Momochan77: Thank you for your patience with my slow updates. On top of my busy fanfiction schedule I'm also trying to write an actual novel I can publish (historical fiction about Billy :)) Why do I give myself this much work at once I don't know. But I'm glad you're enjoying it.

Chapter 13

"They were your special affects!" McPhee shouted into the phone as Larry headed up to his apartment, "More like special. . . defects!"

"Look, I promise you, I'm gonna find out what happened." Larry replied hearing dull music blasting through his door.

"Or they were special rejects!"

"I'm sorry Dr. McPhee I gotta go." Larry hung up as he walked into a raging party in his home. Teenagers were jumping to blasting music laughing and whooping while Nicky stood behind a DJ booth creating the music.

"Nicky! Nicky!" Larry shouted through the crowd. When his son saw him his eyes went wide but he kept bouncing to the beat.

"Nicky!" Larry shouted again as he reached him, "Stop hopping!"

Looking around he found the plug for the speakers and pulled it, cutting the music.

"Dad." Nicky whined, "Dad, what are you doing?"

"What are you doing? It's three am." He turned to the bummed teens, "Alright party's over."

The kids started to file out of the room while a girl wrote her number on Nicky's arm.

"See you tomorrow night?" she asked.

"Probably not." Larry deadpanned.

But Nicky smiled at her oblivious to his dad. "Probably."

"Definitely not." Larry shook his head.

She gave Nicky a small smile and waved goodbye.

"You are in so much trouble."

"I know." Nicky sighed accepting defeat.

Larry turned and headed to the kitchen, retrieving a box of trash bags from the cabinet under the sink. While he did so, he texted Anna.

'Hey, have you left yet?'

…

…

'Heading out now. What's up?'

'Nicky. Can you stop by here before heading home?'

…

'Be there in ten.'

.

.

"What, in the. . . " she trailed off when she stepped inside and saw the mess that was Larry's apartment. Streamers and plastic cups were everywhere. Paper plates with food were still left where people had been snacking. Open bags of food and pizza boxes were covering the kitchen countertops. Immediately her eyes landed on her step brother. Nicky looked down at his shoes with guilt on his face. He kept his gaze off her as she walked across the room to where he was picking up cups and tossing them into a trash bag in his free hand.

"Here." She said when she reached him, "Let me help."

"Thanks." He muttered softly glancing up with a tiny smile. She grinned back to reassure him she wasn't upset or disappointed in him. He'd be getting enough of that from his father.

Larry was in the kitchen stuffing the bags of chips and soda bottle that were only partially used into the fridge and cabinets. The rest he'd started to stuff into an already overflowing garbage bag at his feet. He'd taken off his dress jacket and rolled up the white sleeves of his shirt. Anna tapped Nicky on the shoulder and nodded to Larry. Her brother shook his head.

"Better to get it over with now." She advised, "It's coming anyway."

He sighed and headed to the kitchen.

Anna returned to the table and started picking up cups and plates and tossing them in the trash.

"Gross." She muttered as some of the half full ones sloshed around in the bag, making a murky mixture of soda and food crumbs at the bottom of the bag.

"I really didn't know you were coming home early." Nicky began the conversation.

"Yeah that's pretty obvious." Larry replied, wiping his hands with a napkin, "I mean. . . what makes you think this is okay?"

"When I'm not at Mom's you leave me alone, like, every night."

Larry sighed, "Look you can't be doing this right now. You've got finals. Your NYU application is due in what, two weeks?"

"I'm not gonna get into NYU." Nicky said shaking his head. Anna made her way over in case he needed her and continued cleaning up.

"You don't know that." Larry replied trying to be a supportive parent.

"No I do."

"No you don't know that."

"I do, very much know that, in the sense that I don't intend to apply."

That stopped both Larry and Anna dead in their tracks.

"What?" Larry asked stunned into near silence.

"I don't think that it's the place for me right now Dad." Nicky said trying to sound mature.

"Okay. All right, fine. You want to spread your wings a little? Get out of the city go to school somewhere else? Okay I totally support that. All you had to do was tell me." Nicky's face brightened at his dad's encouragement. "Where do you want to go? What's the list?"

"Ah, it's a short list." Nicky smiled ear to ear.

"Great. I like it. Focused."

"I'mma hit you with a super short list, man because it's there's nothing on it." Anna almost audibly groaned. And she did actually slap a hand to her forehead, though her back was to Nicky. He was doing so well up until that part. Breaking out of the mold your parents planned for you was fine. But come on, he had to have some idea of what he wanted to do. Not just, float around like a used candy wrapper blowing around central park.

Larry sighed. "There's. . . I'm confused, because there's not a list –"

"Dad."

"Mmhmm?" Larry replied warily, clearly afraid of where this was going next. Larry was a good dad. He was there for his son. Anna's dad spent most of his time at work and in meetings or away on business trips. She'd always known that, in his own way, that was how he supported her. By making enough money to feed and clothe her, to afford the fun things she wanted to do. To afford the college she'd chosen, the major she'd gone into. But Larry, he'd been at Nicky's hockey games, he'd been there, he was present. Nicky had memories with him. And she could tell Larry was dreading putting aside that buddy-buddy thing because Nicky was about to force him to be the tough parent. There was a difference between letting your child spread their wings and fly, and letting your child spread their arms and fall flat on their face out a window.

