Reading Time: 96 Minutes

Title: A Brother’s Protection
Author: ThirteenRedVampireBites
Fandom: 9-1-1
Genre: Crossover, Dimension Travel, Family, Fusion, Hurt/Comfort, Kid!fic, Pre-Relationship
Relationship(s): Gen, Minor Pairings
Content Rating: R
Warnings: Hate Speech, Discussion – Child Abuse, Discussion – Suicide, Implied Deaths Off Screen, Homophobia, Racism, Discussion – Violence, Health Issues and their consequences, Not Maddie Friendly,
Author Note: Please see notes in master post
Beta: Grammarly was an okay friend.
Alpha: didbuckygetaplum
Word Count: 123,305
Summary: Daniel happens to overhear one conversation he shouldn’t have. His resulting Emergence changes the lives of every member of their family. One brother’s protective instincts set the world on an entirely different course. Some changes are for good, and some just take a left turn.
Artist: didbuckygetaplum

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Part 13—A Phone call

Daniel had been surprised to find a phone in his room when his grandparents were finished setting up his permanent bedroom. The dumbfounded look on his face had to have been funny for his grandparents since they’d shared a smirking look with Max before sitting him down for a conversation. But to be fair, when he was living with his birth givers, the only phones in the house had been in the living room and their bedroom, and they’d been strictly controlled as Adult use only.

“You’re thirteen, Daniel,” Miranda had started, resting her chin in her hand as she dropped her elbow to the arm of the couch. “We can trust you to behave maturely about having a phone. And we’re sure there are going to be conversations that you don’t want us overhearing—whether it’s discussions with your brother or your uncles, or even something like planning Christmas presents and not wanting anyone to know.”

“The only things we expect from you is that you hang up if we ask you to, you don’t spend all night on the phone, and you let us know if you’re planning to call Maddie,” Anders explained. “If you’re planning to speak to your sister, we’ll set it up for you since your parents are banned from contacting you in any form.”

Daniel had thought those were fairly simple rules. He wasn’t sure he would ever want to talk on the phone long enough for his grandparents to request that he get off the phone, and honestly, with how she’d acted during that first meeting between them, Daniel wasn’t sure he wanted to be involved with Maddie right now. Not to mention, he didn’t really have anyone to call; maybe once a week while his grandparents were away, his Aunts and Uncles when he felt like it, and Liam or Lyra pretty much every other day, but otherwise, he’d didn’t really have friends or anyone outside of the family to talk to that weren’t constantly around—Killian was probably the only exception. Daniel had started occasionally calling his god-uncle to ask him some questions about how being in the Navy actually worked, especially as a Legacy.

–

The night after that first focused healing session, Daniel went to his room after dinner and called Liam. The phone rang twice before Mathilda answered, “Blumenthal residence, Mathilda speaking.”

“Hi, ‘Ilda,” Daniel greeted. He’d finally worked up the courage to not call Mathilda and Yarrick by any formal titles, but he wasn’t to the point of calling them Mum and Abba like his Bonds to them were pushing him. He figured it wouldn’t take long for him to get to that point, but it hadn’t happened yet.

Daniel could hear the smile in Mathilda’s voice as she greeted him back, “Oh, Daniel, honey.” There was a bit of rustling on her side before she continued, “Liam is just finishing with the dishes, so if you want to listen to Lyra talk through her math homework, I can give you over to her, or I can ask about your healing today; I know that Tyreen had planned something different as far as Max was aware.”

Daniel chewed on the inside of his lip for a moment before sighing through his nose. “I don’t really want to talk about my healing for the day; sorry, ‘Ilda. So I’d like to listen to Lyra with her math homework instead, please.”

“That’s perfectly fine, honey,” Mathilda assured him, and there was some rustling before he could hear Mathilda briefly knocking on Lyra’s door. “Lyra, darling, Daniel’s on the phone. Can you talk to your brother while Liam finishes in the kitchen?”

A muffled “Yes, Mum!” and then some noise as the phone changed hands before Lyra’s voice came through the phone much louder, “Hi, Daniel!”

“Hi, Lyre,” he greeted, “Are you having some problems with your math homework?”

“A little bit,” Lyra admitted with a sigh, and he could hear her tapping her pencil on the top of her desk. “This long addition is hard sometimes for my brain to remember.”

“Walk me through it then,” Daniel pushed gently, curling up amongst his pillows with the phone carefully balanced against his ear and another square for the blanket he and Miranda were working on in his hands. “Sometimes that helps.”

Lyra sighed gustily but did as requested. She explained that she was trying to add three five-digit numbers together. She was copying out each question onto a separate piece of paper that had more space to show her work, and she’d finished most of it, but the last four questions were big ones like this. And while they were optional, she liked challenging herself, the same as her brothers.

“Alright, so what’s one way you can make it easier for yourself?” Daniel questioned leadingly. He knew a couple of ways that he could make this easier for her, but he wanted to know what she thought could be a good idea to try.

“I can…” He waited for Lyra to come to a decision, adding another row to his square. “I can split it up. I can add the first two numbers together first, then add the third one in after I’m done. Or I could split it up by value—ones, tens, hundreds, thousands, ten-thousands. It would be a lot easier to do either, but it would be a lot more work to put the second one down on paper that way. But this is the first of the four hard ones…”

“You could also just add them as is,” Daniel reminded. “But I know it can be hard, so you could attempt one of those options for this first one. Show that you can do it one of the longer but simpler ways, then do it another way for the others. Or you can do all three for these questions.” Lyra hummed, and Daniel smiled at the thoughtful sound as he waited for Lyra to come to a decision.

“I think I’ll try it,” she declared just as another muffled knock sounded on her side of the line. “Come in!” she called, and Daniel could hear her pulling the phone away from her shoulder to talk to whoever had come into the room. Daniel wasn’t paying attention since he was coming to a corner in his square, so it took him a minute to recognize Liam’s voice when his brother spoke close by, “Are you getting it now? Did Daniel help?”

“Yes, but can you check it when I’m done?” Lyra asked faintly, the phone likely having changed hands by that point since her voice was so quiet.

“Yes, Lyre, I’ll check it when you’re done. But I’m gonna take the phone to my room, so knock when you’re done,” Liam murmured, then the sound of him pressing a smacking kiss to the top of Lyra’s head before some noise as he left her room for his own across the hall. There was a heavy thump as Liam flopped out on his bed, full-bodied with a heavy sigh.

“Okay there, Liam?” Daniel laughed, rolling onto his other side and pressing the phone between his head and the pillow.

“It’s been a long day,” Liam groaned. “I had another evaluation at the Manhattan Center, but this time it was a twofold eval; I had my yearly medical evaluation to add to my file, and they had a Guide Healer come in to evaluate my psionic profile again, same as they have every six months since I started puberty.”

Daniel wrinkled his nose, “I mean, it makes sense, I guess. You feel like you could come Online at any moment, so it would make sense to keep a well-documented chronicle of how your psionics are changing as you get older.”

Liam grunted. “I know, but they’ve been saying that since I was first registered with the Center at three once we moved to New York for good from New Jersey. I just hate the probing.” He sighed.

“But how you feel is different to how Uncle Owen feels,” Daniel pointed out. “Uncle Owen feels like a Sentinel, ’cause he was one, so he feels like he could come back Online as a Sentinel at any moment, and in his profession it will be sooner rather than later I think. You, on the other hand, don’t really feel like anything specific.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, it changes all the time; it’s like something inside you can’t settle on whether you’re going to be a Guide or a Sentinel, and you’re the only other person than Evan I’ve ever felt that from,” Daniel explained. “Killian feels like a Sentinel, even Latent and having never come Online before, but you and Ev, it’s like every time we turn around, you feel like something else. You might feel like a Guide one minute, but then the next, you’re a Sentinel, and sometimes you feel like both and neither; you’re a mix of feelings that is kinda confusing. I don’t know what you’ll end up being, and that’s part of everyone’s confusion, I think, that you don’t feel like anything specific like most Latents do.” Daniel shrugged. “Tyreen’s talked about getting a Shaman to look at Evan, but not for another year or so, just because he’s so little, and babies often change what they’re going to be eventually. If he keeps feeling like he’s so fluid, Aunt Max is going to contact the Wolf Guide she knows in Cascade and see what he has to say; he’s one of the most well-trained Guides in all of North America, and he knows a lot about obscure Protectorate history than most other members of the Tribe.”

Daniel waited out the silence of Liam’s thinking, wondering himself what was going through his older brother’s head until finally, he couldn’t help the question that had been floating around his head. “Do you… want? To come Online?” Daniel questioned.

Liam hummed a low tone, pausing for another moment to think through that question. “I suppose it depends,” he admitted, the sound of rustling coming over the phone as he moved around the bed. “Firstly, it depends on why and when I come Online. If I come Online because of trauma, well, I can’t control that. I come Online when I come Online. If it’s because I finally tripped over that age line that a lot of Latents do—where it is either come Online or don’t—I think I’d rather not come Online, considering that age is usually late forties, or early fifties. I’d be too old by then to really settle into my Gifts quickly enough for my own comfort. If I came Online because someone needed me… well, of course I’d be fine with that; I’m needed, and I’m Called.”

There was quiet for a moment before Liam continued, “I saw that happen once. Me and Mum had a just-us day, and I wanted to go to Central Park and walk around. We were walking on a path, following a nice lady with a dog and her young adult daughter, when the daughter suddenly stopped in her tracks and turned to face a thick woody part of the park. Her mom called her name, but she didn’t respond before she suddenly took off. Mom and dog followed, and then about five minutes later, an S-G ambulance and a Guardian Pair showed up. Turned out the girl’s Sentinel tripped in the woods and broke his leg; the pain was enough to bring them both Online and sent the Sentinel into a Zone. Her mom was a Latent nurse working at the Brooklyn Center, so she called it in.”

“Grandad told me a lot of stories like that from his service,” Daniel agreed. “And some that Grandpa Angus told him from World War Two. Like the time Grandpa A’s Sergeant came Online and basically singlehandedly saved the lives of everyone on the line with him because his Guide came Online after getting shot in the arm, and his blood sent the Sergeant into a Feral Rage. That Feral Combat Drive got him a promotion, and the two had about five weeks of Bonding Leave—a first for the American Army at the time.”

Liam hummed in agreement. “But if I really had a choice in it… I don’t know that I want to come Online right now,” he admitted. “I have plans for my future that coming Online would kind of… interrupt?”

Daniel frowned. “What kind of plans?” he questioned hesitantly.

