Keep Trying to Find, part 5

[tamcranver]

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4



Mikey woke up and took a deep breath, once again feeling vaguely lonely. It was stupid—he was surrounded by warm, comforting thoughts, from Bob and Ray’s quiet worries about whether they had enough breakfast cereal to Jamia and Frank’s brightly-colored dreamscapes to Gerard’s familiar mish-mash of images and sounds next to him on the sofa bed. Even Bunny was a friendly, familiar presence in his mind. He had pretty much no excuse for being lonely. He couldn’t help it, though. Somehow, people thinking he was strange and a little creepy had never really bothered him until Alicia.

He’d been trying to work up the guts to talk to her for days, but it was hard. The first attempt had been an utter disaster; he’d been so intent on finding her that he hadn’t watched where he was going and had tripped over a nice young couple’s dog, skinning his knee and knocking the guy’s drink out of his hand. He’d apologized, both to them and to the dog, and gotten the guy a new drink, but the whole experience had robbed him of any courage he’d managed to build up.

And it wasn’t getting any better. Every time he got near enough to actually see her, he remembered how shitty he was at making himself understood verbally and he had to go away again before he accidentally managed to convince her he was a serial killer or something. Flirting had never been this hard back home—you knew someone was attracted to you, they knew you were attracted to them, and you both knew what you wanted to do. It was pretty straightforward when you were both telepathic. But flirting with a normal human girl when you were the weird alien kid was another kettle of fish altogether.

It wouldn’t have been this bad if he were the only one thinking about summer romance, but as far as he could tell, Jamia and Frank had gotten together as easily as if they were meant for each other, and Lindsey seemed to think that Gerard’s weirdness was cool, or at least funny. Mikey hated being jealous of them—it made him feel like scum to begrudge them their happiness—but he couldn’t seem to do anything about it. And on top of it, he had this weird itchy feeling in the back of his mind, like something was going to happen—only he didn’t know what it was, whether it would be good or bad, or what, if anything, he was supposed to do about it. Real useful.

He crawled out from between Frank and Gerard and managed to step onto the floor from the foot of the bed without waking either of them up. Stepping around the air mattress, he quietly opened the door. Ray and Bob were sitting on folding chairs in front of the camper, sipping their coffee, and Bob looked up at the sound of the door opening. “Hey, Mikey,” he said softly. “Close the door and come on out here.”

Mikey closed the door and sat on the pavement next to Bob, since there weren’t any other folding chairs. “Morning,” he muttered.

“Morning,” Ray replied. “Hey, I’ve been listening to you guys’ demos again, and I have some ideas for stuff you can do with the bassline. You really have to get a drummer, though.”

“We know,” said Mikey. “Jamia said her friend Darren would do it.” Mikey vaguely remembered Darren from the few months he’d spent at the Smith Home; he didn’t remember him playing drums, but then, it probably wouldn’t matter anyway, since chances weren’t real good that Darren would want to move to an alien compound in the middle of nowhere just to join a shitty pop-punk band.

“Well, if you need someone to practice with over the summer,” said Ray, “the old man here plays some pretty mean skins,” and he elbowed Bob in the arm.

“I think they’re probably gonna want someone who’s played in the last decade,” said Bob wryly, but underneath, Mikey could tell that it would flatter him to be asked, that he’d welcome the chance to spend time with them in an area he felt comfortable.

“Don’t even front, Bob,” he said, “I bet you rule.” Bob rolled his eyes and ruffled Mikey’s hair, a slight red flush spreading over his nose.

“Maybe I can dig my set out of the storage trailer,” he said. “Any drums are better than no drums, I guess.”

Mikey nodded, but to be honest, he wasn’t really thinking about The Black Parade at the moment. Would talking to Alicia really be that scary? Aside from the possibility of total and crushing rejection, what did he have to lose? Nothing, really, since she already thought he was a creep. Worst-case scenario, she still thought he was a creep. Really, things could only get better. He had no excuse for hiding from her.

“Hey,” said Ray, “What are you thinking about?”

“I think I’m gonna go wonder around,” said Mikey, standing up. “Think about stuff.”

Bob nodded calmly. “Fair enough. Stay out of trouble.”

That was one thing Mikey liked about Bob; he didn’t push when you wanted to be alone, he just accepted it. He knew what it was like to need time away from everything.

Of course, in this case, Mikey couldn’t really get away from what was bothering him, since the whole goal was to try to fix what was bothering him. He tried to hold on to what Frank had told him: apologize, give her space, don’t stare. Apologize, give her space, don’t stare. He could do that. Probably.

The door creaked as he stepped away from the RV, and suddenly Bunny was weaving herself in between Mikey’s legs. If he thought she was letting him out of her sight while he faced something he was afraid of, she said, he had another think coming.

Thanks, Bunny, he said, reaching down to scratch between her ears. Bunny was good backup for this kind of thing—she was good at stealth, and she could keep a secret. Plus, her keen sense of smell made it a piece of cake to find Alicia, even with Mikey trying to keep his mental shields up.

He didn’t have to go far. She and Sarah, the girl who did Brand New’s merch, were playing cards in front of a concession stand, sipping smoothies and talking about…no. Wait. He wasn’t going to listen to their conversation or their thoughts. It wasn’t polite here.

He walked up, swallowed, and said, “Hi.”

Sarah looked up at him, confused but mostly cheerful, and said, “Hi yourself.” But Alicia rolled her eyes before muttering out a grudging greeting. Crap.

“Um.” He pondered asking to talk to her alone, but then he thought that might actually make him seem even creepier, so he said, “So. Uh. I’m Mikey. I think I might have been kind of weird the other day? When you were grabbing the box of tee-shirts?”

“Little bit,” said Alicia, playing a card. She was giving off a vibe of “Get lost” that Mikey couldn’t help but pick up.

Mikey wondered if he was flushing. Or maybe he was just getting sunburned. Either way, his face felt uncomfortably warm. “So. Um. I’m really sorry about that. I just, I thought maybe I should help you with the box, but then I thought that maybe you didn’t need help because it was just one box and I might get in the way. I kind of went back and forth on it. And then I remembered, ‘oh, yeah, maybe I better say something,’ but by that time I thought maybe it was too late to say anything without it being super weird. So. Anyway, I just wanted to apologize about that.”

Sarah and Alicia were both staring at him now. “So,” said Alicia after a while, “you planning on making a habit of it? Just kind of standing around staring at people?”