"I want to take a year off." Nicky told his father boldly. "I would like to do exactly what you just said. I want to spread my wings."

"And fall flat on your face." Anna muttered.

"You want to spread your wings that great. But you can't spread your wings and fly to nowhere -"

"Plans change." Nicky said, starting to lose the maturity and swap it for arrogance.

"No they don't. No they don't, plans don't change."

"We had a plan, it changed, it's disorienting at first -." Oh Nick don't try to psycho-analyze your parent. She cringed. That teenage, I-know-better-then-someone-three-times-my-age thing always made her cringe. So much that she had to mute those parts of movies.

"No. No, you can't change the plan unless you check with the people who are financing the plan which is last time I checked, your mother and I okay?"

"He's got a point." Anna chimed in turning around. Nicky turned to her looking betrayed. She raised her free hand in surrender. "It's the real world Nick. You think if your dad had landed that deal with Wal-mart that he could just go and change the marketing plan without telling the benefactor? It's life, that's how it works. Sorry if it's unfair."

He shook his head and turned back to Larry. "Dad we could sit here and just have this conversation about plans but for now, let's call it a night. Let's not even clean up, right?" Anna rolled her eyes and turned back around continuing down the counter.

"Let's comeback tomorrow, let's reboot the whole energy, the whole tone of this puppy and we'll kill it man. Team Daley. Not tonight, tomorrow."

"Hey, Team Daley?" Larry replied.

"Yeah."

"Stop talking."

"Okay." Nick said almost silent.

"You're gonna clean up. I'm gonna go to bed. And then we're going to finish this conversation tomorrow."

"What?"

"Nicky –"

"Oh come on, I'm going to be the only one in trouble here?"

"What are you talking about?" Larry asked looking on his last nerve.

Nicky pointed to Anna, redirecting his anger since he didn't have any more good points to fire at his dad. "Ask miss hickeys on her neck here –"

"Hey!" Anna rebuked, "First of all, he's not my dad. Second, don't use me as your scapegoat."

She angrily chucked another cup into the trash bag. "On second thought, you clean this up yourself then!" she said having had enough cleaning for one night and she didn't need more for someone who didn't even appreciate it.

Once she turned the corner and headed down the hall she began to rub the side of her neck.

After she and Larry had walked back inside he mentioned something about needing to clean up the event hall. In their guilt the others quickly volunteered, looking to make amends any way they could, even though it wasn't all their fault. Billy was still leaning against the information desk in the center of the room and looked up, a tad hopeful when he saw her heading over to him. She took his hand and he pulled her in, wrapping her in a hug.

He kissed the top of her head before murmuring into her hair, "You alright?"

"Mm-hmm." she nodded against him.

"Are we good?"

"Mm-hmm. We're good." she took a step back to give him a smile that she hoped was reassuring. "We should help everyone clean up."

He nodded in agreement and they followed the crowd, lagging behind.

For the next few hours Anna helped sweep up the shattered remains of the ice sculpture and broken dishes before Attila and his Huns carried it all out to the dumpster in trash bags. The cavemen had inadvertently taken care of the fires when they started playing around with the fire extinguishers – a favorite pastime. Which left the others to wipe of the foam left behind. Billy was helping the Civil War men fold up the tables and bring them back into storage as Sacagawea tossed out the burnt tablecloths. The whole time Billy would purposefully pass her, run his hand along her shoulder and ask if she was okay. It was sweet, considering that not far away Teddy was asking the same of Sacagawea. It must be an old fashioned gentleman like thing. The action made Anna yearn for their world to be more like the time Billy and Teddy had lived in – minus the racism and gender discrimination. But if women today acted more like ladies, and men acted more like gentlemen, well, pair that with the tolerance their modern world had achieved then the world would be a much better place.

"How many times do I have to tell you I'm fine?" she asked Billy when he'd cornered her at the broom closet and repeated the same question for the dozenth time that night. But she asked smiling, touched at his seemingly endless concern.

He grinned, "Once more." was his reply as he rested a hand on her hip.

She cupped his face and gave him a gentle peck before pulling back and looking him dead in the eye.

"I. Am. Fine." she said slowly with the same grin on her face. Billy smiled back at her. "It's just hard keeping my mind off it." she told him honestly, dropping her hands.

"What if we go back to the office and watch that movie?" the thought of the office pulled that image back into her mind and she shook her head, turning from Billy and running a hand through her hair.

"A movie won't take my mind off it." his hand on her hip tightened and his other hand rested on her opposite side. He wrapped his arms around her from behind and kissed the side of her neck. Then he pulled her hair out of the way and did it again. And again. And again. Her smiled returned.

"What are you doing?" she asked with a giggle in her tone.

"Taking your mind off it." he whispered in her ear before pulling her back flush to his chest and continuing what he was doing.