It was quiet for a moment, just the sound of their breathing as Liam decided whether he wanted to answer that question, and Daniel wondered if he’d asked the wrong question. Liam sighed deeply, clicking his tongue for a moment before he spoke. “Don’t tell Grandad yet; I want to tell him myself,” Liam warned, distant snapping only just audible through the phone as he anxiously clicked his fingers. When Daniel hummed in agreement, he continued, “I want to join the Marines after high school. And coming Online before I can finish training would put a major damper on my plans since, depending on what I actually come Online as, I could be out of commission for months as I learn how to use my Gifts.”

“And it’s going to be better if you come Online later?” Daniel asked quizzically.

“A lot better. Both the UN and the American Armed Forces have policies in place that would be beneficial if I came Online after finishing Basic. First,” Liam shuffled, and from the sound of it, he was changing position on the bed again, “I wouldn’t have to defer for the time it takes me to get a handle on my Gifts; I wouldn’t be losing time served or opportunities for the time I have to be on Leave for that training—in fact, they’d likely send me for specialized training as soon as I was done with my Center training. Second, the US Armed Forces have some of the best Military Centers on the planet, really only beaten out by Japan, Germany, Greece, the Scandinavian Nations, and Canada; they’re some of the most well-connected Centers in the world. Third, going back to the specialized training, being Online means I can get specific training that most personnel doesn’t receive without a special recommendation or circumstance. In some cases, it can also mean I get promoted a lot quicker than my peers.”

“There has to be a downside to this,” Daniel replied sceptically. “It sounds too good to be true.”

Liam huffed a laugh. “In a way, I suppose it does. And I guess the most dangerous downside is that I would be assigned or offered more combat postings than the standard.” There was another round of snapping before he continued, “And the more annoying downside is that I would be expected to attend the Mixers and Meet-and-Greets that the branches set up. And depending on what I come Online as—Sentinel versus Guide; Low-, Mid-, or High-Level; Spirit Guide; Hierarchy—it could be a major hassle as the upper echelon shoves theoretically good match after good match at me for a variety of reasons.”

“So you’d basically turn into their show pony until you find your Match,” Daniel huffed.

“That’s about the make of it,” Liam agreed with a sigh. “But I want to continue our family traditions. Generations of our families have served our country or their Motherland in the military; Grandad, Grandma, Aunt Max for a brief time with the Peacekeepers, cousins, and further back. There’s only so many of us in this generation, and I would like to be the first to follow in their footsteps. Not to mention that it’s one of the more common professions for us as part of our imperative, Online or not, is to protect.”

Daniel chewed his lip, nodding along since Liam’s reasons were ones that had run through his own mind. “You can’t tell anyone what I’m about to say either,” he warned, and when Liam grunted in understanding, he continued in a whisper, keeping an eye on the door. Even if there weren’t any Sentinels in the house currently, you could never know what a Guide might pick up. “I want to join the Navy. Maybe. If I’m allowed.”

“And if you aren’t allowed?”

“Something to do with law? Either a lawyer, or something with the justice system?” Daniel shrugged, finishing off his square with another cluster of stitches. “Maybe I’ll get a Math degree for fun. I’m not entirely sure.”

“Was there anything you wanted to specialize in?”

“If I get into the Navy, I was thinking Hospitalman like Killian; I like the idea of healing people. And with my Gifts, I feel like I could do a lot to help with them. If I can’t get into the Navy, well, I think I’d like to do something focusing on kids; no one should have to live with the things that Evan and I did because of our birth givers.” Daniel reached for the scissors on his nightstand to cut the yarn and fully finish his square. He set the scissors back and sat up with the phone pinched between his ear and cheek to look down at his square. “It would be family law or social work or something, I think.”

“It sounds like a good plan,” Liam murmured thoughtfully. “You can do it, and I know you’d find fulfilment in doing that kind of work. But you still have plenty of time to get everything sorted out, so don’t rush to decide on anything.”

They were quiet for a long moment, Daniel setting aside the square to take the yarn back up and starting a new square. He finished the magic circle beginning the square before asking quietly, “Have you thought about what it would be like to find your Bonded?”

Liam hummed thoughtfully, a finger tapping against the back of the phone audibly. “Yes, I have,” he admitted after a moment, sighing deeply. “I know the statistics,” he pointed out as a warning, “I know the likelihood at the end of it all is that I would probably be Matched with another Male…” He was quiet for another long minute before admitting, “Which wouldn’t be a hardship for me.”

Daniel stilled as he processed that information. He knew what was happening; Liam was coming out. Daniel hadn’t needed to do so, at least not so far; it was just basic statistics that he would have a male Sentinel—current census put Sentinels at 85% male, while Guides were 79% female—and he hadn’t contradicted anyone who’d commented on that fact. Liam had other options: he could have hidden it since he wasn’t Online and wouldn’t be set on the path toward that being an issue until he did come Online, he could have waited until he actually brought someone home to tell anyone, or he could have ignored it until absolutely necessary. Daniel was happy that Liam had come to trust him enough in the few weeks they’d known each other to come out to him voluntarily.

“It isn’t for me either,” Daniel admitted with a grin. “And that really has nothing to do with my being Online as a Guide.”

Liam laughed, the sound part amusement and part relief. “Silly little brother,” he murmured. It was another moment of silence before he spoke again, “Thanks for taking it so well.”

“You’re welcome,” Daniel told him. “You’re my brother, and of course, I’m going to listen to you and take whatever important things you have to say with every bit of understanding I have in me.” He waited a moment before teasing, “So, your fascination with Mark-Paul Gosselaar…?”

Liam snorted. “How about yours with Tom Cruise?” Daniel squeaked, and Liam laughed before changing the subject, “Now tell me, little brother, how did your healing session for today go?”

Daniel grumbled wordlessly, reaching up to rub his nose before sighing and beginning to tell Liam all about his day.

Part 14—Another Healing

“Ready to see if it held?” Tyreen questioned the next morning after they arrived at the Center. They weren’t ready to go into the psionic plane yet, but they would be going there soon enough once they were settled into the Suite. There was tea to be made and a quick scan to be done before they went anywhere.

Daniel pulled the zipper on his jacket down as he tried to calm his nerves. He took the minute it required to take off his jacket and hang it up on the hangers near the door to think about how he wanted to answer Tyreen’s question. Hands clasped around the edges of the zipper of his jacket, Daniel took a deep breath in before he admitted the truth, “I’m afraid it didn’t work. I’m afraid that it worked a little but not enough to be worth all the effort we put into it. I’m afraid that it’s because it was so small that it seemed to work and that it won’t work all that well with the deeper or larger holes in other places in my mind.”

Tyreen made a rough rumbling sound from the other side of the room as he tugged his own jacket off. “Daniel,” he said soothingly, “no matter how much progress we made, some progress is better than no progress at all. And if we do them in order by depth and width with generalized healings in between, then it will all go faster. Healing the holes will help the general healing work more efficiently which will in turn make the other healing sessions easier. So today, we’re going to see how the healing of yesterday’s hole went. If it went okay, we’ll do a generalized healing now, then we’ll go through your exercises for the day and watch some TV. After lunch, we’ll try healing another hole. And we’ll rinse and repeat until everything is healed and you’re ready to move onto the next steps.” His footsteps sounded on the hardwood floor behind Daniel, and he hung up his jacket before gently directing the boy away from his jacket. He tugged Daniel into a quick hug, swaying them gently before he spoke, “Now, go sit down while I make you some tea, then we’ll get started.” He gave Daniel a soft push towards the nest even as he moved towards the kitchenette to boil water for tea.

Daniel grabbed his bag from the wall near the door and moved to the nest, laying his backpack down next to his usual spot before climbing down into the pile of pillows and blankets rather than using the steps. He sat down amongst his support pillows, tugging his favourite blanket over his lap before turning around to grab his book out of his backpack. He was finally reading The Lord of the Rings; it had taken him a couple of weeks to get through The Hobbit the first time, but then he’d found an illustrated edition at a used book sale Max took him to for another minor test of his shields, and he hadn’t been able to help himself; he’d had to read that one too. The library’s copy of The Lord of the Rings had been signed out the past few times he’d taken a look for it, but he had found an animated version of The Hobbit in the movie section that he’d watched while his Aunt took Evander to the doctor for an appointment. Then the week before, he’d woken up to a package from his grandparents only to find a collective copy of all three books of The Lord of the Rings, so he finally got to read it. He was only a couple of chapters in, but he was liking it just as much as he’d liked The Hobbit.

He set his book to the side, laying it flat on one of the pillows to his right where it wouldn’t get squished or otherwise ruined. He pulled out his latest crochet project, tugging the half-finished hat out of his backpack and setting it on the other side of himself, tucking the crochet hook back into the skein out of the way.

Humming, Tyreen poured the hot water into each mug over the tea bags inside, listening as the water bubbled and boiled as he poured it. He tapped his fingers against the countertop as he watched the tea infuse through the water like ink initially before it finally filled the mug with bright red in one and dark, nearly black, brown in the other. It didn’t take long for the scents of the teas to start filling the room. Daniel’s red tea was a fruity berry tea that smelled like summer and was good to drink, both hot and cold, which was especially necessary for Daniel when he got distracted by his book or a project or even a movie or a program on TV. Tyreen’s tea was a vanilla rooibos with some hints of cinnamon and a little bit of bergamot that filled Tyreen with warmth just from smelling it; he preferred drinking it warm, but it was also possible to drink it cold if he forgot about it—which was good if they were doing any major healing sessions at any point during the day.

“Alright,” Tyreen hummed, using a spoon to carefully fish the teabags out of the cups and set them aside on the little tray they kept on the counter for them to use again later. He added two teaspoons of sugar to his own tea before grasping the cups carefully in each hand, carrying them over to the pit to join Daniel. He handed Daniel’s cup down to him, waiting for the teen to set it aside in the little cupholder behind his head before moving around the other side of the nest to set his own down. Setting it down, he carefully dropped down into his usual spot, pulling a thinner, more lacy crochet blanket over his lap. Focusing on Daniel, he reached for his satchel to pull out his notebook and pens. “Are you ready, Daniel?” he asked as he set his satchel out of the way again, turning to spread the notebook out in his lap.

Daniel took a deep breath before nodding. “As ready as I can be,” he muttered, plucking at the fabric of his blanket, “for something that could change the next few months of healing that we have to go through.” He relaxed as he felt Tyreen’s Gifts reaching out for his own, the tendrils of the older man’s power gently prodding at his shields. He kept as calm as possible as Tyreen examined how his healing had held up, investigating the differences from the scan he’d taken the day before pre-foray into the Spirit Plane.

It took a few minutes before Tyreen opened his eyes and fixed his gaze on Daniel, slowly pulling his power back from touching Daniel. He waited for Daniel to take a drink from his tea before he laid out everything he’d found in his search, even as he reached for a pen to write it all down in the notebook. “Good news first or bad news?”