Maybe this was his cue to go. “Nope,” he said. “So. Sorry about that.” He wandered away, feeling like the most awkward person alive. Jesus. He was seventeen years old, for fuck’s sake, and apparently complete sentences still posed a problem. He felt suddenly homesick; he might have been a little weird at the Republic for growing up among Earth people, but not so much that he couldn’t make friends or talk to people he was interested in. Here he just felt weird and out of place.

On the plus side, he had so much new music in which to drown his sorrows, it wasn’t even funny. He was probably going to have to get a new iPod to hold it all.

Bunny made an indignant noise beside him. It was ridiculous, she said, these young cats making their toms go through the motions of a fight to prove their prowess, when anyone could see that Mikey would father strong kittens.

Um. It’s okay, honest, he told her. I’m not really looking to father kittens right now, anyway.

Whatever, said Bunny. She didn’t get the human mating system—all that stress and, more often than not, no kittens at the end. She sniffed again and informed him that she herself had excellent taste in choosing toms, and if any of her kittens were still around, she’d be proud to show them to him. They had all come out lovely.

Mikey would have asked her about the kittens, and if Ray and Bob had any pictures, but her attention was suddenly on the neon green Frisbee flying in their direction. She hissed at it and bumped at Mikey’s shin with her head until he stepped aside, letting the Frisbee glide into the grass behind him.

“Hey,” called a guy that Mikey recognized as Brand New’s drum tech, “you wanna get that, man?”

Mikey shrugged and turned to pick the Frisbee up, tossing it to the drum tech. The guy caught it with a smile and said, “Hey, aren’t you Bob and Ray’s nephew?”

He nodded. He recognized the other guys, now, too—one of them was the guy who tuned Vincent’s guitars, Kyle, and the other was the keyboard tech. Neil? No, Noah.

“I’m Justin,” said the drum tech, tucking the Frisbee under his arm and jogging up to shake Mikey’s hand. “Mikey, right?” At Mikey’s nod, he said, “You want to play? The more, the merrier.”

Mikey hesitated. He was really bad at sports. Plus, Bunny told him not to do it—who wanted to play a game whose whole point was that people threw things at you? It sounded like a dog game. On the other hand, thought Mikey, he could use practice talking to people he didn’t know. It was going to be a seriously awkward summer if he never got any better at acting like a normal person around Alicia. “Okay,” he found himself saying. It wasn’t like he had anything better to do.

“All right!” said Justin, tossing him the Frisbee. “Your throw.”

He hurled it hesitantly; it seemed to hook back around and fly off to the side, almost hitting an extremely indignant Bunny. Sorry, he said.

“Hoo boy,” said Kyle, his eyes wide. “Looks like we’ve got a rookie here.”

“Hey, I don’t have to play. Sorry,” said Mikey. He was totally going to suck at this and end up convincing everyone that he was an even bigger weirdo than they already thought. Fuck.

“Don’t sweat it,” said Noah. “Just—like, curl your wrist when you throw, right, and let go when your arm’s going the way you want the Frisbee to go.” He paused and said, “Did that make any sense? Go get the Frisbee and try again.”

Mikey obeyed. Whatever, if they didn’t care that he was awful, maybe it wouldn’t be such a big deal after all. Still, he concentrated on curling his wrist like Noah had, trying to figure out when the right time was to throw the disc so he didn’t end up killing someone, and when it looked like it was going to fly off over Kyle’s head into a concession stand, he frowned at it until it curved more or less in Kyle’s direction.

Kyle leaped up and caught it. “Hey!” he said. “That’s more like it.” He leisurely tossed the Frisbee to Justin as he said to Mikey, “Have you never thrown a Frisbee before?”

He had, in gym class back in Monroeville, but it had been a long time ago and what he remembered wasn’t that pleasant, so he shrugged and said, “Not really.”

“Not really?” said Justin with a laugh. “Where the hell are you from?”

Somewhere they’d never even heard of a Frisbee. “Small town,” he said, watching as the Frisbee flew back to Noah. “Not big on sports.”

“I guess not.” Noah threw the Frisbee to Mikey. “What do you do for fun out there?”

Besides trying to recreate their home planet on top of a mountain? They had games, games that were like chess and puzzle games and computer games and games that were kind of like Earth sports only with flying and teleportation, but explaining them would be more trouble than it was worth. Mikey focused on the Frisbee; it slowed down to the point where he could almost catch it. Almost. It slipped from between his hands, and he bent to pick it up. “I don’t know,” he said. “Board games and stuff. We do a lot of gardening.”

“Gardening?” said Noah with wide eyes. “Seriously?”

Kyle caught the Frisbee—Mikey’d been aiming for Justin, but whatever, at least somebody had caught it—before hitting himself in the forehead. “Shit,” he said. “That reminds me. I was supposed to take Alicia to the farmer’s market this afternoon.”

Mikey felt his heart freeze in his throat. Justin just raised an eyebrow. “Why were you supposed to take her to the farmer’s market?”

“I don’t know,” said Kyle, making a face. “We were gonna get some cookies or something. She thinks we don’t spend enough time together or something.”

“What?” Justin snorted. “You’re together every day—what, you don’t see enough of each other on tour?”

“That’s what I said!” Kyle sent the Frisbee flying back towards Mikey, saying, “Alicia’s my girlfriend. You’ve probably seen her around—she’s the bass tech.” The Frisbee hit Mikey squarely in the face. It was too light to do much damage, but it hurt like hell, and his eyes started to water. Kyle winced. “Shit,” he said. “Sorry about that, man, I thought you were gonna catch it.”

Mikey swallowed. “I’m okay,” he said, trying to sound normal. “That must be cool. Having your girlfriend on tour with you.” He tried to focus on the Frisbee, tossing it to Noah without braining anyone. It ended up kind of flying between Noah and Justin, but at least it didn’t hit any innocent passers-by.

“You’d think so, wouldn’t you,” said Kyle grimly. “She’s so fucking demanding these days, though….” He shook his head.

Fuck. Mikey could feel his temper rise. What a total pain, to have an awesome girlfriend who played bass and set up for rock shows like she’d been doing it her whole life and who actually wanted to spend time with you. What a bummer, to have someone who liked you enough to think of fun things you could do together as a couple, even when you clearly didn’t give a shit.

Bunny yowled her agreement, and Justin frowned. “Dude,” he said, “is that your cat?”

“Yeah,” said Mikey. “I better go take her back to my uncles’ place. It was nice hanging out with you, though.”

Kyle nodded. “Likewise. Maybe we’ll see you around.”

Unfortunately enough, he was probably right. “Yeah,” said Mikey. “See you.”

