Family Reunion

We are lurking in the bushes outside my house. The house Lo'laan and I shared, eight cycles ago, in what seems like another lifetime. I hadn't realized how much being here again was going to hurt. Or maybe I just didn't want to think about it. It's hard not to think about it now, though, knowing what's going on in that house at this moment.

When I close my eyes, I can still see it, as if it happened mere microts ago. Lo'laan's battered body, the knife sticking out of her still-bleeding chest. Macton, her brother, who I had always tried to regard as my own brother despite his vicious Peacekeeper ways, standing over her, hurling accusations at me. At me, as he stood there with his own sister's blood on his hands.

I am jolted back to the present (which is also the past... frell, I don't want to think about this time travel dren) by a sound coming from inside the house. A howl of rage and grief and anger, so loud it seems to shake the vegetation in which we're crouched. It takes me a microt to recognize it as myself, my younger self. It sounds so much like an animal. He -- I -- must have just discovered the body.

It won't be long now. I remember it so clearly. Remember how thoughts of Jothee, of Jothee's safety were the only thing that kept me from giving in to the blind, mindless violence of hyper-rage. I remember dashing to Jothee's room as Macton called for the local authorities, called for his Peacekeeper friends. I remember the look of innocent confusion on Jothee's face, how he kept asking, as I ran through the house with him in my arms, "Where's mama?"

My hearts clench brutally in my chest, and I draw in a sharp breath that comes disgustingly close to turning into a sob.

"Are you all right?" comes a small, whispered voice in my ear. It's one of those short, pointy-eared people. She looks gently concerned, and I'm slightly annoyed that she's seen me come this close to losing it in what I cannot help but think of as a battle situation.

"I'm all right," I say grimly. "I'll be all right, once I have my son back." And I find that saying that helps. Soon, I will have my son back.

At just that moment, the front door is flung open. I can hear Macton shouting, his running footsteps. A figure bursts out.

Me. Me, of eight cycles ago. And I'm -- he's carrying Jothee. Jothee. He looks just as I remember him, just as he does in the holo I keep close to my hearts.

I don't even realize that I've started to move, until I feel Inquirer's hand clamping down with bruising strength on my shoulder, holding me back. I feel a moment of firey, unreasoning anger at her, but I remind myself that she is right. I can't reveal myself to my younger self, because I don't remember me being here...

Frell! I hate this time travel dren. It doesn't even make any sense!

"But where are we going?" comes the young voice. "Why do we have to go?"

"Not us, son. You." My own voice. Did I really sound like that? "I've preset the co-ordinates. It'll take you to safety. Don't touch anything."

"But, Dad, what's...?"

"There's no time!" I wince slightly at the harshness in his voice. What must Jothee have thought? What memory of this night did he keep with him? Er, would he have kept with him? Ah, frell. Time travel, again.

I hear the engines of the flyer begin to power up. My younger self kisses his son on the forehead and says, "I love you Jothee. Never forget that." And he turns and runs back into the house, to stall Macton. To give Jothee time to get away. It doesn't even occur to him to try to get away himself, I remember. He's almost half-hoping that Macton will kill him.

As soon as he's gone, we burst out from our hiding place. As I recall, we've got about two hundred microts before anyone shows up. Before I'm captured and led away in chains.

I nearly rip the door off of the flyer to get to Jothee, and then he's out of the flyer and in my arms. He's crying, and his face is full of confusion, but I can barely see it through my own tears as I crush him to my chest. "Jothee," I hear myself saying, "my son, my son..."

Inquirer grabs my arm and leads me away from the flyer just before it takes off with the roar I remember hearing from inside the house.

One of the pointy-eared people seems to suddenly materialize out of nowhere beside us. "Peacekeepers," he says. "Coming this way fast. We've got to get going now."

1. And we run for the TARDIS, me clutching Jothee to my chest so hard that I will wonder later how he was even able to breathe...

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