Sean looked up as Virgil came out of the bedroom closing the door softly behind himself to keep their conversation from waking Jean up. Maggie was up to date on the conversation between Sean, Jean and Virgil and was now in the kitchen cooking something for them to eat. From where she stood she could hear the entire conversation between Sean and Virgil.
"Come… sit down we… we have a lot of questions, Virgil." Sean sighed.
"I'm pretty sure you do…" Virgil sighed taking a seat "Go ahead."
"Where is Richie?" Maggie asked from the stove.
"Ma'am… I… I really don't know." Virgil replied, his eyes not leaving the floor.
"Okay… let's start at the beginning… tell us everything… your side of the story."
Virgil let out a long breath. "It started during our patrol Friday… Gear… Richie… started having trouble with his equipment so he fell back to try and fix it. He told me to go on ahead, he'd catch up and, in spite of my gut telling me not to leave him, I did what he told me to." Virgil paused "The problem is, he never caught up to me. I finished patrol and realized he never got the issue fixed and I went back to look for him but… I… I couldn't find him."
"So, then that means the person we spoke to on the phone today… that… that wasn't Richie." Maggie assumed.
"No, ma'am… I don't know who that was but… it wasn't Richie." Virgil confirmed.
Maggie keeps cooking she has to make sure they eat so she can't fall apart at the thought that her boy was potentially in grave danger.
Sean looked Virgil over and the defeated way he sat there made his heart hurt.
"Virgil this isn't your fault." Sean said.
"Yes it is… if I had stayed with Richie none of this would have happened!"
Jean comes out of the room.
"Haven't we been over this already?" Jean asks giving Virgil soft glare.
"Yeah… but nothing has changed Jean… if I had stopped patrol to help Richie none of this would have happened I would have been there to protect him."
"Or you would have both been captured… Syphon has more power than you can imagine." Jean countered "We would have ended up her no matter what you did."
"Yeah but at least then I would have tried to protect my best friend." Virgil shot back.
"And most likely gotten a lot of people hurt in the process…"
Virgil storms out of the room back to the bedroom in frustration and Sean stands to look at Jean not sure what to think of the kid. Jean had cleared the way to let him pass.
Jean looked between the two adults "I didn't mean to be harsh with him it's just… this is no time for a pity party."
"You're right but… right now Virgil hates himself and… and I can't blame him." Sean sighed.
"I know you have questions that perhaps I can answer… like for example the guy you talked to was probably a hero known as Chi… he used to play basketball at the center with Richie and Virgil and… his little sister is a witch who could easily cast a spell to camouflage his voice to sound like Richie so that they could disguise the fact that Richie went missing."
"Okay… that answers that question… but why hide the fact that Richie went missing in the first place… why not come out and tell us the truth?"
"Think about it… if they did tell you that your son was missing what would you have done?"
"I would have called… the cops… which… which would have gotten Richie hurt… or worse."
Jean nodded confirming what she had just said.
"Okay we've got that answered. Now what is your part in all of this?" Sean asked walking up beside Jean.
"I was sent to help Virgil keep himself emotionally in check… be his support system." Jean replied, "Even if that means telling him things he doesn't want to hear."
"But you're just a kid… how can you take that burden?" Sean asked.
"I am actually a bit older than I look." Jean replied.
Maggie and Sean make eye contact and silently decide not to press the issue, there were more important things to deal with.
"Why are you even up you look like you could fall over at any moment." Sean pointed out.
Sean walked over to a chair and took a seat.
"Syphon won't let me sleep." He replied, "Among other things Syphon is a powerful telepath and he's been taunting me."
"You keep mentioning this 'Syphon' person, but you've never clarified who he is, or what he has against you." Sean pointed out turning to where Jean now sat.
"He is a meta human from Dakota…" Jean sighed then explained that he had made the mistake of telling Syphon about a device his uncle had created to find meta humans so he can train them to master their abilities to fight for good.
"As you can see this whole situation is my fault… if I hadn't told Syphon about the device he wouldn't… he wouldn't be trying to recreate it now."
"YOU!" Virgil roared in anger finally making his presence known as none of them had seen him enter the room. "If you hadn't…"
"Virgil Hawkins… cool it!" Sean snapped turning to Virgil.
"No, he's right… if I hadn't gone to Syphon none of this would have happened."
"Jean that doesn't make it your fault… you can't control what people do with the information you give them." Maggie sighed.
Meanwhile Sean is trying to get Virgil to settle down, things were already a little out of hand and he didn't want them to get worse. He wasn't aware of the temper the young man had, but he figured a lot of that was due to the fact that he didn't think Virgil had really been sleeping.
Maggie finished cooking and made plates for the four of them.
"Come on, let's eat." She suggested.
They all gathered around the small table to eat, and it was clear the tension was slowly ebbing as the arguing stopped and people began to really think about what was said.
Virgil in particular seemed to be settling down as Jean's words began to sink in.
"So, when was the last time you really could sleep?" Sean asked looking to Jean.
Jean looked at him and sighed trying to think back to exactly when that was.
"When I collapsed back at titans tower."
"How long ago was that?" Maggie asked.
Jean groaned and looked at Maggie.
"What day is it?"
"Sunday…" she replied.
"Then… almost a week."
Everyone stopped what they were doing and looked at him in shock.
Jean looked among them in confusion.
"What…"
"It's been that long?' Maggie said in surprise.
"Yeah…" Jean said awkwardly "I guess so."