He and Bunny made their way back to the RV. Alicia and Sarah were still playing cards when he passed by, but they lifted their heads to look curiously at him, and Sarah waved. Mikey waved back without stopping to talk; he’d just about used up any social skills he had, and he wasn’t sure if he had it in him to make any more small talk. Later, he promised himself. Later, even if she did have a stupid boyfriend, maybe he’d be able to convince her that he was at least someone she could hang out with and not some creepy pervert. She and Sarah seemed cool—maybe he could be friends with them. Maybe he could even persuade himself to be friends with Kyle. It could happen.

The RV was empty when Mikey opened the door, except for Dixie and Bauer on the folded-up sofa bed. They both were happy he was back; apparently, all the other two-legged people had gone off to do whatever it was they did when they weren’t hanging around with Dixie and Bauer. Bunny sniffed contemptuously and ran over to the cab, where she curled up in the passenger seat.

Mikey flopped down between the dogs on the couch and breathed in and out slowly. Maybe it was time for him to enjoy the privacy, to get on Ray’s laptop and surf the internet and just be himself for a while. The walls of the RV put a little distance between him and the crowds around him—if he could put up a halfway decent shield, he could be enjoying the wonders of YouTube for hours without having to listen to other people’s personal problems or think about his own.

He grabbed a Tab out of the fridge and settled down at the kitchen table. Bauer hopped down off the couch to settle on Mikey’s lap, indignant at being ignored, and Mikey got the distinct impression from Dixie that she’d had just about enough of lavishing attention on Bauer and it was his turn now. Well, whatever, total solitude was overrated, and it wasn’t like Bauer was judging Mikey for anything. Like most animals, Bauer was just thrilled at finding a two-legged person who could talk to him.

Mikey sipped at his Tab and plugged his earbuds into the laptop. He was just about to open Firefox when Bob’s phone rang.

What the hell? What was the point of even having a cell phone if you just left it sitting on top of your TV like a remote control? Mikey pondered just letting it go to voice mail—Bob was a pretty private person, and Mikey didn’t want to overstep his bounds. Well, more than he already had. But then again, what if it was an emergency? Mikey didn’t have a strong feeling about it one way or the other, but that didn’t necessarily mean anything—precognition was always a pretty dicey business.

Bunny’s irritation at being disturbed by the ringtone settled it. Mikey hopped up to answer the phone. “Bob Bryar’s phone. Can I help you?”

“Mikey?” The voice on the other end was surprised, pleased, maybe a little disbelieving, and very familiar. Mikey sifted through his memories to figure out who it belonged to.

“Patrick?” he tried.

“Jesus Christ, Mikey!” Yeah, that was definitely Patrick—he knew that little incredulous laugh. “I didn’t know you were—well, visiting.”

“Yeah,” said Mikey casually. “Uncle Brian thought we could use a little vacation.”

“How long have you been…around?”

Patrick was a smart guy—he obviously knew better than to talk about anything secret over the phone, including where Mikey and Frank and Gerard were now. Mikey’s memories of living with Patrick, already fond, warmed up a notch. “Couple of weeks,” he said. The less specific, the better, he figured.

“A couple of weeks,” said Patrick flatly. “You couldn’t call or anything? I’d—we all would have liked to see you.” His tone was light, but sounded kind of hurt underneath.

Mikey felt like a jerk. “We didn’t want to bug you or anything,” he said, as apologetically as he could. “And Uncle Brian said we should, you know, keep a low profile.”

He could hear Patrick exhaling deeply on the other end of the phone. “Yeah. Yeah, that’s a good idea. That’s actually kind of why I called.”

Mikey felt the hair on the back of his neck stand on end. “Why’s that?” he asked carefully.

“I wanted to give Bob a heads-up. I know he’s in contact with your Uncle Brian.” There was a pause, with some shuffling noises in the background, and then Patrick continued. “About a week ago, I got a call from a guy at the FBI who called himself Agent Cocker. He said there were some irregularities in your adoption paperwork, and he wanted to know if I had your grandma’s contact information.”

Shit. That couldn’t be good. Best case scenario, the guy found out that their grandma didn’t legally exist—but Mikey didn’t expect that this was a best-case scenario. Who bothered looking into an irregular adoption six years after the fact, when the kids in question were practically (or in Gerard’s case, legally) adults anyway? And what were the chances of them following up on that kind of cold case the precise week that the kids in question reappeared on human radar after six years hiding in the mountains? Pretty slim, Mikey thought. Pretty fucking slim. “What’d you say?” he asked, hoping he didn’t sound as freaked as he felt.

“What do you think I said? I told him I didn’t have anything to tell him, but I’d give him a call if I found something out,” said Patrick, sounding aggravated. “What do you think? You have any feelings about it? I mean, you know, your kind of feelings?”

“I’ve got a bad feeling.” Shit, why couldn’t he have been dreaming about useful stuff like this all week instead of nightmares about humiliation in front of Alicia? Gerard was gonna flip, and Mikey didn’t even want to think about Bob and Ray, and all the shit they were going to get into because of three stupid kids.

“That’s what I was afraid of,” said Patrick with a sigh. “Okay, look. Don’t panic—it could still be nothing. I’m gonna make some calls, find about this Cocker guy, and I’ll call you back. You fill Bob and Ray in, okay?”

“Will do,” Mikey said, trying not to hyperventilate. Patrick was right. It could all be nothing. It didn’t feel like nothing, though—now that he knew about it, it felt like a huge, intrusive presence in his mental vision, as big and mysterious and important as his memories of the spaceship crash.

“All right. I’m gonna go, then, but I’ll talk to you later.” Patrick paused on the other end for a moment before saying, “It’s great talking you, Mikey. I’m glad you’re—I mean, you seem to be doing okay. FBI agents aside.”

He was right. Boy, there was nothing like the impending threat of being “confiscated” by the U.S. government to make you realize that you’d really been pretty lucky in life. “It’s good talking to you, too,” Mikey said, and he meant it.

“Talk to you later,” said Patrick, and then he hung up.

That was it, then—the FBI was back, and Mikey was the only one who knew about it. For all anyone knew, the feds could be tracking them right now, tailing Bob or Ray or Frank or….he had to talk to Gerard. He reached out mentally, trying to feel for Gerard’s mind among the crowd. It should have been easy, seeing as how Gerard was the only other Amalthean among a group of humans and Mikey had spent more or less the entirety of his life connected to his brother psychically, but he couldn’t focus enough to block out all the concertgoers and techs and merch people and passersby. He couldn’t really focus on anything.

Bunny jumped off the passenger seat to bump her head against Mikey’s shin. She was ready, she said with a hiss. Just let them try anything. Bauer and Dixie had a less clear idea of what was going on, but they knew enough to be alarmed, and Bauer started barking excitedly.