“Bad news?”

“Well, the hole we filled in yesterday has stayed mostly filled. There was a bit of back sliding in healing in that nothing has grown over the spot yet, even with the regrowth that has happened in some of the trees on the edge of your mindscape, but it will happen eventually. Something will decide to occupy that space, even if it takes a while before it grows.”

“And the good news?”

“The good news,” Tyreen paused to take a sip from his cup, setting it aside again before he continued, “is that with healing that hole, I’ve noticed a bit of healing in other holes close by.” He held up a finger to pause Daniel before he could speak, adding, “It’s not a whole lot of healing. At most it’s an inch or so in either depth or width, so not a lot in the grand scheme of things, but it’s better than it had been in months. That little bit of progress that closing that hole has allowed you to go through is a good indicator of how the rest of this is going to go.”

“So, it’s going to get easier?” Daniel frowned as he tilted his head.

Tyreen nodded, assuring him with a grin, “It’s going to get much easier. With every hole we close, and every bit that closes more or strengthens, everything is going to get easier.”

“Yes!” Daniel cheered, rocking side to side and waving his fists in front of him in sharp circles. “Thank you everything!”

Tyreen laughed in amusement at Daniel’s excitement. “So, are you ready to try doing a general healing and seeing how that goes with this?”

“Yes, please!” Daniel stretched before getting comfortable again. “Let’s do this.”

Tyreen hummed quietly. “We’re going to try a guided session today, so I can keep an eye on how this is going for you.” He shifted the notebook in his lap, flipping to a new page and starting with the usual headings. “Alright,” he said softly when he was finished with the opening of his notes, “I want you to focus on the sound of my voice.”

Daniel nodded and tipped his head back against the pillow behind him. He settled in with Tyreen’s voice in his ear, falling into an easy meditative haze as Tyreen gave him instructions on what to do. The view that his quasi-meditation brought him was like a smoky afterimage of the psionic plane; it was fuzzy and wispy like it wasn’t all there, but it let him spread out like he wasn’t all there either, which let him reach for large portions of his mental landscape all at once rather than small, focused parts that he managed when he was actually on the psionic plane. It made it so much easier to go through the holes and pull them closed, healing bits of his mental landscape in large swaths rather than bit by bit.

Daniel wasn’t sure how long he was in there; he never was entirely sure, but something about this felt a lot quicker and easier than it had been over the months before this. He felt a lot better after this healing session; he wasn’t as exhausted or achy afterwards, and it didn’t feel like he was getting stabbed behind the eye or breathing through a cotton sheet as he had after previous sessions.

“I feel better,” Daniel mused out loud, reaching up to rub his chest in a smooth circle. “I don’t feel like I’m being stabbed in the brain or breathing through fabric.”

“That’s good,” Tyreen agreed, nodding decisively as he wrote some more notes into his notebook. “You were in there for nearly half an hour since you looked like you were having a good run with it. I only pulled you out because you were drifting a bit too much through the fabric of the psionic plane.”

Daniel nodded. He had felt himself drifting deeper into the psionic plane, finding it both easier to touch everything around him and harder to hear Tyreen’s voice as anything other than a whisper on the non-existent wind. He’d never had the problem as badly before now, but it wasn’t hard to imagine that it was because he hadn’t delved as deeply into the psionic plane before now.

Tyreen raised his arm to look at his watch. “Hmm, it’s still early enough that you could get a nap in before lunch if you want after you do your exercises for today.” When Daniel wrinkled his nose, Tyreen couldn’t help but huff a laugh, “I know you hate how much you need and should sleep right now, but it will get better. I’ve noticed that you sleep lighter and for shorter amounts of time unless you have Evander, so it’s better, but you are healing, and your body needs the sleep. As you get better, you won’t need as much sleep.”

Daniel sighed, “I know. I just hate that I can’t do things like other kids my age. I want to be able to go out and be outside or at sporting events or even just walk up all the stairs at home without having to stop at the landing and take a breath.” He tilted his head back and stared up at the ceiling in contemplation. “I can’t wait to be able to go back to school or to go to the park and actually be able to play with Evander instead of just sitting on a bench and watching him play.”

“Soon enough, little wolf,” Tyreen assured him as he pushed himself up from the pit and climbed out to grab Daniel’s weighted cuffs from the cabinet in the kitchen. “Now, let’s get this done so you can relax again.”

Daniel grumbled but got up, carefully climbing out of the nest to get it all done. “I’ll be happy to be able to do real exercise again,” he muttered as he sat on the dining chair to let Tyreen wrap the cuffs around his ankles. At the same time, Daniel reached for the wrist cuffs and strapped them on, lifting his arms up and down to get used to the weight before he got up off the chair. It was the most exercise his doctors were allowing him to do right now—six laps around the Suite with the 1lb weights on his wrists and ankles (it was only two laps around the house at home and only with supervision).

“What do you want to do first?” Tyreen asked him as a distraction as Daniel tapped the wall next to the windows and started his first lap around the main part of the Suite.

“I want to be able to ride my bike again,” Daniel started, briefly pausing as a thought occurred to him. “I’ll need a new bike,” he mused, continuing on his way around the room. “Evander could use my old bike soon enough; Grandad will need to check it first, but it should be okay.”

“You can teach Evander to use it,” Tyreen hummed from the table, sitting on the edge of his seat in case Daniel needed some help. “I bet he’d love that. Did your grandparents finally decide on whether they were going to get him that little toddler bike?”

“They did,” Daniel told him, “They ordered a bright purple thing that came last week. Killian came while you were out with the Guardian Pair to put it together with Aunt Max. They spent a good portion of the afternoon cursing the instructions and Aunt Max had to pour them both some stiff drinks afterwards to make up for it.”

Tyreen both flushed at the mention of Killian—which Daniel thought was hilarious even as he didn’t say anything about it—and laughed at the idea that the instructions had been so bad that they’d need the pick me up afterwards. “That much fun, was it?”

Daniel snickered quietly. “They were so loud that Evander heard them upstairs in his room. It woke him up from his nap and he was very confused at the muffled shouting.”

Tyreen laughed again, throwing his head back. It was an amusing mental image: the idea of Max and Killian sitting around in the garage, parts strewn all over the place with a set of those godawful instructions in one of their hands that they were both looking at in confusion. He could see them arguing about whether those screws went in that spot or another and whether they had the pieces in the right order, getting progressively louder as they struggled to make sure it would come together so that Evander could use it.

“Did they finally get it put together?” Tyreen questioned, one eyebrow raised as he watched Daniel start another lap around the room.

“It took them about two hours to get it all together,” Daniel told him, tapping the wall near the window again as he made his second lap around the room. He shrugged and kept moving, adding, “They put Evander on it, and he had a fun time getting pushed around the living room by Aunt Max.”

“I bet he did,” Tyreen agreed with a grin. He had seen Evander requesting to ride his new bike several times since the bike arrived. He was easily excited by anyone pushing him around the house on it, but he was just as eager to push himself across the floor on it. It was very cute to watch him scoot around the house, following everyone around as they moved through the rooms. “Soon enough, you’ll be able to take him out for bike rides or visits to the park or even walks through the woods surrounding your grandparents’ home without a chaperone.”

“I can’t wait,” Daniel muttered.

It didn’t take Daniel much longer to make it through his necessary exercises. Tyreen rattled off the time it had taken him quickly, grinning at the few minutes it had taken Daniel to do it. It made Daniel exceedingly happy to hear that he was making better time on getting through his laps since it meant that he would be able to add more laps to his itinerary. After all, when they first started changing his medications, he had only been allowed to do one lap around the house and two around the suite, but now he was up significantly from that at three around the house and seven around the suite. He had another doctor’s appointment at the end of the week, and hopefully, by that time, they’d be upping his exercises again.

“Alright,” Tyreen hummed, waiting for Daniel to sit before moving to crouch down in front of his chair so he could take the ankle cuffs off for Daniel. “Take a break while I get lunch settled, then we can watch some TV until later this afternoon. We’ll go through another healing session before we head back to the house for the night. Tomorrow, I think we’ll try doing a healing session outside, as long as the weather keeps to the forecast. It’s supposed to be nice outside, so we’ll see how it goes.”

“That sounds good,” Daniel agreed with a pleased sigh as he set the weights aside on the table for Tyreen to put away. He stretched from head to toe before getting up from the chair, moving back to the nest and dropping down into his spot. He dug his current project out of the blankets, throwing his blanket over his lap. Humming quietly, Daniel carefully tugged the stitch marker holding his working stitch open out of the fabric and tucked it into the pocket of his sweatshirt out of the way before winding the working yarn around his fingers like his grandma had shown him and starting to work. Around and around, he went on the hat, putting in a few inches more of the stitch pattern for the body of it before he started the first round of the cuff as the scent of Tyreen’s amazing mac-and-cheese started filling the room.

“Lunch will be ready in about ten minutes,” Tyreen warned from the kitchenette, shuffling around on the tile floor as he crossed from one spot to the next. He moved to the right to start the kettle again, filling it with more water and setting it to boil.

Daniel made a noise of acknowledgement, focused on his cuff pattern. He added another row around, going slow since he was using a new stitch pattern he’d never done before. He did another row around before he dug into his pocket for the stitch marker to hold his working loops open. He ran his fingers over the rows he already had, wiggling his nose at the texture. “Gross,” he murmured, not liking it but also not wanting to frog it out and start the cuff over. He dug through his backpack for the notebook he kept his crochet and knitting notes in, setting it in his lap before flipping through the pages for the page with the notes on the pattern he was using for the cuff. He tugged the pen out of the coil where he’d tucked it, clicking the pen open to write a quick note into the empty space at the bottom of the page: I hate this stitch for hat cuffs, might be good for scarves or blankets—something flat at least. He clicked the pen closed again and put it back in the coils, closing the notebook and tucking it back into his backpack out of the way.

“Lunch is ready,” Tyreen announced, pulling the pot off the hot burner and onto the other one after turning the stove off. He reached into the cabinets for bowls, bringing them down as he heard Daniel shuffling around in the nest to put his things out of the way so he could get up from the couch. He filled both bowls just as the kettle finished boiling, clicking off as the water roiled inside. “Do you need more tea, Daniel?”

“No, thank you,” Daniel answered before draining the rest of his first cup of tea. “I want some juice instead, please.”

“Alright. Well,” Tyreen pushed the fridge door open with his foot as he poured himself another glass of tea, peeking inside briefly before turning his attention back to the water pouring. “Looks like the fridge was refilled with apple and cranberry juice—oh, and some orange-peach cocktail.”

