago, but it still required plenty of manual labor and time in the sun. Jim knew from experience, but Sam always did most of the hands-on stuff when they were kids – tech repair had been Jim's job, especially once Frank's beatings started making it harder and harder to help with the crops.
His mom grinned, kneeling down to sweep the slightly slower boy into a hug. The other boy skidded to a halt in front of Jim, staring up at him owlishly. "You're captain of the Enterprise, right?" he demanded eagerly.
"Peter, manners," Mom scolded. Peter didn't even spare her a glance.
Jim laughed. "Yeah, kid, she's my ship."
The other boy wiggled free of Mom's arms. "Is she awesome?"
"Only the best," Jim bragged.
"Wicked," the boys chorused.
Mom stood up. "This is Henry, and that one's Peter," she said, pointing at each boy. Peter had a small scar by the right corner of his lip, but otherwise they were identical.
"Don't they have a little sister?" Bones asked. He tried to be nonchalant, but Jim heard the hints of longing. Bones was thinking about Joanna.
"Yeah," Mom replied. "She's sick, though, so I don't know if you'll get to meet her today."
Bones kicked into doctor mode. "How sick?"
Mom shrugged. "It's just a bad cold."
"Aurelan!" a new voice called. Deeper than Jim remembered, but he would know that voice anywhere. After all, it had been one of the last voices he'd heard before Frank nearly killed him. And it had been abandoning him.
"What is it, honey?" a female replied – probably Aurelan.
Footsteps descended stairs Jim couldn't see. "Jane's burning up."
"What? She was just tired this morning!" Aurelan exclaimed.
Bones tore open his suitcase and freed his medkit. Jim grabbed his arm. "Bones, she's not Joanna."
The glance Bones shot at him was filled with a deep, long-lasting heartbreak. "But she is your niece."
"This way," Mom urged. "Boys, stay down here," she ordered before leading Bones deeper into the house, leaving Jim with the twins. They heard a brief, muffled conversation, then three pairs of footsteps ascended the stairs. A fourth person came into the living room, freezing at the sight of Jim.
"Daddy, is Jane ok?" Henry piped up.
Slowly, Sam nodded. "Yeah, son. She'll be fine. Go wait in the dining room, boys – and don't eat any of the food."
They scampered away, leaving Jim alone with his brother.
"Hey, Sam," he greeted, hesitantly extending his hand.
Sam's gaze sharpened into a glare. "Look, the only reason you're here is because Aurelan wanted to meet you in person. Just stay out of the way, and get out of here A.S.A.P. Got it?"
Jim couldn't help but flinch back, instinctively on the defensive. "Got it," he mumbled.
Sam snorted. "Still a coward, I see."
"Hey," Jim snapped. "I'm not a coward now, and I never was."
"Well, you've never shown much backbone."
"You don't know me," Jim hissed.
"And whose fault is that?"
"I didn't choose to leave! Mom abandoned me."
"But you could've called! You're not an idiot. You could've found us, especially since we haven't even moved."
"I thought – with good reason, too – that neither of you wanted me around, so why the hell should I have bothered? Plus, I've talked to Mom almost weekly for over a year, or haven't you noticed?"
"And what reasoning would that be?" Sam asked acidly, ignoring his last sentence.
"Do you have about a million years to listen?"
"Hey! Cut it out, both of you," Mom snapped, jogging into the living room. "You're upsetting Jane."
"So family problems are once again my fault?" Jim muttered.
She backtracked instantly. "That's not what I meant, Jim, I promise. It's just that she's sick and can hear the yelling, and she's never liked conflict. So both of you need to be quiet and stop fighting. Especially you, Sam, because none of this was your brother's fault."
"But-" Sam began to protest.
Mom jabbed a finger at Sam. "I won't let Jim take the blame for everything anymore. You best accept that and at least try to make up with him, otherwise the rest of your life is going to be very miserable. Got it?"
Sam lowered his gaze. "Got it," he mumbled.
"Good. Now, it's time for dinner. Jim, you can put your suitcase in your room. Through the kitchen, up the stairs, second room on the right. I hope you and Leonard don't mind sharing…"
"We were roommates for three years, Mom. It's fine," Jim reassured her.
"Well, there's only one bed…"
That gave Jim a moment's pause. Then he shrugged. "We've shared worse quarters before."
Mom's eyebrows furrowed. "Do I want to know what that means?"
Memories of tiny prison cells flitted through his mind. "Probably not."
She opened her mouth, closed it again, then simply said "Go put your suitcase away."
Jim patted her shoulder as he walked past her, ignoring Sam, forcing himself to acknowledge the twins' curious looks with an awkward nod. As he entered the second level, he saw Bones and Aurelan sitting on either side of a flushed little girl. My sister-in-law and my niece… Jim thought to himself. The idea was strange, to say the least.
Bones, probably hearing the suitcase's wheels on the floor, glanced up apologetically and mouthed "Are you ok?" Jim just shrugged and continued into the room his mother had specified. A plain wood sign dubbed it "Guest room." Closing the door behind him, Jim slumped against it and closed his eyes, taking deep breaths. He hadn't expected a warm welcome but, well, he hadn't expected Sam to essentially threaten him if he didn't cooperate – and he had let Sam do it, instantly backing off without a fight, fearing retaliation. It was his childhood all over again. It was a million times worse than his mom just showing up on the Enterprise, because at least there he had always been safe and in control. Here, though, his only options had been running away or being controlled.
You promised Bones you would try. Just don't make Sam punch you, don't punch Sam, and then get out of here Wednesday morning.
Wednesday couldn't come fast enough.