Mikey sighed and explained it as briefly as he could before searching through Bob’s phone for Ray’s number. They needed to talk.

**

Gerard never got tired of watching Lindsey and her band play, any more than he got tired of watching the Used play. Every show was just a little different, even if they were playing the same songs—they’d say something different, or the crowd would have a different kind of energy, which would make each song fit in some unfamiliar way with the rest of the songs.

Plus, Lindsey was incredible. He didn’t think he was too biased to have a valid opinion on this. He didn’t know anyone else who could play a bass and do a backbend at the same time—he, for one, couldn’t do either, much less both simultaneously. Jimmy pretty much set the tone for the shows, but Lindsey had a distinctive presence no matter what happened on stage—she was always someone doing what she loved and throwing all of herself into it.

Gerard was so crazy about her, he couldn’t even stand it.

After MSI’s set, Lindsey practically skipped off stage and jumped on Gerard, kissing him soundly before pulling back and grinning.

“Getting bored of our show yet?” she asked.

“No way,” he said fervently. “I mean, every night’s a little different, right? And I never get sick of watching you.”

“Aww, thanks.” And then they were making out again and Gerard was trying very hard not to fall over with Lindsey’s legs wrapped around his waist. Fuck, she was really flexible.

A voice from behind Lindsey said, “Oh, good Lord.” Embarrassed, Gerard pulled his mouth away from Lindsey’s long enough to see Kitty rolling her eyes.

“Lindsey, Lindsey, Lindsey,” said Jimmy mock-sadly. “What have I told you time and time again about fucking groupies?”

Lindsey turned her head, but Gerard could still see the corner of her grin. “See if they’re interested in orgies with you and Chantal?” She tangled one of her hands in Gerard’s hair and scratched lightly at his scalp, and he couldn’t help but lean into the touch. It felt really good. “And he’s not my groupie,” she added.

“If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck….” Steve started, before stepping up and cuffing Gerard on the arm like he didn’t even notice Lindsey wrapped around him. “I’m just fucking with you, dude. Where’s your brother, the real short one? Him and me were gonna jam later.”

“Frank? Uh….” It was actually kind of hard to think with Lindsey’s chest, like, right there and her arm draped across his back. “I think he and Mikey and Jamia are at the Brand New merch table.”

“Groovy. Thanks, bro,” said Steve. He waggled his eyebrows suggestively at Lindsey and said, “Yo, girl, don’t do anything I wouldn’t do!” before walking off, presumably to the merch table.

“Hey,” Lindsey murmured into his neck, “you want to take off? Go find our tree?”

Gerard couldn’t stop a little bubble of warmth from forming in his chest. They had a tree. They had a place, somewhere that was just theirs, someplace that had memories attached to it that he could share with her. Maybe they were only memories of making out with her this morning in the woods behind the RV, because they’d needed a private place for Lindsey to stick her hands up his shirt, but still. They had a tree. How cool was that? “Let’s go,” he said.

It wasn’t as easy to escape as one might think. On the way out past the parking lot, they ran into a guy who wanted his picture taken with Lindsey, and then a group of girls who wanted her autograph. Gerard felt awkward and out of place, just kind of hiding behind Lindsey, but it was kind of fun watching her in her element, smiling and laughing with her fans like they were old friends. He didn’t even think she was faking it to be polite—she was just good at this stuff, the “talking to people” part of being a rock star. He kind of felt like he ought to be taking notes, but then again, it felt kind of presumptuous to think he might ever need to be good at that kind of stuff. It wasn’t like the Black Parade was going to find a lot of fans on Wolf Mountain. He suspected he was going to end up just working at the Refugee Search Office with Tegan and Sara, and he’d probably never even see Lindsey again after this summer, and oh God he didn’t even want to think about that.

Lindsey bid her last fan farewell with a wave and a smile before turning to Gerard. “Sorry about that,” she said.

He waved a hand, trying to look casual and not like some dweeb who had no idea what to do with himself while his rock star…friend…signed autographs. “No problem,” he said.

“Cool.” She grabbed for his hand again and gave him a bright grin. “Wanna blow this popsicle stand?”

They made it out to the tree without further interruption, and settled down in the cool, dark grass. It was weird—Gerard knew for a fact that there was a whole crowd of people hanging around for Brand New’s set, and he could hear music rising over the trees, but it all seemed very far away. The sky was oddly clear; he could actually make out the outlines of the Milky Way, and the sight reminded him of nights on the mountain. He felt, all of a sudden, like there was something very big and lonely and unknown inside of him, and it made him squeeze Lindsey’s hand all the tighter.

She turned her face towards him, smiling. “Hey,” she said softly, and she leaned in, her breath warm against his cheek. “You want to….?” Instead of finishing the question, she ran a hand over his chest. Even through his tee-shirt, the touch made him shiver.

“All the way?” he asked. His voice sounded higher than usual, kind of squeaky. Shit, he did not feel optimistic about his ability to show Lindsey a good time. He didn’t even have condoms.

“We don’t have to if you don’t want to,” she said, leaning back just a little. “I never turned down a little heavy petting, if you’re up for that.”

Touching. He could do that. He could totally do that. “Okay,” he said, still sounding squeaky. “Maybe…maybe that one.”

“Awesome,” Lindsey said with a brilliant grin. She scooted on the ground until she was in front of him, and then she leaned in to wrap an arm around his neck and pull his face close to hers. Her breath was warm on his nose and cheeks. Maybe, if it were still as hot as it had been during the day, it would have seemed stifling, but it didn’t; it felt comforting and somehow completely disorienting at the same time. He leaned in to kiss her.

Gerard had kissed people before, boys and girls, despite what Frank thought. Maybe not a lot, but it wasn’t like he had no experience at all. He’d made out with people under clear summer skies in the grass like this. But he didn’t remember any of those times being as exciting and scary and awesome as this felt, having Lindsey’s tongue in his mouth and her hand on his shoulder, burning hot.

“Hey,” he murmured into her mouth. “Hey, can I touch….” He reached a hand tentatively up her shirt, just to lay it on her stomach, sweaty and sticky under her stained Joan Jett tee-shirt.

She reached her other hand down to wrap around his wrist, pulling his hand up to where her damp bra curved around one of her breasts. Jesus Christ. “Be my guest,” she said. The hand on his shoulder went down the neck of his shirt, scratching lightly at his neck and back.

“God, this is so high school,” said Lindsey, pulling away from his mouth to kiss along his jawline down to his neck. “I love it.”

“You clearly had more fun than I did in high school.” His last word broke off in a gasp as Lindsey’s hand crept under the waistband of his jeans and she wrapped her hand around his underwear-covered erection.