“I’ll have some of the orange-peach, please,” Daniel replied, walking over to the dining table and setting his teacup in front of his spot, pulling out his chair to sit down. He squirmed into place, leaning back against the cushion on the chair, humming happily at the puffiness of the cushion against his back.

Tyreen reached into the fridge for the juice, setting it on the counter briefly as he reached up for a glass. He quickly poured a full glass of juice, capping the jug before putting it back. He brought the glass over, setting it in front of Daniel before returning to the kitchenette to grab their food. The kettle clicked again as it was wont to do, and Tyreen stopped before grabbing the bowls to grab the teaspoon to scoop the teabag out of his mug, opening the lower cabinet door hiding the garbage and dropping the bag into the bin. He left the tea alone and went to grab their food, bringing the bowl to the table before going back for his cup.

Daniel eagerly waited for Tyreen to come back, the older man bringing his tea with him back to the table to sit down in the seat across from Daniel. Tyreen motioned for Daniel to eat as he sipped from his cup, picking up his fork with the other and scooping up some food before setting the cup down. As they ate, Daniel and Tyreen talked about the schoolwork that Daniel had been doing; how much he hated the content of the history coursebooks he was reading, how much he preferred to read novels over the plays he’d been assigned for his English courses, and how much he actually enjoyed the advanced Algebra that his Aunt was teaching him on the side.

Daniel had been thinking, however, so he couldn’t help but ask, “Do you speak any other languages?”

Tyreen swallowed and waggled his hand back and forth. “I speak English, of course, which is actually my third language. I was taught French and Māori first since those are the first languages of my parents, then I learned English when I started going to day-care and preschool. In middle school, I decided to start learning Spanish, and then when I started college, I picked up Italian because of my roommate.” He shrugged, “I also started a course on American Sign Language about six months ago, but I put it on hold when I took up being your Healer and Conservator.” He peered at Daniel curiously, tilting his head to the side. “Why do you ask?”

“I wanted to ask Aunt Max if she or Grandad or Grandma could help me find a language class of some kind,” Daniel started, and Tyreen nodded, continuing for him, “But you can’t decide what kind of class you want to take.”

“No,” Daniel sighed, turning his attention to the window. “I don’t know. There are so many options; I know some languages run in our family, and others are interesting that I might want to learn.”

“Max would be a good resource to decide what you might want to learn,” Tyreen agreed, tapping his fingers on the table. “She knows a lot of languages, even if it’s just passingly, so even if all you wanted was to hear how much she had trouble learning the bits she knows, she will be good to tell you that.” Daniel nodded, and Tyreen continued, “And your grandparents know a lot of languages too, not to mention what languages their Seconds know.”

“And Killian knows a couple they don’t,” Daniel hummed, ignoring the flushing from Tyreen as he delved into his thoughts. He had a lot of options to consider when he finally came to a decision. There were plenty of people to ask and several dozen shelves in the library with different books for him to look at. He turned his attention back to his food with a sharp nod. He had nearly finished eating when he looked up at Tyreen and asked, “Can I take a nap after lunch before we try another healing session?”

Tyreen nodded, his mouth full of food. He finished chewing and swallowed the mouthful, “If you want; you know nothing is set in stone, so if you want to take a nap for a bit before we start on the next healing, go ahead and do it.”

“Thank you,” Daniel murmured. He finished his food and his juice before pushing himself away from the table, taking his dishes to the sink and putting them inside. With a yawn, he crossed the Suite back to the nest to grab his T-Rex before heading for the bedroom, pushing the door open and slipping inside to take a nap. He crawled into the big bed, burying himself in blankets and pillows before closing his eyes and trying to fall asleep. It didn’t take long for him to fall asleep once he was relaxed, and he easily slipped into sleep.

–

When he woke up, it couldn’t have been long that he had been asleep since the lighting hadn’t changed too much, but he’d been asleep for long enough to get the light spilling across the headboard of the bed rather than the wall above it. He stretched his arms above his head with a yawn, pointing his toes beneath the blanket and wincing at the pull of the tendons in the bottom of his foot. He needed a moment to breathe through the pain before he tossed the blankets off, sitting up and sliding his legs across and off the bed. He slipped himself off the bed after another moment of just basking in the sunlight slipping through the crack in the curtains, humming as his socked feet hit the ground directly in the middle of the streak of light.

As he came out of the bedroom, Tyreen looked up from the puzzle he was doing, smiling at him. “How was your nap, Daniel?” he asked.

“Good,” Daniel murmured sleepily, reaching up to rub his eyes with a hand as he wandered over to the fridge to pour himself some more juice. “I feel better.”

“When you’re awake,” Tyreen teased with a grin, getting a narrow-eyed look over the top of Daniel’s glass as the teen drank from his glass, “We’ll get started on another proper visit to the spirit plane to do some more healing. I have a feeling that you’ll find somewhere easy to start so we can get another hole sealed.”

“I hope so,” Daniel mumbled into his juice, the words a bit garbled by the liquid before he focused on draining the glass. A shiver went down his spine as he practically chugged the glass of juice, wincing quickly at the sensation of ice-cold juice going down his throat before relaxing as he finished the cup. He set the empty glass on the counter, returning to the fridge to pour himself another glass to take over to the nest with him when they moved onto the healing.

Tyreen tried putting another few pieces into the puzzle as he listened to Daniel moving around the Suite before he covered the puzzle with the board again, stretching his arms over his head. He twisted to crack his lower back before turning in his chair to look at Daniel. “Are you ready to try another hole?” he questioned as he pushed himself up from the table, picked up his teacup and moved to the nest to sit down in his spot across from Daniel.

“As ready as I can be,” Daniel agreed with a sigh, bending down to put his glass down before he made his way into the nest via the stairs rather than climbing down like usual. He sat down in his usual spot, folding himself into a comfortable tailor pose before tugging his blankets up over his legs. Elbowing his pillows into a better position, he relaxed back and waited for Tyreen to settle himself and get everything ready before allowing his eyes to slip closed as he started the drift into the psionic plane.

Elpis was waiting for him when he got there, the pup sitting at the edge of the hole they’d filled in the day before. Her fluffy tail was brushing back and forth across the grass that was already starting to encroach into the open soil, a single blue dandelion-type flower waving in the airflow created by her movement. She was sniffing at a tiny sprout in the middle of the hole that he didn’t recognize. She huffed at him, standing to push her head against his legs before she flopped herself down on his feet like a huffy dog.

Daniel breathed a sigh of relief as he looked down at that little sprout which was growing in what had once been a hole in his mental landscape. “What do you think it is, El?” he murmured and knelt down to ruffle her fur. “I hope it’s a nice tree. I’d love to see a nice tree here at some point. Maybe something with fruit or flowers.”

Elpis made a grumbling noise as she pushed herself up to her feet, stretching full-bodied before looking up at him. The white spot on the back of her shoulders caught the light a bit as she moved, stretching her front paws out in front of her in a big stretch.

“Alright, El,” Daniel murmured, straightening back up to full height and stretching himself. “Let’s see what we can see before Tyreen and Sarabi get here.” He hummed quietly and stepped away from the old hole, moving through the maze of open holes and studying the others intently for one that might be usable.

Daniel was still searching when Tyreen appeared on the edge of his portion of the psionic landscape with Sarabi next to him. The dark-furred lioness started leading the way through the potholes until they could reach Daniel’s side, where he was studying a hole about the same size as the previous one, if maybe a little bit smaller. The hole was only about 14 inches across and 5 inches deep, with the dirt piled nearly nearby like a small hill with a single blue daisy flower directly on the top, like the oak tree on the top of Bag End.

“What do you think about this one?” Tyreen asked him, raising an eyebrow at him.

“I think it would be a good one to try,” Daniel told him. “It’s about the size of the other one, maybe a little bit smaller, even if it is maybe a little deeper.” He moved to the pile of dirt, digging his fingers into the soil to work the soil free. It took all of a moment for him to get the flower cupped between his hands, and with a quick look at Tyreen, a small planter pot appeared at Daniel’s feet. He crouched down to loosely tuck the flower into the pot, setting it between his feet out of the way as he turned his attention to the hole. “Let’s start?”

“Whenever you’re ready,” Tyreen agreed and smiled at him. He and Sarabi moved around the other side of the hole as they had with the previous hole, but Tyreen’s hands stayed down at his side instead of raising. Tyreen reached over to pet his fingers across the top of Sarabi’s head, dragging his nails over her scalp as she liked and getting a happy low rumble from her as she leaned against his side.

Daniel studied the hole with interest, trying to decide the best course of action for filling in this hole. It may be similarly sized to the one they’d filled in the day before, but this one was different—it wasn’t a matter of pushing a rise of dirt on the edge of the hole back into it; it was moving an entirely separate pile of soil into the hole. He looked between the hole and the pile and back again before coming to a decision; using a cupped hand, Daniel made a scooping motion, watching as a section of the pile separated from the rest, rising into the air and floating over. He made a dumping motion, and it spilled into the hole in a sprinkle. He flattened his hand out, spreading out the soil at the bottom of the hole.

“Look at you,” Tyreen praised with a laugh, watching as Daniel repeated the motion again, a large section separating from the pile to pour into the hole. “Well done, Daniel. You’re getting a better handle on your Gifts every time we come in here. You’ll be a good Guide when you come of age, and I’m going to recommend that you go for Healing Training.”

Daniel’s head snapped up at the news, eyes wide in surprise. He’d heard from listening to the others in the Center gardens that it could be difficult to get into a Healer Training Program without a referral, so if Tyreen recommended him to it when it came time… well, Daniel would be very excited for the opportunity to do it. He may never want to have this kind of thing happen to him again, but he did want to help anyone who had this happen to them in return for the help he was getting. He wanted to pass on the healing that Tyreen and his family were giving him to someone else who needed it in their lowest moments.

Tyreen smiled at him, motioning him to continue as he spoke, “I think you’d do well at it. And I can see the passion you have for passing that healing on to someone else that needs it. In a few years, once you’ve settled into your Gifts and gotten used to being physically healthy again after so much of your life being sick, I’ll send in my recommendation, and you can do the Guide Healing courses at the Center. In the meantime, I think you would do well in some of the more advanced Guide Training classes, especially since you have Elpis—Wolf Guides have a lot of powers that other Guides don’t or can’t come close to using.”

Daniel nodded, thinking about some of the stories Max had told him of the times she’d met other Guides who had special Gifts that the average Guide didn’t have. The first time had been a Leopard Guide in Tanzania when she was filming Lions in the Serengeti National Park—the Leopard Guide and her Sentinel had been the leaders of the park protection Wardens, using their Gifts to search out poachers and wounded animals alike. The second time had been a Whale Shark Guide in Hawaii when she was writing about the connection between the Native Hawaiians and the surrounding sea life—that woman was one of the calmest people Max had met in her life, even in the face of conflict between Eco-Activists and Industrialists. And most recently was another Wolf Guide in Cascade, Washington, when she was studying Guides in Public Service; she’d followed the Guide and his Detective-Sentinel around for nearly a year (which had been this last assignment before she found out about him being sick) and much of what she knew about being a Guide had come from what he’d been able to teach her.

