Hi, so I have buckled down and got this done which is a huge sigh of relief for me so I am just going to post it in one swoop. Just a couple of things to consider-due to my wanting to end this story on a happy note I have decided that I am not going to kill Leo off. Just keep that in mind.

Disclaimer-Nothing is mine.

Please Read and Review.

Future Perfect

Chapter 21-Castles In The Sand

As his parents go to China, Zane is left to look after Jake which is fine except he knows that boyfriend…or to put it simply…he knows the boyfriends father.

He should have known it when he saw the name, felt the phantom twitch of panic on the back of his neck. He should have seen it from the face but he had hardly been looking, the kid had been cleared and he had never been one to pry, why would he?

And now he was on the verge of having a panic attack.

The life we could have had Zane mused ducking into the kitchen.

My one true friend.

Christ he was cracking up.

He splashed some water on his face and breathed in and out dragging the towel down his face and resisting the urge to scream into it and he looked at himself in the mirror and knew that he looked every inch the old man he felt.

He had known this was coming, deep down one way or the other he had known that this was coming and yet…

He had not expected this.

To ask what is dragging Zane Hanaway through the hell that is his life right now you have to understand that he was a ex Top Gun pilot. Like the movie (and Christ that had been both gratifying and annoying) he too had done a selection of Hops in Miramar and he too had done a Hop 31. His Hop 31 had gone off without a hitch thank you very much. it was Hop 36 that had been the problem.

He didn't even remember it happening, he remembered going through some kind of flat spin from a jet wash and then he was twisting and turning with no way of getting the plane back to it's rightful position, he didn't know how to stop it, had seen enough lights on the dash to know what was happening and so he had made the only call he could and the one call that a pilot never wanted to make and he'd ejected out of the plane screaming at his RIO to do the same.

And his RIO had.

Badger had done what he had told him to do but unlike the film where the canopy had not risen in time this time the parachute had not opened and he'd been forced to watch as his co-pilot had collapsed to the ground with a thud that he did not hear but knew he would see for the rest of his life. Maybe if they had been out to sea things might have been better but they had not been out to sea and so he had crawled from his own ejection site tripping on his ropes to see his best friends mangled body all broken and bloodied like a little doll.

Zane spat into Toby Zeligers sink to keep the vomit away.

He had not expected Badgers son to be the boyfriend of Jake Cregg-Zeliger. He had done this as a favour to Ron, had been covering Ellie Bartlett until recently and had stepped away only because Ron had asked him to, Ron who kept him employed and kept him on the payroll when his file had enough red flags in it for anyone to step away and tell him thanks but no thanks.

He had not seen the boy in what? Fifteen years? He had been a two year old the last time he'd seen him on Tessa's hip as she had looked at him over the funeral as if he was the most poisonous thing on Earth. He had accepted it then, had wanted it to coat his veins like acid and he had allowed it to corrode all that was good about him, had let that one look define his life and then somehow he'd put one foot in front of the other and carried on regardless. He was alive, he was in a good job, his career had become the only thing that he cared about and he'd done it and now the progress that he had made was about to come crumbling down and he didn't know how to stop it.

Because his dead best friends son was outside with his arms wrapped around another boy.

And look…Zane didn't give a shit about that…Christ he was in the Navy for crying out loud! Any nitwit who didn't think that there were homosexuals in the military was either stupid or a backwater Republican and he had no truck with either of them. Bisexuality was a new label sure but as long as you were consenting and over age then why the hell would Zane care what you did? And he knew Badger well enough to know that he too wouldn't have minded that his son was into men…hell he'd probably have thrown a party at the news.

But he was here, looking so much like his dead father that it was like he was back there coated in his best friends blood and tasting the blame of his wife on his tongue as she had told him to stay the fuck away from her and her son.

But he was a professional and he had a job to do and he knew his charges well enough to know that you don't leave two seventeen year olds on the couch for long. Not that he cared it was just…this was going to be hard enough without everything else come crashing down around them.

He squared his shoulders and then opened the door.

Both kids sprung apart and Zane rolled his eyes. Glad to see teenage stupidity was still alive and kicking.

"ETA on the President landing in China is another three hours" he said sternly.

"Okay…I don't think there going to show anything interesting" Jake said casually. Zane liked the kid he was uncommonly sensible and now he was seeing Doctor Keyworth once a week he was getting better. Zane knew this because he had been there himself. Seeing a therapist was never a sign of weakness and anyone who said that it was needed to be thrown bodily off the nearest peer in his opinion.