She immediately pulled her hand out. “Too much?” she said. Before he could catch enough breath even to decide whether or not he wanted to exchange hand jobs, much less express said desire verbally, she pulled back and said, “Probably for the best. Who knows who’s out there in these woods?”

“You think people are watching us?” Gerard wondered if his eyes were bugging out as much as it felt like they were.

Lindsey laughed. “You never know,” she said, but she didn’t seem too worried. She still pulled herself all the way off Gerard, straightening her tee-shirt and settling down next to him. “Hey,” she said. “Lie down with me.”

He couldn’t bring himself to be disappointed, even if he suspected that Lindsey thought he’d never done anything with a girl before. The grass was soft, the moon was bright, and the night might have been cool but Lindsey’s hand was warm in his.

They lay in silence for a while, basking in a general air of contentment, before Lindsey rolled onto her side and propped herself on one elbow so she could look into Gerard’s face. “So, are you gonna stick around for the whole tour?” she said casually.

“Yeah.”

“What next?” Gerard didn’t even know how to answer that. It must have looked like confusion to Lindsey, because she added, “Well, just…I know you’re not going to school, so, do you have a job or something?”

“Yeah,” he said again. He sat up, and she followed suit. “It’s….” How the fuck did you explain what the Refugee Search Office did? “Um. Yeah. I think I’ll maybe have a job.”

“Cool,” she said, nodding. “So, you guys are super insular and stuff, I get that. But you have a phone, right?”

Well, they had a phone, technically, at the Refugee Search Office. It was publicly listed. But the only people who ever called were crash survivors who’d gotten lost among Earthlings, or government people taking censuses or taxes or whatever, and they did their best to keep the Office separate from the compound, to keep people away from the rest of the Republic. It wasn’t like having a cell phone or something. But Lindsey hadn’t asked about any of that, she’d just asked if they had a phone, so Gerard asked, “Why?”

She frowned, then. “Are you serious? Why? Because I’d kind of like to be able to talk to you after this summer, you weirdo. My job sort of includes travelling all over the country—maybe we’ll come up by where you live sometime and we can hang out.”

Oh. Of course. That’s what people did, if they wanted to keep up a relationship but they were far apart. Was that even going to be possible, though? Uncle Brian had only been able to talk to Bob and Ray a couple times to plan this trip, and Gerard couldn’t imagine that Lindsey would be satisfied with two phone calls a year. There was no reason she should be—it sure as hell wasn’t going to be enough for him. “I don’t…I don’t know. That’s nice,” he said inanely.

Her eyebrows shot up. “What’s nice?”

“I don’t know. That you’d want to….” He shrugged. “I mean, after this summer….” Shit. There wasn’t a way to say, “It’s going to be hard to keep this relationship up without endangering my alien family” and come out sounding like a normal, nice person. This whole thing was such a clusterfuck, and Gerard was self-aware enough to admit that it was pretty much all his fault.

Her face changed, then, like a cloud moving over the sun. She leaned away from him and gave him a stiff smile. “Oh. I got it. So, you want this to just be…a summer thing.” She shrugged. “I get that. I mean, it’s not like I was looking for anything serious, either. And we’ve only been going out, like, a couple of weeks, so, no biggie.” Her tone was light, but you didn’t have to be a mind-reader to see that she wasn’t exactly happy.

“It’s not like that,” said Gerard. “Lindsey, I really, really like you.”

“Likewise,” Lindsey said, her face softening somewhat. “So, what’s the deal?”

“It’s just, it’s really complicated. There are…it’s not just about us, okay, there’s other factors involved here.”

“Wait a minute. Are you telling me you’ve got another girl in the hills?” Her tone was joking, but her face was serious as she said, “Please don’t tell me you’ve got a girlfriend you’re cheating on with me. I’d rather not have to kill you.”

It just got worse every minute. “No! No, it’s nothing like that.” Maybe…it was stupid even thinking it, but then again, Jamia knew the truth, and that hadn’t seemed to be a big deal so far. “Okay. I have to tell you something. And it’s really important, and it’s really secret, okay?”

“You’re sure you’re not in a cult?” Lindsey said. “Because this sounds like the part where you tell me about, like, the Apocalypse and how your high priest is gonna keep the human race going via drug-fueled orgies or something.”

Despite the seriousness of what he was considering telling her, Gerard couldn’t help but snort with laughter. “Sounds like a fun cult.”

“I’ve been thinking about starting it myself,” said Lindsey with a straight face, looking more relaxed than she’d been since they started this whole line of conversation.

“Seriously, though, this is a really big deal, and you can’t tell anyone, okay? Because, I mean, it’s not a cult or anything, but we are talking about my family here, and it’s not even that I’d get in trouble for telling you—I probably would, but the thing is, it could be dangerous. But you should know the truth, right? Because that’s what people do when they’re in a relationship; it’s all about trust. That’s what I always heard, anyway.”

She shook her head. “Just spit it out already, Gee,” said Lindsey, rolling her eyes. She was smiling again. She had such a warm smile.

“Okay, so, you know when I was telling you about where I’m from, but I couldn’t actually, you know….”

“Tell me where you’re from?” she offered helpfully.

“Yeah. That.” He nodded. He hoped he wasn’t making a huge mistake. But honesty was the best policy, right? And he really, really, liked Lindsey. He didn’t like lying to her, and he didn’t like the thought that after this summer, not only would they be split up, but she wouldn’t even know why he had to go. Maybe she’d think he was the kind of person who couldn’t care about people for very long. She already seemed to maybe think he was the kind who would cheat on another girlfriend or boyfriend for a summer fling. “Okay. I want to do that. I want to tell you where I’m from. But you have to promise you won’t freak out.”

She frowned. “Freak out? Why the hell would I freak out? You’re not going to tell me my dad was cheating on my mom and you’re my half-brother or something, are you?”

What? “No,” he said. “It’s not like that. Just…promise you won’t freak, okay?”

“Sure,” said Lindsey. “I promise not to freak. Unless you tell me something really freaky.”

Gerard sighed; clearly, that was the best he was going to get. “Um. So, you know how there are a ton of planets that, you know, people don’t even know about, because they’re too far away?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Well. I’m from one of those planets.”

She was silent for a long moment before breaking into a grin. “Ha. I knew it.”

Huh. He had to say, she was taking this a lot better than he’d expected. “You did?”

“Sure. I had a feeling from the start you weren’t from planet Earth.” She reached out to take his hand. “Gerard. Seriously, it’s okay. If you can’t talk about where you’re from, I’m not gonna push you. It’s clearly a big deal to you. We can find a way to deal with it after the tour’s over, right?”