“Aunt Max met a Wolf Guide a few months ago,” Daniel added with a hum, digging out another scoop of the pile and sprinkling it into the hole. “She said that he was a very disconcerting person. He looked so unassuming but his Power was like being next to a bonfire. He was a controlled power but it was more than most Guides ever put off.” Elpis sneezed at his feet, shaking full-bodied to a startled laugh from Daniel before he kept speaking, “She enjoyed seeing the Bond between him and his Sentinel, and the by-play between them; the feelings their Bond leaked were enough to put everyone around them in a matching mood.”

“I can imagine,” Tyreen murmured. “Most of the Bonds between Alpha-level Pairs—and historically Wolf Guides and their Sentinels are always Alpha-level—are so profound that one usually doesn’t outlive the other for long unless they have young children to bolster them. These kinds of Bonds can give off all kinds of feelings to those around them, and they can boost others’ abilities if they wish. I’ve seen the Alpha Pair of Baltimore use their Gifts to boost their Betas during a Hunt for a Serial Killer targeting the children of the Tribe. It let the Betas find the man in six hours thanks to increased Empathy and Senses.”

Daniel’s eyes widened as he recognized what Tyreen was saying. “I’m going to be an Alpha?!” he squeaked, paling slightly at the thought of that much responsibility put on his shoulders, even if it was far in the future.

Tyreen laughed. “Oh, Daniel, honey,” he sighed, “It’s something that will happen in the future, when you meet your Sentinel. Even if they’re not an Alpha already, the Bond between the two of you will demand you to use your Gifts for the good of the Tribe, and it will demand the same of your Sentinel who will use their physical Gifts to protect the Tribe. That’s the Imperative of being a Sentinel or Guide, and it’s worse for Sentinels than for Guides.”

Daniel squinted a bit. “Why?” He dumped another scoop of dirt into the hole, smoothing it out as he waited for Tyreen to answer.

“A Guide can live their life as normally as a Mundane as long as they have good enough shields,” Tyreen started, moving to sit down on the ground next to the hole. “Guides can ignore their Gifts if they have enough willpower, but a Sentinel can’t. It’s physically impossible. There is no ignoring the heightened senses or the territorial drive of being an Online Sentinel; those things can be diverted, but never ignored. And the more powerful a Sentinel, the worse it is for them, and it’s the same with Guides. The more powerful a Guide, the harder it is to ignore your Gifts because of your connections to the Psionic Plane.” He made a sweeping motion, pulling a bit of the pile of soil into the hole and spreading it out. “For Guides of our level, it’s nearly impossible to do it. Guides with large predators and some larger prey guides have the hardest time ignoring their Gifts because eventually something will drag them onto the Spirit Plane and it will change their entire life. But for Gifted Guides, especially ones who have the option of walking the Path, you will never even contemplate ignoring your Gifts. You know that you will eventually become something more, and you know that you need to use your Gifts for the betterment of the Tribe.”

“Walking the path?” Daniel asked in confusion. It was the first time he’d ever heard the term before, and he wasn’t sure what it could possibly mean.

Tyreen winced but sighed, “It’s a complicated part of Gifted Guide history and lore, but it basically boils down to some Gifted Guides can evolve, for lack of a better term, into something more.” He shifted a bit, recognizing that as much as this was a topic that should be covered by Daniel’s Guide Teachers, it was something that Daniel would need to know, especially since it was entirely possible that his recovery from his Leukaemia would be enough to start the boy on the Path. “Every Gifted Guide has a possibility to transform through a process called walking the Path. It starts with a near death experience; if a Gifted Guide comes close to Death, they fall into the Spirit Plane until they either die or are revived. Long enough spent on the Spirit Plane in this liminal state calls to the spirits of those who’ve come before us; if the spirits approve, it starts the Guide on the process of walking the Path. As a Guide walks the Path, they’re taught how to use Gifts that are normally closed away from use, and when they’re finished learning, they emerge from the Spirit Plane as something called a Shaman.”

“How powerful are Shamans?” His eyebrows pulled together, Daniel looked up at Tyreen from smoothing out another scoopful of dirt in the hole. “They’d have to be pretty powerful, especially if it’s as hard a process as you make it sound like.”

Tyreen thought about it for a minute, trying to think of a way to quantify the abilities of such a small population of the entire Protectorate community. “How powerful…” he murmured, picking at Sarabi’s fur for a minute, gently playing with her ruff. “It’s hard to describe,” he admitted after a minute of thought. “I’ve met one Shaman in my life, a Viper Guide who stopped into the University to give a lecture on symbolism with Spirit Guides in Fiction. The entire Guardian dorm could feel her arrive nearly a mile before she actually stepped foot on Campus, and the higher the level, the further out. It was a bit like staring into the darkness of your room in the middle of the night and wondering what might be hiding in that shadow in the corner; at least it was until she stepped onto Campus and immediately came to find our building to introduce herself to the dorm’s Alpha pair.” He waved a hand as he tried to find words to explain more, “It’s really hard to explain how a Shaman feels when you meet them, especially since Shaman Witherspoone told me that no Shaman feels the same depending on what their Shamanic Calling is. Shaman Witherspoone’s Calling is to the history and lore of the Community, so once you’re used to her mental touch, you can feel the comfort and warmth of a library, the buttery softness of well-loved paper, and the calm of time lost in a good book.

“Shaman Witherspoone told me that she’s almost a complete contrast to Wolf Shaman Sandburg who’s Calling is Justice. His initial mental impression is like standing on the edge of a cliff and looking down into a gorge hundred of miles deep, knowing that at any moment the ground could give away under your feet. It’s that standing on a precipice that puts the people on the other side of his interrogation table at the most unease, which often gets him more results than his Gifts would.”

“How am I going to know what my Gifts are exactly?” Daniel asked curiously, adding another scoop full of dirt into the hole.

“Once you’re finished with your healings—both physical and mental—we’ll get you to run through the standard tests for newly developed Guides to find out what your Unbonded Guide Levels are,” Tyreen started to explain, waving a hand to add some more soil of his own into the hole. “Those tests will tell us how well you score for certain abilities like Empathy, Telepathy, Psionic Control, Psionic Healing, Emotion Manipulation, etcetera, which will tell us what would be the most likely Gifts for you to develop when you’re older and more settled into your Gifts. The higher the level you are Unbonded, the higher ranking a Sentinel you’re going to require to fall into a fulfilling Bond with, and the higher compatibility is going to be required to make it easy to find that Sentinel.”

Daniel wrinkled his nose at the news. “So, the stronger a Guide I am, the stronger a Sentinel I’ll need to keep up with me?”

“Yes,” Tyreen agreed. “Take me for an example; Unbonded, I am a level seven Guide, which means I need at least a level six Sentinel to be able to match my Gifts once I Bond since most Guides raise their level by at least one point and Sentinels always raise as many levels as it takes to match their Guide. So, my Sentinel will raise to a level eight or so when we Bond, same as I will. Most likely we’ll end up as the Beta or Gamma pair for a city depending on where we eventually settle down.”

Daniel hummed as he spread the final scoopful of dirt into the hole, leaving a space for the flower between his feet. “So, what is the highest rank possible?” he questioned, picking up the pot and moving to the hole to plant his flower.

“If we want to get technical,” Tyreen said with a shrug, “a Shaman is the highest rank that a Guide can get to, since they actually test off the current ranking system. Their Gifts can be so powerful that they are unquantifiable by the ranking system as it currently is, and there are simply not enough Shamans to actually set a system because of how rarely they form since even if a Guide starts the walk, they may never finish it, which means no new Shaman but altered Guides. You can’t walk the Path and come out the other side unchanged. It’s impossible. And even though there are Altered Guides, the alterations aren’t enough to necessitate a new system for them—they’re mostly just tested again and redefined with whatever new abilities have come from stepping onto the Path.”

Daniel hummed and knelt down in the centre of the circle of disturbed soil, wiggling the flower out of the pot and carefully planting it in the hole in the middle like he’d seen his aunts and grandmother do numerous times over his childhood during long summers spent at the Buckleys’ Virginia house. “What’s the highest ranking according to the tests, then?”

“A level ten. It’s the culmination of high percentile testings of all the possible Gifts,” Tyreen explained, sitting up straighter as he watched Daniel play in the dirt. “Since you’re a minor, we’re going to have to test you yearly because your Gifts won’t truly settle until you’ve finished puberty. Right now, I expect that you’d test as at least a level five just because your psionic field is so in flux with all of the medications and healings that are going on.”

“What do you think I’ll eventually test as?”

Wrinkling his nose, Tyreen tilted his head side to side as he thought about the answer. “If at thirteen, you’re testing as a level five, I expect that you’d be a level seven or eight by the time you get through puberty, and then you’d be up to level nine at least through Bonding. But this is a version of you that isn’t all that healthy—you’re getting there, but still there is a bit of a way to go—so it skews the data. I have reason to think you’ll end up as a level seven once you’re fully healed, so that would put you at a level nine by the time you’re finished with puberty, which would make you a level ten after Bonding and a likely candidate for Alpha once you’re Bonded with your Sentinel.”

Daniel patted the soil around the flower gently, wishing for a watering can and grinning when one appeared next to his foot. He stood up straight and hefted the watering can off the ground, gently pouring some water over the flower and watching the soil soak up the water like it was dying of thirst. He looked up at Tyreen as he wished the watering can away, crossing his arms and tapping his fingers across his biceps in thought.

“Do you think you’ll test any higher? Is that even possible?” Daniel asked, reaching for Elpis and running his fingers through her ruff in a self-soothing gesture.

“It’s possible,” Tyreen murmured as Sarabi flopped over his lap, sprawling across his legs like the overgrown housecat she often acted like rather than the 300lb giant she was. “I’ve only been Online for four years, and studies have shown that a Guide can occasionally gain or lose points towards the usage of Gifts which will always affect the levels a Guide is tested at for up to a decade after they’ve come Online, and for up to three years after they’ve Bonded with a Sentinel. So, I could go up or down at least a level in the next few years, but if I meet my Sentinel before that time is up, well, three years of settling then I’ll know for sure what my levels are.”

“Would you want to test any higher?” Daniel let Elpis climb into his lap, waiting for the pup to settle before he dropped his hands around her.