He watched as Harrison turned to look at his boyfriend with an amused look and then back at him. Either the kid didn't know who he was or he didn't care or perhaps he was that good at poker Zane didn't know. He felt like he was being interviewed for Top Gun all over again, his hands were sweating for crying out loud! And that was no good when he was supposed to be a dab hand with a gun.

"I wish I was going" Jake said quietly. "Even if it does mean spending time with your parents"

Harrison picked up the pencil, the guise was that the kids were supposed to be doing homework but Zane would be damned if that was going to happen. He was not entirely sure what he was supposed to prevent here. Gina had never told him if she'd stopped Zoe from having sex and when he had asked she'd looked at him as if he was an idiot and smacked him over the head with her copy of Cosmo which was not altogether helpful.

"Are your parents even speaking to each other?"

"Only about work, I haven't seen Mom in two weeks, she tries but she's tired all the time and then she's fighting the First Lady on what the President can and cannot do and Josh and finding someone to do her job and then she's doing her own job and…and I don't know it seems like when she does come round and bare in mind she doesn't do that much she's too tired to even speak. So it's just easier to be here where I don't have to get lost too much. Dad can work from home?"

"He can?"

"There's this invention of a thing called a laptop Harry"

Zane snorted before he could stop himself. Eyes the exact same shade as what had haunted his dreams for a long time turned to look at him.

"Sorry" he said speaking the first word and the only word that would matter. "But you do have to admit that, that was rather funny"

Harrison rolled his eyes in a move that was copied off his mother and then turned to pick up the Chemistry book with a rather disgruntled expression.

"Alright" he said throwing it at Jake. "Let's start with the hard stuff first"

"I don't see why I am have to do this"

"Because you missed a lot of school and you want to go to college."

"Yeah but you're the same—"

"I'm going into the Navy so—"

"You're going into the Navy" he said suddenly. He had known that this too was a possibility but the thought of Badgers son going to Top Gun suddenly made him feel quite sick.

"Yeah" Harrison said looking at him again. There was something…odd in that gaze and Zane wondered if the kid knew, he didn't think that Tessa had told him, knew that she had cut him out of her life and everyone else and raised that boy alone but there was an odd expression in those eyes that made him think that maybe, just maybe the kid knew more than he was letting on.

"That's the plan anyway"

Zane swallowed.

"And you Jake?"

"I don't know. I don't know what I want to do yet to be honest. I mean…everyone keeps talking like they have a plan and I don't. Anna and you, you've known what you wanted to be your entire lives" he said to Harrison and then the green eyes of his charge narrowed on him.

"Did you know?"

"Fuck no" he said shockingly informal with them both. "All I knew was that I didn't want to be behind a desk for the rest of my life, the rest of it was immaterial trust me. I found the Navy by accident, flier in my senior year and I thought why not get two years under my belt—that was all they asked for right there and then—and see the world. And stupidly I thought it would be safer than the Marines"

Both of them giggled at that and Jake sighed turning back to his books.

"Are you going to go on Russell's campaign?"

"Fuck no" Jake said flatly. "I've had enough presidential campaigns to last a lifetime. No this one I am going to sit out. I still don't know what to pick"

"Start with looking for your favourite subject and go from there" Zane said softly and then before he could stop himself he did what he had promised he'd never do and meddled.

"Just look for your favourite subject and go on from there" Zane said quietly. "And you'd be surprised how many kids don't know what they wanna be until college. And if you're not sure then come and sit in the Secret Service bullpen and listen to Danny and Randy bitch about their kids for a change. Gives you a whole new perspective"

And with that he stood up and went to the kitchen to pour himself a glass of water.

He didn't expect the kid to follow him.

But he did.

"I know who you are"

He didn't dare look around.

"And who am I kid?"

"You're the one in the plane, the day that my Dad died. You're the one in the plane with him, you're the one in the photo"

"Your Mom tell you I killed him?"

"Mom doesn't talk about Dad"

He took another sip of water and then turned around to see that the kid was looking at him.

"Kid I don't know what you want from me—"

"I want to know what happened, I don't want the bull that the Navy gave us, I want the truth. I want the truth from you and I am quite prepared to wait here to get it. I think you owe it me"

And he jerked his chin up like his father used to do just as Jake walked into the room holding his phone.

"Holy shit we've got a problem. Dad says the Presidents just had an MS attack on the plane—" he looked up and stared at the two of them for a second.

"What did I miss?"

And there you go.

Next Chapter-In which the truth about Harrison's father comes out, the President is back from China and CJ finally gets a chance to see her son.