“Wait. You think I’m joking?” No wonder she wasn’t surprised. Her expression said clearly, Duh, of course I think you’re joking. Maybe that was the point at which he should have just laughed it off, said, “Yeah, okay, guess I need to work on saying this shit with a straight face.” But this was it, this was his chance—there was pretty much no way in the world that they could negotiate a long-distance relationship after the summer if she didn’t know the truth, and even if it was possible, he didn’t want to. He didn’t want to be in a relationship where he had to come up with lies and half-truths about where he was from and who he was. He wanted her to know the truth.

“I’m not,” he said, as firmly as he could. “Lindsey, I mean it. I’m an alien. We crash-landed when I was little, and now we live by ourselves out in the mountains.”

“Oh, ha, ha,” she said. She pushed at his shoulder with a frustrated huff. “Very funny.”

“I’m not joking!” Gerard could feel his mental shields fading, but he couldn’t focus enough to put them back together, not with Lindsey’s growing irritation jabbing at his mind like a sharp stick.

She rolled her eyes. “For God’s sake, Gerard. If you don’t want to tell me, don’t tell me, but don’t act like I’m completely stupid.”

“I don’t think you’re stupid.” He had to find some way to prove it to her, to prove he wasn’t just some lying douche. It took a moment, but he thought of something—not the best plan, maybe, not the smartest, but whatever. He took off his shoes. “I know it sounds crazy, but....Watch, okay. I’ll show you.” He paused. “Wait, I should tell you—part of the alien thing is that I kind of have super powers. Like, telekinesis and stuff.”

“Sure,” Lindsey said flatly, standing up. “I’m gonna take off. Good luck with all that, uh, alien stuff.”

“Wait!” He stood up, too, frantically grabbing his harmonica out of his pocket. “Watch this.” He blew a short, sharp note, and the shoes flew into the air between them.

Lindsey stared at the shoes, her eyes huge. It didn’t seem like enough, though, so he played just a bit of the chorus of “Don’t Stop Me Now,” making the shoes do a twirly little dance in mid-air. That didn’t seem like enough, either, so he lifted a pile of dead leaves and formed them into an outline of a person. He made the person bend over like he or she was putting on the shoes and then do a flailing dance, his/her leafy limbs making big, sweeping gestures. Finally, he ran out of breath and let them all fall to the ground, lifeless again. “That’s the kind of stuff we can do,” he said. “Aliens, I mean.”

There was a long silence, in which Gerard hopefully studied Lindsey’s blank face for any sign that she understood, that she was okay with all this. Then, Jesus, Gerard heard, and it took him a moment to figure out that it was coming from Lindsey, because he didn’t usually hear people’s thoughts so clearly. But she might as well have been shouting into a microphone, she was broadcasting so clearly to him. Did he fucking slip me a roofie or something? But when? We’re not drinking anything, and I’m pretty sure date-rape drugs are supposed to make you…unconscious or something, not fucking delusional. What the hell did he do?

Gerard felt like he’d been punched in the stomach. She thought he was a rapist? Had he really come across that creepy? He’d thought the little dance was--well, he’d been aiming for “cute” or something, and he’d felt pretty good about his ability not to be a creep after that talk with Frank, too. But now she thought…. “I wouldn’t do something like that,” he blurted out, sounding indignant and plaintive even to his own ears. “Never, never ever. Swear to God.”

Lindsey, who’d raised a hand to her mouth and started chewing on her fingernails, froze and stared at Gerard, and he remembered with sickening sharpness that she hadn’t been talking out loud. “Sorry,” he began, “I didn’t mean to….” But how on earth was she gonna believe that he hadn’t been prying into her head, when she already thought he was lying and probably drugging her and now maybe she thought he’d given her truth serum or he was psychically stealing all her thoughts and oh God she was never going to talk to him ever again.

She blinked a few times and put her hands in her pockets. “I have to go now,” she said, looking at some space a few feet to the right of Gerard’s head. The inside of her mind sounded like a fire alarm, with an undercurrent of shitshitshitshitshit.

“Okay,” said Gerard, feeling like someone had nailed his heart to the tree behind him. “Do you want me to….” He didn’t even know how he was gonna finish that sentence. “Walk you back to the MSI bus?” “Call later?” “Go away and never darken your door again?” But he couldn’t even finish, because she closed her eyes and shuddered, and it was all Gerard could do to say, “Okay,” again without crying.

She turned around and gave him one last nervous look over her shoulder before walking away. Gerard watched as she vanished past the trees and tried to concentrate on not tearing tree branches off with his mind. Sometimes when he was really unhappy, shit like that just happened, but this wasn’t the place, not where someone could come up and see him. Somehow being seen hadn’t seemed like such a big deal when he was showing Lindsey, but now Gerard felt like the whole faraway crowd could see him, even though he was all alone.

He bent down to put his shoes back on. His hands trembled while he tried to tie the laces, so he just shoved them down the sides of the shoes and tried not to think about how much his throat hurt.

**

For a moment, all he could do was stare blankly at Mikey, and next to him, Ray was doing the same. He’d expected something bad, when Mikey’d called Ray’s cell phone sounding as urgent as Mikey ever sounded, but to hear his fears confirmed like that….

“Fuck,” said Bob. He tried to think of something more intelligent to add to that, but he couldn’t get past the mental image of those fuckers with the guns, demanding that Gerard and Mikey be handed over like they were bombs or missile codes and not scared kids, holding a gun to Frank’s head. That was as far as he could get before he came back to “Fuck.”

“Well. Okay,” said Ray. He bit his lower lip and looked at the floor for a moment before meeting Bob’s eyes. “What’s the plan?”

Plan? They weren’t exactly the secret agents here. They only really had the one lifeline to fall back on in emergencies. “We call Schechter, and the boys go home,” he said. “What the hell else can we do?” Mikey looked like he didn’t know whether to be relieved or sullen about this idea, but what the fuck ever, Mikey was seventeen, and this wasn’t up to him to decide.

“But see, okay, I was thinking about this,” said Ray. If he was managing to get any thinking done, he was doing better than Bob, who could only stare while Ray threw a hand to one side in a vague, questioning gesture. “How could those guys have figured out that the kids are back? They’re not using their old names, and they’ve been really good about not using their powers, no thanks to me, and I really, really don’t think Jamia gave them away to the feds. The only thing I can think of is that someone saw Brian teleporting when they first got here.”

“So?” Bob wasn’t entirely sure it mattered how the FBI had found out; they were all in deep shit anyway.