Anna smiled, the rubbing at her neck now not self conscious but gentle as she remembered while she headed for Larry's guest room. She changed into pajamas she kept at the apartment and brushed her teeth and got ready for bed. Collapsing on the mattress her mind now drifted to Nicky. She let her thoughts spin on ways she could help her stepbrother. Nicky couldn't refuse to go to college. Well, he could, but he shouldn't. Once you got out of the habit of studying and homework it was very difficult to get back into it. If he wanted a year off he should take it after college. But how did you impress that on a 17 year old in an impressionable way?

"Ugh." she sighed draping her arm over her face, covering her eyes. She was far too tired to come up with any solutions right now. Once she made that decision it wasn't long before her exhaustion took over and she was out like a light.

.

.

"So where do we even begin on fixing an ancient magical tablet?" Anna asked Larry as they walked to work. She had a cup of hot chocolate in her hand that helped keep her fingers warm as they navigated the shoveled but still slippery sidewalks.

"Same way I tamed the museum exhibits when I first got the job: research." Larry replied sounding confident, though Anna could see the worry in his eyes.

"You think you can get me into the archives?" he asked turning his head to face her fully, "You know the woman in charge right?"

"Yeah, Rose, she'll let you in no problem."

"Great." Larry nodded as they crossed the street.

When she was in college Anna had spent most of her free time during the day in the archives, they had so much more to offer then the campus library. After a while Rose even trusted her to lock up when she was finished, since usually Anna stayed late into the night. Really, she just studied down there until sundown, then she joined Larry on the main floors hanging out with everyone else and going out with Billy. And of course once she'd been hired for Rebecca's old position she used the archives to gather tidbits of information for her tours.

"Yeah! Get some!" they heard as the elevator opened after taking them down to the basement level. Only employees had a key that switched the elevator to allow them down there. Walking down the short hall brought them right into the large room with industrial lighting and rows of shelves like a library. Closest to the doorway was Rose's desk where she was clicking away on her computer playing Candy Crush.

"Hi." Larry interrupted her warily as Anna waved hello from behind him, "I'm Larry Daley, I'm head of the night program."

"I know who you are, you're the security guard." She replied unimpressed.

"I'm also head of the night program." Larry highlighted his more glorious title. "I'm doing some research and I was wondering if you could help me out."

"Oh night guard doing research, ooo la la."

"Yeah, I'm just looking for anything you have on the tablet of Ahkmenrah?"

"Center aisle, halfway down, stacks on your left."

"Great." Larry headed in that direction. As Anna passed the desk Rose stopped her.

"Hey Hun." She greeted with a small smirk, "New photo just came in. It's with the other stuff."

Anna smiled excited already, "Thanks Rose."

"Sure thing sweetheart." Then she turned back to her computer "Get it!"

While Larry found his way to the information on Ahkmenrah Anna headed for the section that was most familiar to her: Post Civil War America. Within it was all the documentation on Westward Expansion, the Pacific Railroad and of course, the Frontier.

Anna's fingers moved of their own muscle memory, flipping through files and past boxes. She fished out the files of photographs that had been collected over the years of Billy. Some had been authenticated but then debunked years later. But all of them painted a picture of what life Billy had led, what the world had been like for him.

She brought the file to the table Larry was now seated at and she flipped through the manila folder gently. Black and white and sepia images of a group playing croquet, men seated at a game of poker and a group sitting side by side for a more formal-ish photo were the most prominent. The only photo of Billy she ever believed to be a true image – even before she'd met him – was the one taken in Fort Sumner in 1880. The singular portrait that many agreed wasn't very good. Aside from wear and tear of one hundred and forty years there was evidence that the photographer had rushed the print. A special glaze like substance that was painted over the final product to seal the image had still been tacky when the prints had been given to the real Billy Bonney. The imprint of the fabric of his vest pocket could be seen on one corner if you looked close enough. Like when you went to bed too soon after painting your nails. Anna liked to look at that photo and think of how handsome Billy would look in it if the photographer hadn't been rushing to serve as many customers as possible that day. Especially since - in an era where people were told not to smile in photos and look serious – Billy had been grinning. Or at least partially.

"So, what makes you so curious about the tablet?" Rose asked as she sat down at the table Larry had chosen to flip through his collection of documents.

Larry removed his glasses, "Oh uh, just a hobby, you know. Kind of an interest of mine." He looked down at the photo in his hands, "I wish I could talk to these guys."

"Well you can't."

"Yeah."

"Cause they're dead." Rose said bluntly.

Anna muttered, "Talk to dead people almost every night." she smirked.

Larry heard her and tried to hide a grin "Right. But uh, look at that one. Looks like a kid huh?"

Rose chuckled and touched the photo yearningly, similarly to the way Anna was running her fingers along the edge of the photo of Billy in her hand.

It didn't escape Larry's notice, "You didn't know him did you?"

"CJ Fredricks." Rose replied, "He worked here."

"He worked here?"

"Yeah, when he grew up."

"No."

"Yeah, he was a night guard. Same as you."

Larry looked back at the photo, "Wait a minute CJ . . . CJ Fredricks. Cecil Fredricks?"

"Sexiest night guard we ever had, present company included." Rose shrugged, "Boy, could that man move."