Tyreen let out a deep breath, tipping his head back to look up at the cloudless sky. “I don’t know,” Tyreen told him honestly. “I like my Gifts as they are, but if they did expand, it wouldn’t be something I would protest. I mean, there wouldn’t be anything I could do about it regardless, so there’s no real reason to protest.”

“Are you excited about finding your Sentinel?”

“It’s hard to be excited about something that has the possibility of never happening,” Tyreen admitted. “While you will have difficulty in finding a Sentinel as a high-level Guide, mid-level Guides have a different problem. As a high-level Guide, you’ll have a very limited pool of options for compatible Sentinels, which could make it hard for you to find your Sentinel in the hundreds of thousands of us that exist worldwide. For a mid-level Guide, it’s a similar but separate problem; there are too many options, making it very hard to find that single most compatible Sentinel among the masses of possible Sentinels. Even as a level seven, which straddles that line between mid- and high-level, I have too many options, and going to the Mixers and Meet-and-Greets can be a bit like a parade of ‘no, no, not really, no, not feeling it, and absolutely nots’ that can be disheartening at times. I’ve found several Sentinels that were highly psionically compatible but not physically or emotionally compatible—some had expectations I couldn’t or wouldn’t meet, and others were just emotionally out of sync with me.

“And unlike high-level Guides, whose Gifts make it so much easier to know whether a Sentinel is right for them, for mid-level Guides, it can take multiple meetings before the Guide knows for sure that the Sentinel is not the right one, or is the right one if they have doubts. I dated one Sentinel for almost six months before we came to a mutual agreement that Bonding wouldn’t be in our future because of romantic differences. We’re still friends, but we knew that we would make horrible partners. We could have gone ahead with a platonic Bond, but part of our agreement was that we wouldn’t be able to handle watching our partner have external partners.”

Daniel squinted at the man for a moment before a sly grin passed over his face. “You disagreed about sex, didn’t you?” he teased with a giggle, hiding his face in Elpis’ shoulder, getting a huffy almost-laugh from the wolf pup in response.

Tyreen’s complexion didn’t make his blushing all that obvious, especially since it wasn’t as dark a blush as Daniel was sure he would be doing if he was being poked at by a child, but the older Guide was blushing as he tipped his head back to laugh. “Yes, Daniel, we disagreed about sex.”

Daniel’s laughter cloaked the sound of the alarm on Tyreen’s watching going off in the outside world that was intended to draw them out. The sound followed them both back onto the physical plane as their time in the psionic plane ended.

Part 15—A day out

As much as Daniel loved their constant visits to the library to test his skills, he also loved the bi-weekly trips to other places they decided on. These other places were either one of two things: 1. more crowded as a different sort of test on his Gifts—and often crowded in different ways depending on where they were going, or 2. more sparsely populated to give them all a break from the realities of Daniel being sick and newly Online.

The last trip out had been to the indoor public pool. Rather than swimming in the big pool, Daniel had stayed with Evander in the kiddie pool, playing with his brother and the other little kids quite happily. It was a good time, teaching Evander how to swim and playing with him in the shallow water. The best part of being around all those little kids was how consistent and calm their minds were; little kids felt and showed their emotions as they felt them, and they were just as quick to change what they were feeling, so Daniel was rarely wholly overwhelmed by their little brains, unlike when he was around adults who hid what they felt and held onto grudges like no one’s business.

Another reason Daniel was happy to be in the kiddie pool was that it was shallow enough he could sit down and be comfortable in the water without worrying about needing to keep himself afloat. Not to mention that the heat of the water in the kiddie pool, which was warmer than the lap pool but cooler than the hot tubs on the other side of some trees that had been taken over by all the moms keeping eyes on their kids, was excellent for his aching joints and bones. It wasn’t a hardship to keep an eye on Evander while Max did some laps in the big pool and Tyreen took a nap on a nearby lounger, the older Guides keeping an eye on everything around them through their Gifts rather than their eyes.

This time, the plan was to go to a craft sale for the weekend, both to browse and to sell some of the things Daniel had been making in the past couple of weeks that he hadn’t donated to various charities. Max was also planning to sell some of the things she’d made during the past year she’d been away; some were things she’d learned to make from various groups around the world while she was travelling, and some were things she’d learned from various family members either as a kid, or a young adult before she finished her photography and journalism degrees.

Daniel was interested in seeing what kinds of things might be waiting to be found at the craft sale. He knew from listening to Max and Killian that there were all sorts of things, especially at this one since it was the biggest craft sale of the year for the Christmas season. With how early in December the craft sale was, it was easy to find anything and everything you’d need for finishing or making presents of your own, or even whole presents for Christmas. It could be anything from small bits like specialty buttons or candies to finished and unfinished woodwork pieces like rocking horses or chairs. Daniel was excited to see what kinds of things they could find for presents for the various family members that were going to be present for the holidays and what little things they could send to Miranda and Anders since they were still going to be away for the holidays.

It took a bit to get everyone ready to go after breakfast was done. Daniel had to find the list he’d made of everyone who was coming for Christmas to make sure he had something for everyone. Evander had disappeared under his bed for a bit, and when they dragged him out, he was eating a cookie he’d purloined from the kitchen at some point. Tyreen misplaced his shopping basket and had to search for it, only to find it in his room filled with yarn from the thrift store that he’d had to dump out into a tote bin. Max had misplaced the keys to the van, and it took her a couple of minutes to find them in the entertainment stand drawer where Evander had hidden them. Pair Quincy overslept and had to rush through the process of getting ready to go. By the time they were all ready to go, they were giggling about running around like chickens with their heads missing.

The drive over to the convention hall the craft sale had been set up in was filled with discussions about what everyone was thinking of looking for. Daniel was hoping for some different yarns to make everyone hats, but he was keeping his eyes open for other things that would be good for giving out. Max was looking for candles and soaps for presents, but there were a couple of crafty things she was looking for that were for personal use. Tyreen had plans to see if he could find his parents some jams or things to bring home with him for the holidays since they generally preferred to get useful things than anything else. Pair Quincy had the usual tchotchke things to get friends and family, but there were quiet mentions of finding things to fill their nursery when they returned to Philadelphia.

Max parked in the first relatively close place she could find, and they all piled out of the van to go inside. Tyreen pulled the stroller Evander would likely end up in later in the day out of the back of the van, unfolding it with quick, practiced movements as he settled everything into its proper place in the stroller. Once inside, jackets were folded up and stuffed into the lower pocket, everyone keeping hold of their baskets or the little wagon that Daniel used to tote everything around.

Evander started his day out in the wagon, Daniel waiting patiently for Max to help him out of the car and down into the basket of the wagon. Once the toddler was settled, Daniel practically bounced on his toes as he waited for the adults to be ready, Evander giggling behind his wolf at the sight of his brother so impatiently waiting for everyone to be ready to go.

“Alright, calm down,” Max laughed, reaching out to ruffle Daniel’s hair before she grabbed her basket from the ground at her feet. “Let’s get going. Where do we want to get started? Sell our bits or shop first?”

“Shopping today and selling the bits tomorrow?” Daniel pleaded, making big eyes at his aunt in hopes of her agreeing.

Max shared a look with Tyreen before the adults laughed at his pleading, and Max nodded. “Let’s go. We can do some browsing tomorrow as well, so we’ll go from here and see what we’ve got to get for the day.” She led the way ahead, humming a low note as she took in the booths around them.

There were plenty of things to look at, and it was interesting to see who was selling what; there were just as many small businesses and private sellers as there were larger ones who’d paid the extra fee for a booth. There were bits for practically every hobby craft possible: yarns, fabrics, dyes, scents, waxes, paints, etc., all of it laid out on tables to be easily seen. And there were just as many final products to be seen: candles, jams, toys, clothes, paintings, sculptures, etc. If there was something you could think of, it was likely to be found somewhere in the building; you just had to search for it.

It didn’t take long for things to start passing through hands.

It started when Max found a booth selling cute cartoony patterned fleeces. She broke off from the pack the moment she caught a glimpse of it, weaving her way through the other shoppers to bounce to a stop in front of the booth selling the fabrics. She knew exactly what she wanted to make with it, but finding the fabrics she needed was a different question. Her plan: make a blanket for every child in the family coming for Christmas—Daniel, Evander, Liam, Lyra, Oliver, Lauren, Kelly, and Markus—and the blankets she wanted to make needed two different fabrics, a fleece for one side and a flannel for the other.

So with that in mind, she started looking through the fabrics on offer, easily finding ones for the girls. There was a light lilac one with cartoon rabbits and pink roses for Lyra; and a light blue fabric with little green frogs in the middle of a variety of activities, from riding a bike to painting a landscape for Lauren. The boys were a little bit harder to find one for everyone. Evander was easy; she grabbed a forest scene print with wolves, foxes, deer, owls, and other forest creatures. Kelly was also easy; there were several different fabrics with firefighter patterns, so she picked out one in a light gray with fire trucks, dalmatians, the Maltese cross, and ‘Future Firefighter’ written on it in beautiful calligraphy. Oliver was easier than the older boys; she found one with a bunch of cute puppies and kittens all over it, which was Oliver’s current obsession. For Markus, since he was still a baby and wouldn’t really care, she went the simple route of picking out a light green one with red pandas on it. It took her a few minutes to find something for the older boys, but she eventually came to a decision. There was a galaxy print for Liam in purples and blues; for Daniel, hiding behind a plain gray buffalo print, she found a cute sea life print with animals in bright colours. She handed over the payment and waited for the bag to be handed over before leaving the booth with a wave, weaving through the crowd to find the group again to tuck her package into the basket under the stroller since it was so heavy, and she definitely didn’t want to carry it the rest of the day.

She grinned as she noticed that the others also had new bits hiding in their bags. She couldn’t see much of them, likely so she couldn’t spoil anyone else’s presents by accident. She could see a few things, like Daniel had a roll of plain blue cotton, and Tyreen had a small roll of simple blue buffalo print fleece in the basket hanging from the handle of the stroller.

“Find much of anything?” she questioned as she came to a stop at Tyreen’s side.

“A few things here or there; Daniel’s got the fabric to put a back on his granny square blanket, and I found a few things for making a few Christmas gifts. Pair Quincy picked up a couple of items for their nursery, and Evander was very happy to help with that,” Tyreen answered with a small chuckle.

Max laughed quietly as they continued on, Daniel briefly dragging Evander off to a booth to take a look at some different fabrics that mostly looked like gauzy materials like tulle and mesh for beadwork. The adults paused off to the side of the aisle to watch the boys talk before Daniel patted Evander’s head and tugged the wagon away from the booth to go back to the others.