“So, if we call Brian and he has to teleport in, won’t that alert them to where the boys are?” Ray folded his hands in his lap, looking solemn. “Right now, all they can know is that the boys have some connection with Pete Wentz, which, let’s face it, they already knew, and that they’re back among Earthlings. It’s scary, sure, but the U.S. is a big place, and we’re already hundreds of miles from Wolf Mountain. How would they even find us?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” said Bob, feeling his temper rise. “Maybe they’d check the computer file on us.”

“But Brian--”

“He erased those FBI agents’ minds. I don’t remember him saying anything about erasing their computers. You think they don’t have a file on Mikey and Gerard? And when I got arrested, I’m pretty sure they filed a report, especially after the kids broke me out. They might not have filed charges, but I’m pretty sure they’ve got my name down in association with those kids, and a touring rock band’s not actually that hard to find if you have the fucking internet. And if they find the boys, we don’t even know what kind of shit will happen. What if they, like, do experiments on them? What if they find Wolf Mountain, and this whole thing turns into an FBI-alien war?” Bob could hear his voice getting louder as he went on, but he couldn’t do much to stop it. And he didn’t particularly want to, either.

Ray didn’t say anything for a long moment once Bob had finished, staring incredulously at him. Then his eyes narrowed and he said, “You seriously need to chill. What do you want to do, go hide in the woods? We’re on tour, and all we know is that they’re looking for the kids. We can’t make any moves until we know more, and until then, you need to calm the fuck down.”

“Calm yourself the fuck down,” Bob retorted, and he would have said more, but at that moment Gerard trekked in, looking as depressed as Bob had ever seen him.

Ray frowned and said, “Hey, Gee, what’s up?”

Gerard looked down at the floor, tugging absent-mindedly at his hair with one hand. “Um. So, I think Lindsey and me broke up.”

It seemed like a ridiculously unimportant little drama in the midst of all the other shit going down, but Gerard had really seemed to like her a lot, and Bob managed to calm himself down long enough to say, “What happened?”

Gerard’s mouth crumpled for a moment before he managed to straighten it out again and say, “Well. She was kind of pissed because—I don’t know, I was being weird about not telling her where we’re from. Keeping secrets and stuff. So I told her. About the alien thing, and the super powers, and I tried to show her….I don’t know, I thought she’d be cool with it, but she freaked.”

Bob was so shocked for a moment that he couldn’t even find words to speak. What finally came out was, “You what?!” How, how, how could someone as smart as Gerard be so fucking stupid?

Gerard’s eyes got huge, and he said quickly, “I don’t think she’s gonna tell anyone, but I wanted to be honest, and--”

Bob had heard pretty much all he needed to. “What the fuck were you thinking?” Clearly, he hadn’t done a good enough job of impressing upon Gerard—on all the boys, really—that summer flings were not the be all and end all of romance and they sure as hell weren’t excuses to blab their extremely dangerous secrets to any girl who gave them the time of day. “Do you even get that you just put all of us—and probably Lindsey, too—in a fuckload of danger?” Gerard’s mouth started opening and closing like a fish’s, but Bob wasn’t done yet. “Do you not even remember when that asshole from the FBI threatened to shoot Frank in the head? Have you stopped for a minute to think about what those guys are gonna do if they ever get their hands on you—or what happens if they find out from you where the rest of your fucking alien commune is? Do you have any fucking idea what the words ‘low-profile’ mean?”

“Hey, what’s going on?” It was Frank.

Bob took a deep breath and turned to look at the doorway, where Frank and Mikey were staring at him and Ray and Gerard. “The FBI’s back,” said Bob tersely. “Gerard thought it’d be a great time to tell his girlfriend about the alien shit. So now of course, she’s freaking out, and someone’s gonna have to do damage control, because I’m pretty sure she doesn’t want to talk to Gerard right now.”

“Wait, what?” Frank looked alarmed, now. Had Mikey not told him about the whole “FBI agents stalking them” thing? “Does that mean—do we have to go home?”

“Probably,” Bob said, ignoring Ray’s pissed-off glare. Sending the boys back to the mountain seemed like the only safe option—at least there, there was a whole mob of super-powered aliens who could keep the FBI away with mind rays or whatever.

Frank rounded on Gerard, scowling. “What the fuck, Gerard? This is the first time in years that I get to be the normal one and you go and fuck it all up!”

“Hey, fuck you,” said Mikey flatly. “You told Jamia, like, five seconds after you recognized her.” Shit, shit, shit, Jamia knew, too? One more person for Bob to worry about, excellent.

“Fuck off, Mikey,” Frank snarled.

“No, you fuck off. This whole thing sucks, but--”

“Oh, what, you know all about what I’m going through, because you’re the psychic one, right?” He laughed, bitterly enough that Bob winced even through his own anger. “It’s not like either of you give a shit whether I’m happy or not, or you wouldn’t have dragged me off from everything and everyone I’d ever known to fucking grow alien vegetables in the middle of nowhere with you.”

Ouch. Bob felt a little of his anger wane as it was replaced by a desire to keep the kids from killing each other. Frank looked like he was ready to get into a fist fight with anyone who looked at him funny, and Mikey, who probably could kill Frank just by looking at him, looked like he was seriously considering it. Gerard just looked profoundly, profoundly unhappy.

Ray stepped forward, obviously about to do the peacemaker thing that he did so well. But before he could even begin, Gerard said, “I’m sorry.” His face was pale and miserable, and he rubbed anxiously at his nose before saying, “Really. I’m really sorry. You know I’d never—you guys—I wouldn’t—she won’t--I’m really, really sorry!” With one last, almost desperate glance around the RV, he scuttled out of the door, vanishing into the darkness.

In the tense silence that followed, Frank clenched and unclenched his fists several times while Mikey stared at him, lips pressed together and eyebrows condemning. Finally Frank muttered, “I’m gonna go find Jamia and tell her what’s up.” Gerard hadn’t even closed the door, so Frank didn’t have to go to much effort to echo his dramatic exit, doing Gerard one better by slamming the door behind him.

Well. Whatever anger Bob had managed to hold onto was pretty much demolished at this point, replaced by the feeling that he’d been just about as much of an asshole as he could possibly have been.

“Somebody better go after Gerard,” said Mikey, his narrowed eyes in Bob’s direction making it pretty clear who that somebody should be. “He feels like shit enough as it is, and if he thinks we’re gonna get hurt because of him, he might do something stupid.”

“Jesus Christ,” said Ray with a sigh, sitting on the couch and burying his face in his hands.

Bob hesitated. “Ray….” He’d been a dick to Ray, too, even before Gerard had come in.