Meanwhile, Amanda, Madison, and Mason where relaxing when an alert came up that a Bang Baby was terrorizing the city. They looked further into it to see it was merely Carmen Dillo wreaking his usual, albeit more scary than dangerous, form of havoc.
"So… which one is going to handle this garbage run?"
"Not it… I handled him last time…" Madison said.
"I'll take it." Amanda volunteered using her magic to disguise herself again.
"You sure you can handle him, kiddo?" Mason asked.
"C'mon bro… it's Carmen Dillo we're talking about, he's not exactly a heavy hitter… handling him is like handling Control Freak… in and out…"
"Fine sis… but we're going to watch… just in case." Madison said.
Amanda took off and the twins looked at each other still unsure if letting Amanda go alone was a good idea.
Carmen Dillo went down as easily as one would expect and Amanda was floating midair when suddenly a fireball went screaming past her head scorching her hair.
"Damn… what the…" she turned to see Hotstreak standing there.
"I don't know who you are kid… but… you're out of your league."
"Wanna bet?" she replied summoning up her magic for another fight and began to throw various objects at him, but Hotstreak could see her inexperience and soon he got his opening.
Stormfront and Chi arrived just as Mockingbird screamed. She and Hotstreak had gotten close enough to be going at it hand to hand and Hotstreak had engulfed his hand in flames before punching her across the face leaving a trail of burns across her eyes.
"Stormfront, douse him!" Chi barked in rage.
The next thing Hotstreak knew he was caught in a very localized torrential downpour. His skin hissed as the water cooled his fire and he screamed in what sounded to be pain.
"Take her to the hideout, I'll meet you there." Chi directs Stormfront who really doesn't need to be told she was already on her way to get her sister and take her to safety.
Chi then turned to Hotstreak.
"And as for you…"
The girls arrived at the hideout, but it took several more minutes for Chi to join them.
"I hope he was still breathing when the cops got there."
"More or less…" Chi shrugged then went to work on trying to help Amanda.
"You've spent too much time with Shayera and Batman." She commented.
"He hurt my sister…" Chi responded reaching for his mask but stopped when he realized there was someone else there.
"That looks bad…" Robert Hawkins said coming into view.
"Mr. Hawkins… what are you doing here?" Stormfront asked.
"I saw that fight and… and I was wondering if there was anything the three of you needed."
"Besides some aloe…" Chi replied down. "We made a huge mistake we sent her out on what we thought was a simple case of dealing with a pest only to have her get severely hurt."
Robert went to look for the first aid kit silently.
Meanwhile, later that night Virgil was watching as Jean lay there still unable to sleep for Syphon's pestering. He was trying to be quiet, but the muttering was louder than he had realized.
Virgil got up and went into the bathroom silently grabbing the communicator to try to reason with Syphon.
"Syphon… hey… Syphon, answer me… yeah I know your name you freak."
"Oh… so you know my name… is that supposed to scare me?"
"You listen to me… you leave Jean out of this… it's between you and me!"
Syphon started laughing.
"Weren't you listening… he's been involved in this from the very beginning." Syphon countered. "Besides I thought you were angry with him."
Static rolled is eyes "My feelings don't matter I know what you've been doing to the kid… now leave him alone!"
"All right I'll leave him alone… only if you leave him there."
"Fine…" Virgil spat putting his mask back on "How many more assignments do I have?"
"Just one more… your final task is in Metropolis… which is also… conveniently enough where I am… and where your sister is."
"What…"
"Oh… they didn't tell you?" Syphon said in mock sympathy "And to think you trusted these people…"
"They probably didn't want me taking some hapless fool's head off. Like I'm gonna do you…"
"Like you would have done Jean if Mr. Foley hadn't gotten in the way."
Virgil glares at the communicator "Can we just get this show on the road?"
"Very well…" he opens a portal but before Virgil steps through he looks into the bedroom to see Jean collapse onto the pillow finally falling into a deep dreamless sleep.
He then steps through the portal silently.
Meanwhile Lois and Clark were trying to have a quiet romantic evening. They had gone for dinner in a fancy restaurant and were at a small ice cream shop sitting on the patio enjoying the warm evening air and some nice sundaes when suddenly a strange cat decided it wanted to join them. It jumped on the table and started rubbing itself on Clark's arm.
"Didn't know you were such an animal magnet, Smallville…" Lois commented.
"You'd be amazed what can happen when you grow up on a farm." He said casually grabbing the cat and setting it on the ground muttering a 'run along' to it before returning to his ice cream.
The cat meowed then jumped back on the table and returned to its task of rubbing its head on his arm.
"Persistent little thing aren't you?" he said aloud.
The cat looked up at him and meowed again.
"Um… maybe he wants your ice cream." She commented "But then you'd think he'd be coming after mine too."
Clark looked at her with a shrug as the cat meowed again.
"Okay… how about you deal with your new feline companion, and we'll talk at the planet in the morning."
Clark looked at her "I suppose it is getting late."
Lois leaned in for a peck on the lips before starting to leave.
"Good night, Clark…"
"Night…" he replied glaring at the cat as Lois headed for home.
"You're going to be trouble aren't you?"
The cat only meowed in response.
Clark put the rest of his ice cream where the cat could get it before getting up and going to his apartment.
It was about three in the morning when the Justice League communicator woke him up.
"Go for Superman…" he said groggily then looked over to see the same strange cat curled up on the foot of his bed. His first thought was 'how did this cat get into my house'.
To Be Continued…