“Not for Christmas,” Daniel reminded Evander as they came up to the others, getting a nod from Evander even though he was pouting. “Maybe for Lyra’s birthday in a couple of months, but not right now.”

“Skirt!” Evander asserted, pulling his wolf into his lap and wiggling in the little blanket seat they’d made him.

“We’ll make her a tutu for her birthday,” Daniel agreed with a grin. “Something with lots of colours and maybe some glitter. How does that sound?”

Evander nodded sharply, folding his arms around his wolf. “Good,” he told him, leaning forward to pat Daniel’s hand before sitting back again.

“Shall we move onto the next section?” Tyreen questioned with a snicker, reaching a hand up to ruffle through his braids, making the beads woven through the braids click together. “We still have plenty to get through and plenty of time to do it.”

Max quirked a small grin. “Alright, let’s get a move on,” she said, ushering them ahead toward the next row of booths. “There is still a lot to see and plenty of people we have to find things for.”

With giggles from the kids, she led the way down the next row. She hadn’t been kidding when she said there was plenty still to see: the craft sale was being held in a convention hall the size of a football field, and three-quarters of it were taken up by booths selling things, while the other quarter was a small sit down eating area and some booths selling holiday treats and snacks. And they had only been through one row, which took up only about a sixth of the selling space. They had plenty of things to look at.

–

Almost two and a half hours later, they finally finish looking through all of the rows and head to the eating area. They have to push together two tables before they can all sit down, bags of items tucked in around their feet as they find chairs to sit in. Max sighed as she slouched in her chair, leaning back sharply against the back of the chair.

Tyreen laughed as he looked at her, tapping her forehead playfully as he stepped around the table. “What does everyone want? We should eat and then head back to the house to get everything put away.”

Various orders were called out, but the prevalent items included: spiced apple cider, gingerbread cookies, and brownies. Tyreen nodded and waved as he moved toward the food booths, walking slowly around the other patrons and their items to get where he needed to go. He came back a few minutes later with a small plastic bag around his arm and two trays of drinks in his hands. He set the trays down in the middle of the tables, carefully handing over the right drinks to the right people; Daniel and Evander got the two smaller drinks, Max got the largest one, and the three mid-sized drinks went to himself and Pair Quincy.

“Once we’re finished here, we’ll head out and go home,” Max sighed, ruffling her hair and taking a deep drink from her cup. She hummed under her breath at the pleasant sensation of the spices hitting her tastebuds and twisting through her system, heating her from the inside out.

“Sounds good,” Tyreen agreed with a pleased groan as he dropped down into his chair next to her, laying his head against the back of the chair.

They settled in to drink and eat and get some rest before they headed home. It was going to be a long couple of weeks in the lead-up to Christmas, but times like this were great for reminding—and, in Evander’s case, teaching—them what it was like to have family time.

Part 16—A second meeting

The second meeting with Maddie, the last one for the year just before Christmas, didn’t go much better than the first one, if Daniel was being entirely honest. This time, they met together at a cafe suggested by Maddie’s CPS agent, who brought her to the meeting this time. The plan was to exchange Christmas gifts and have some time together.

It didn’t exactly go as planned…

First, it started with Yvette and Maddie arriving nearly thirty minutes after the scheduled time, but they’d taken into account things like weather keeping them from making it on time, so the agreement had been that either side would wait at least forty-five minutes before backing out of a meeting. Yvette looked very harried when they did finally arrive, dark hair escaping from the bun it had been pulled up into and her coat rumpled in a way that couldn’t just be explained by riding in a car for a while.

“I’m sorry we’re late,” Yvette rushed out, unzipping her jacket and flicking a side-eyed look at Maddie as the girl sullenly stripped off her jacket on the far side of the table. Yvette slung her jacket and the bag she’d brought inside over the chair she’d claimed, running a hasty hand over the flyaway hairs coming out of her bun, pushing them back from her face into an attempt at order without pulling everything out to fix it.

“It’s fine,” Max assured her quietly, rising from her seat and gently resting a hand on Daniel’s shoulder as the teen looked up from where he was colouring with Evan near the window. She directed her following comment at Daniel, “We’ll get some more drinks, then the kids can do their gift exchange.” She picked up the empty mugs off the table and set them on the tray, picking it up one-handed and propping it on her hip.

“Sounds good,” Yvette agreed, a slightly shattered smile on her face as she took a deep breath. She left the way to the counter, a shaky breath leaving her once they were out of earshot of the kids. “I’m so sorry,” she murmured in an undertone to Max, tucking her hands into the kangaroo pocket of her UPenn sweatshirt.

“You look like you’ve had a bit of a harrowing morning,” Max noted, pulling her extra cash out of her pocket to order another round of drinks for herself, Daniel, and Evander.

Yvette made a wordless grumble, stepping forward a place in line as the baristas served the customer at the front of the line. “Don’t even get me started,” she grumped. She reached up and pinched the bridge of her nose, “I arrived at the house with plenty of time to spare, but Margaret first refused to let me into the house. Then she refused to let Maddie out of the house for fifteen minutes until Michael reminded her that these meetings were court-ordered and required to play out unless they wanted to pay out thousands of dollars more in court fees and fines. Then she took another fifteen minutes to run around like a headless chicken finding a seemingly random assortment of things that ‘Madeline needed to take with her’ for an hour-long drive and two-hour meeting. Then there was an accident on the interstate that we needed to detour around, and Maddie spent the whole drive in a sullen silence no matter how much I tried to engage her. I half expected her to throw a tantrum, but her mother fulfilled that for the day, I suppose.”

Max heaved a heavy sigh, “I expected this, honestly. Margaret is so used to getting her own way that I’m surprised it only took Michael reminding her that they would have to pay through the nose for her to agree. In the next couple of weeks I wouldn’t be surprised if she tried some other kind of bullshit to get around these meetings.”

Yvette sighed as they moved ahead to the third place in line. She turned briefly to look at the kids at the table and huffed. “Eventually, it’s going to come to it that either the boys are going to refuse to come, or they have a blow out if she keeps acting like this,” she muttered, watching as Maddie basically ignored Daniel and only marginally interacted with Evander, not saying a word the entire time.

“Daniel is already getting fed up with this,” Max mused, also turning to see what had caught her attention. “This is only the second meeting, and he wasn’t impressed with her behaviour last time either. Hopefully the break for the holidays will make Maddie rethink her behaviour, but considering Margaret’s behaviour, I won’t hold my breath about it.” She ruffled a hand through her hair, spilling bright red hair through her fingers. “If these visits continue at this rate, I don’t think we’ll last until Daniel’s birthday in March. It’s going to come to the point that Daniel has to think of his mental and psionic health first, and if Maddie continues to act like this, he’s going to tell her off and refuse to go to any more meetings.”

Yvette bit her lip, worrying the corner with a sharply pointed tooth. “I hate that their family has been pulled apart, but really, Margaret and Michael brought this on themselves, and the fact that they insist on dragging their children into it is gross.” Her shoulders slumped as she moved ahead again. “And that Maddie is obvious listening to whatever nonsense Margaret is spouting…” She sighed.

“Whatever comes is whatever comes,” Max told her firmly. “If Maddie wishes to continue acting like her mother’s mini-me, then she can deal with the consequences of that. She’s ten-years-old and, unlike Daniel, has been physically in school the entire time he was sick, so she should know full well what is good behaviour and what isn’t. The fact that she’s acting like a toddler is no skin off my nose; she’s only cutting off her own to spite her face, because Daniel isn’t going to suffer that attitude forever, and if she continues, he’s going to be the one throwing a fit. The kind of passive feeling cloud that Maddie’s projecting isn’t harmful on its own, but it is going to negatively affect Evander over time, and Daniel won’t stand for that. He feels so strongly towards Evander that he isn’t going to take any kind of harm towards our pup laying down. He won’t get violent with her unless she starts it, but he’s going to yell and yell loud.”

Yvette pinched the bridge of her nose and let out a short high, pitched noise that had the young man in the corner of the cafe, likely a Sentinel, wincing. She waved her hand at him in apology and rubbed her forehead. “I’m going to just let it play out,” she admitted after a moment. “It’s only been a few months and already I’m exhausted dealing with the Buckley parents, but Margaret especially.”

Max laughed and patted the younger woman on the arm quickly in sympathy. “Honestly, we felt like that about six hours after Michael brought her home the first time. She was obnoxious from the start.” She sighed as she remembered that first weekend that Michael had brought Margaret home to meet them all. It had been a nightmare from start to finish; first, Michael had shown up unexpectedly from college for a break with an unannounced guest in the form of this beautiful blonde in his passenger seat, but that image had only lasted as long as it took Margaret to get out of the car and look at the sixteen-year-old version of Max standing on the porch in chunky black boots, black jeans, and a thick leather jacket over a bright red Ramones t-shirt with her hair bright pink and thick eyeliner highlighting her eyes. The wrinkled nose had been the first sign for Max and thirteen-year-old Melanie that the weekend was not going to go as smoothly as Michael had hoped—but he’d kinda brought it on himself by showing up and surprising them. It had been spider silk strands that had held back Miranda’s Irish temper as Margaret swanned around their house like she owned the world, and their mom had demanded that Michael give them ample warning the next time he brought her home. “It was not a fun weekend for anyone involved.”

“I don’t imagine it was,” Yvette agreed as they stepped up to the spot one before the counter. She flicked her eyes up to the menu, studying the options as she tried to decide what would be best for herself and Maddie. “I doubt she’s gotten any better with age?”

Max snorted a laugh, “Her brothers claim she’s only gotten worse, and I don’t doubt them.”

Yvette winced as they stepped up to the counter. She quickly rattled off her usual coffee order—three sugars, two creams, and a shot of vanilla syrup—before adding a candy cane hot chocolate for Maddie and a snack for both of them—a strawberry scone for herself and a banana chocolate chip muffin for Maddie. She paid quickly with her company card before stepping aside to let Max order.

Max ordered refills of the drinks they’d already had, setting the tray on the counter for the barista to add to the wash pile. For herself, a peppermint mocha with an extra peppermint stick. For Daniel and Evander, two mugs of spiced apple cider, though Evander’s was a toddler-sized mug and closer to room temperature than Daniel’s larger mug with hot apple cider. As for snacks, she added a large cinnamon roll for Daniel, a fluffy chocolate puff pastry for Evander, and a coffee cake cupcake with mocha frosting for herself. She paid with her debit card before stepping aside to let the next customer talk to the cashier as the baristas behind the counter started moving to get their orders ready.

It took only five minutes for everything to be set out on a new pair of trays; the trays then slid across the top of the glass case towards them by the barista responsible for their order. Max grabbed her tray first, carefully sliding her hands under the edge of the tray before lifting it off the glass and into her arms. She stepped back towards the table, pausing briefly to make sure Yvette was following before heading back. She set the tray in front of her space, sliding it across the table with only a whisper of noise.