Ray waved a hand in a dismissive gesture. “Go. Go make sure Gerard’s not hurling himself off a building. I’ll handle Frank—we can talk later.”

“Thanks,” said Bob, taking a moment to squeeze Ray’s shoulder. “I’ll make it up to you.”

Ray brought up one hand to cover Bob’s and squeezed once before letting go. “You better, buddy.”

Mikey rolled his eyes and went to the refrigerator, probably to drown his sorrows in Tab. Bob didn’t stay to watch. It was pretty dark out, now, and he didn’t have the first idea where Gerard might go when he was upset.

As it turned out, it wasn’t really that difficult—Gerard was huddled in the tall grass by the side of the road, and Bob just about tripped over him. “Fuck,” said Bob. “Sorry about that.” Gerard just shrugged. Bob couldn’t make out his expression in the gloom, but his hunched posture spoke volumes.

Bob sat down carefully beside him, not wanting to crowd him. The grass was itchy against his bare legs, but at least the night air was a little cooler. “Sorry about blowing up on you like that, too,” he said. “I was freaked. I shouldn’t have taken it out on you.”

“It’s okay,” said Gerard in a gloomy, choked-sounding tone. “You were right. I was really stupid.”

“Yeah, maybe,” Bob said, “but you didn’t bring the FBI down on us. Mikey got a call from Patrick Stump today—apparently, some guy over there keeps calling him to harass him about the adoption papers Wentz’s people drew up for you. There’s some kind of information missing, or something.”

Gerard inhaled sharply and looked up from his knees, meeting Bob’s eyes for the first time. “Fuck,” he said solemnly. “Is he one of the guys from before?”

“I don’t know.” They didn’t know that much at all, Bob realized. “Mikey didn’t say.”

Gerard looked away for a moment. “This sucks,” he said in a low voice. “This was supposed to be the best summer ever, and now it’s all fucked up.”

Bob couldn’t help it anymore. He stretched an arm around Gerard’s shoulders, and Gerard leaned in, sighing into Bob’s shoulder. “Hey,” said Bob. “It’s not totally fucked up yet. We just have to be careful. Wait and see what these FBI guys really know—if they know anything at all, besides that your papers are fake. If we have to call your Uncle Brian, we will, but don’t worry about it too much yet, okay?” If only Bob could listen to his own words, he thought wryly. Or Ray’s, for that matter.

“Thanks for saying that, Bob,” said Gerard, still sounding melancholy.

The biggest problem with psychic kids—you couldn’t lie to them, even when you were just trying to protect them. Instead of thinking of something reassuring to say, Bob asked, “So what’s going on with Lindsey?”

Gerard was silent for a long moment, and Bob worried that maybe this wasn’t something he was ready to talk about. Finally, though, he said, “Movies and stuff are such bullshit, you know? Like, I feel like when people say this kind of stuff in movies, like even when they’re coming out and shit, they’re supposed to tell the truth. People are always more mad that they lied than that they’re gay or a spy or an alien or whatever, like they didn’t trust them. But I told her the truth. I didn’t want to lie. And now she hates me, and maybe the FBI’s gonna go after her so they can get Mikey and me, and it’s all my fault for being such a fucking moron.” His voice failed a few times near end, and Bob ached for him. He’d gotten spoiled with Ray, used to knowing that there was always someone he loved and who loved him. He hadn’t worried about being alone or dating or any of that shit for six years.

“Hey,” he said, trying to sound as comforting as he could. It came out sounding kind of gruff, but Bob thought that Gerard would probably get what he meant. “It’s okay. I’ll talk to her, or Ray’ll talk to her or something. I don’t think she’s gonna tell anyone, but we can just check. And I bet you anything she doesn’t hate you.”

“I’m pretty sure she does,” Gerard said.

Bob had seen the two of them floating around the tour for the last two weeks like they were starring in their own old-fashioned romance movie, and he was pretty sure that kind of stuff didn’t go away just like that just because a guy told a girl he was an alien. At least not when the guy was Gerard—because there was no way Lindsey could have spent the amount of time with him that she had without realizing that the kid was a little quirky. “She probably thinks you’re lying, or you’re playing a joke on her or something,” he said. “Maybe she thinks you’re delusional. But I don’t think she hates you.”

“Well, either way, she doesn’t want to see me,” Gerard said dejectedly.

That was life, pretty much---you had to deal with relationships ending, even with people you really liked. Bob wasn’t sure Gerard would be particularly happy to hear that at this point, though, so he just made a sympathetic “Hmm” noise and said, “That sucks.”

“You ever feel like life’s really fucking unfair?” Gerard asked. “Like, all this shit happened when Frank and Mikey and me were kids, but then we found Grandma, and that was supposed to be our happy ending, you know? But it wasn’t for Frank—you heard him, it sucks for him at the Republic. And it wasn’t really for Mikey and me, either, because Grandma died—and what the shit is that all about? I mean, okay, I can do stuff with my mind, but there’s people on Wolf Mountain who can do crazy shit with their minds, moving molecules around and stuff. They fixed Mikey’s eyes. But they couldn’t stop Grandma from dying. They kept zapping the cancer, but it kept coming back, and at the end….” Gerard shook his head. “What the hell’s the point of it all?”

It did strike Bob as unfair that any kids should have to lose their parental figures as often as Gerard and Mikey and Frank seemed to, but that didn’t change the fact that it happened. “Your grandma went through a lot, right?” Surviving a war and moving to another planet counted as a lot in Bob’s book. “I mean, I didn’t know her, but I’d think that would take a lot out of you. Was she pretty old?”

Gerard nodded. “Yeah. She was like a hundred and fifty or something.”

Um. Okay. Well, if Bob had ever wondered whether the folks on Wolf Mountain had a different lifespan from humans, that question was answered. “Well,” he said. “No one can live forever. Not even you guys.”

“I know,” said Gerard with a sigh. “I just miss her, you know? She made me feel…not alone.”

“Hey.” Bob knocked lightly on Gerard’s head with the hand that wasn’t resting on his shoulder. “Dumbass. You’re not alone. What are Ray and Mikey and Frank and me, chopped liver? I mean, Frank’s pissed off right now, but he loves you. We all do.”

Gerard sniffed loudly. “Yeah, I know,” he said, his voice just a tad quavery. “Me, too. I mean, I love you guys. I just…I don’t know, I kind of hurt right now.”

“Hey, that happens,” said Bob, squeezing Gerard’s shoulder a little tighter. “Happens to everyone. But it gets better, I swear.”

“Okay.” Gerard took a deep breath, and even in the dark, Bob thought maybe he looked a little determined. “Okay.”

Part 6