“Choco!” Evander cheered as soon as he saw the pastry on the tray, stretching briefly to make grabby hands at his pastry.

Max laughed and gently pushed the tot back into his chair. “In a second, in a second,” she warned with another laugh before passing over both his pastry and his cup, shifting her arm out of the way as Daniel reached over for his own things. She made sure that Evander had everything within reach or that it was in a place where Daniel could help him before she leaned down to press a kiss to the top of Evander’s head and moved back to her seat, settling down calmly with a soft sigh. She took her items off the tray, setting them in front of her and moving the tray out of the way with one hand as she reached for her mug with the other. Raising her mug to take a drink, she tucked the tray into the little shelf built into the bottom of the table.

“Would you like to give Maddie her presents now?” Max posed to the boys, raising an eyebrow as she looked over at them.

Daniel silently twisted to dig through his backpack, pulling out two very carefully wrapped packages. They were very similarly sized, about the size of half a shoebox. “This one is from me,” Daniel told her and handed over the package with blue snowflake paper on it. “And this one is Evan’s.” The second paper was wrapped with red paper covered in peppermint candy canes.

Maddie silently handed over gifts in plain blue paper with each boy’s name written on it in a handwriting Max recognized—Michael’s handwriting, so it was likely her brother had helped her niece pick out and wrap the presents, which, good, Michael had plenty to make up for. Gifts wouldn’t make up for the lack that Michael had left behind, nor would they buy forgiveness from any of the family who knew what he’d done, but it did go a little bit of the way towards gaining himself some goodwill for it he ever decided to visit. Though, Max had a feeling that he’d only be allowed to visit if he left his witch at home.

Daniel hummed absently as he stared at the package set before him, wondering what could possibly be inside the box. There were only so many things Maddie and his sperm donor could have given him. He honestly hoped it was a book or something and not anything weird or totally off the wall. He picked up his mug and took a long swallow before reaching for the box and beginning to pull at the edges of the paper. He didn’t just trash the paper, even with as plain as it was, for two reasons: 1) it would be rude to leave little bits of wrapping paper all over the place in a public space, and 2) it was actually a nice paper that he might be able to use again later. So instead, he snuck a finger under the layers and ripped the paper at the tape, tugging the folds apart to get the box out from within.

Daniel’s eyes lit up at the sight of the box. It was a yarn winder! He’d wanted one since watching some of the videos Miranda had recorded onto tapes from crafting shows. It would make his life so much easier—there would be no more messy store-bought skeins, and it would make handling his hand-dyed skeins a lot easier than getting Max or Tyreen to roll them into a ball for him. The yarn winder wouldn’t be so exhausting either, he could quickly wind up a ball or two of yarn to make squares or stripes or small projects like the bow he’d made for Evan’s wolf plush.

He took a deep breath before looking up at Maddie, clearing his throat briefly to get her attention before speaking, “Thank you, Maddie.”

“You’re welcome,” she murmured, looking up at him quickly before flicking her eyes away to watch as Evan opened his own present, tearing the paper open in one big rip.

Evan’s present was a simple box of crayons and some colouring books, but the tot was very excited to pull them out of the box to add to the pile he already had on the table that they’d brought with them.

“What do you say?” Max prompted gently, resting her chin on her hand as she leaned on her elbow so she could see Evan properly.

“Fank you,” Evan chirped, grinning at Maddie quickly before turning his attention to flipping through the colouring books to look at the pictures. “Neeli!” he squeaked as he pointed out a picture of a little deer for Daniel to see. Daniel grinned and leaned in to get a better look.

“You’re welcome,” Maddie repeated dully before taking a big bite of her muffin. She chewed quickly before reaching for the first of her presents. It was Daniel’s present, and she carefully peeled the paper off, as was her usual manner with any gifts, especially when she liked the paper. She set the plain box aside to fold the paper up, revealing nothing about her thoughts on what Daniel could have gotten her.

She pulled the top off the box, tilting her head in curiosity as she looked at the item inside. She set the box top off to the side before sliding her hand into the box to pull out a bright purple crocheted hat with blue butterflies sewn in a chevron around the cuff. There was a matching blue pompom on the top that flopped around as she moved the hat around. She played with the pompom for a moment before turning her attention to Daniel. “Thank you,” she murmured, playing with the hat some more.

“You’re welcome,” Daniel told her, leaning over his folded hands to look at her more carefully. He knocked his elbows against the table gently as he tried to release some of his energy in a way that wouldn’t be annoying to anyone around them as he resettled his shields around himself, smoothing out the emotional tone he was taking in from the other cafe goers, including the Sentinel in the back corner.

Maddie tucked the hat into the pocket of her coat before reaching for the gift from Evan. She repeated the same process of opening the gift as she had for Daniel’s, setting the paper aside before pulling the box open to reveal the book inside. It was one that Max had picked out with Evan’s help, but it was one from Maddie’s favourite author, just a different series than she’d been reading before the boys left the home. She smiled at Evan, leaning over to hug him and kiss his cheek before sitting back and settling down.

“Any plans for Christmas?” Yvette questioned when the silence stretched on a bit too long after Maddie got invested in her book.

Max shrugged as she leaned back in her chair. “My parents won’t be home for Christmas, but my sister and her family are coming out from Seattle, so that will be fun. My sister-in-law Jennifer mentioned that she might bring her son Kelly out from Chicago, but she hasn’t decided yet. There will be a few more family members coming from various places, but there are no set plans as far as that goes. It will depend on who is coming what we do and since we don’t know who is coming—” She shrugged again.

“Have you got the Christmas tree up yet?” Yvette asked next.

“We’re going to get a real one, but we’re waiting for my godbrother Killian to finish his latest round of training up in Maine, which should be sometime next week, before we go so he and Tyreen can come as the muscle to do the cutting and lifting,” Max replied. She grinned, and Yvette shared the look before they settled down to talk, leaving the kids to do what they wished for an hour before Yvette and Maddie had to leave.

Part 17—A Christmas

The Buckley house in Virginia was a busy place over the holiday season, as usual. There were people practically everywhere—in the main house, in the two guest cabins behind the house, and coming in and out from hotels in town and their own homes nearby. Thankfully for all of their sanities, most of the visitors were leaving soon after Christmas, and then the house could go back to its normal levels of chaos rather than the holiday crazy under which they were currently suffering.

There were so many people around that, at some points during the week that most of them were around, Daniel had a hard time keeping track of who was actually in the house unless he was actively looking at or for them. Melanie and Greg had brought the kids for Christmas since they were spending New Year’s with Greg’s parents in Colorado; they’d arrived on the 19th of December, and Max had gone to get them from the airport just after lunchtime. Jennifer had ended up driving out with Kelly, though sans Benny, which surprised exactly no one. The Blumenthals had come into town as soon as school was out for Lyra and Liam, almost two weeks before Christmas. Miranda’s sister, Martha, had brought her son Richard to visit, the two arriving in her small chartered plane on the 22nd, and they’d rented a car for their use. Other members of the family and extended Pride to come in for the holidays included: Miranda and Martha’s brother, Oscar and his husband, Calvin; Anders’ sister, Charlotte and her husband, James; the Burns family from Admiral Burns to Killian; Max’s best friend Kallen and his Guide Henri; and last but not least, Hollis’ sister Jana and her daughter Lanie with Lanie’s little boy, Markus.

They were spread out everywhere possible. Lauren and Lyra were sharing the guest room near the boys’ rooms while Oliver shared Evan’s room; both sets loved the idea, and some nights, it was hard to get them to go to sleep for how much they were enjoying each other’s company. Kelly and Liam were sharing Daniel’s room, sleeping on two travel cots pressed against the walls out of the way. Melanie and Greg were staying in her childhood bedroom as usual. Jennifer was sharing the smaller guest house with Jana, Lanie, and baby Markus since Tyreen and Pair Quincy weren’t currently using it. Mathilda and Yarrick were sharing the larger guesthouse with the older couples, Oscar and Calvin, and Charlotte and James. Kallen and Henri were staying in Kallen’s room from when Anders and Miranda took him in as a teenager. Martha and Richard had decided to stay in a hotel in town since Martha had to leave on Boxing Day to go back to work; Richard had been talking about staying a bit longer since he was between novels and needed some time to relax, but the plans hadn’t been made yet about what he was going to do. Most of the Burns family had been coming in and out from their home a couple of miles away, except for Killian, who’d moved into his room for the duration of his break from the beginning of December to the middle of January.

With so many Guides and Sentinels in residence for the holidays, Tyreen had taken the time to go home for the holidays, and Pair Quincy had returned to Philadelphia to speak with Prime RavenDancer about their decision on the surrogacy program. Tyreen called daily, checking in on Daniel and introducing the teen to his family in New Orleans over the phone. Daniel especially got a kick out of Tyreen’s youngest sister Tanisha, who was Liam’s age, because she was one of the sassiest people he’d ever semi-met. The first time she came on the phone, she spent fifteen minutes basically roasting Tyreen about his obvious feelings for someone—especially how it was practically written on his face that he was thinking of someone before Daniel even mentioned the whole Killian bit. Tyreen would be back for New Year’s, and by then, most, if not all, of their visitors would be gone for the holidays. Daniel would be glad to have him back but hoped he had a good visit home. Pair Quincy wouldn’t be back until the 7th of January, just in time for their next weekend trip.

–

Early Christmas morning, Evan somehow escaped his toddler bed without waking up any of the other boys and climbed into Daniel’s bed. The teenager awoke to the bed moving, eyes opening to slits to look and finding Evan crawling up the bed from the little step stool left at the end of the bed specifically for moments like this when he had an early morning visitor. Evan dragged his wolf along with him as he moved up to the head of the bed, pushing himself into Daniel’s space and crawling under the blankets. He tucked his head under Daniel’s chin and his nose against the small span of skin at Daniel’s throat that was revealed by the shirt he wore to bed. Daniel huffed a sleepy laugh, wrapping an arm around Evan and tugging him close.

“Merry Christmas, Ev,” Daniel murmured, getting a sleepy mumble from the toddler before he went boneless and fell back asleep. Daniel huffed another laugh, pausing to make sure neither Liam nor Kelly had been woken up before closing his eyes to go back to sleep while he could.

The next time Daniel woke up, it was Max poking her head into the room, Neeli wiggling his way into the room through the crack in the door. The Pudu deer Spirit Guide paused next to the bed, shaking out white fur like a dog before he used the same stairs that Evan had used to get up on the bed. He curled up on the end of the bed, blinking at Daniel with big doe eyes, getting a sleepy grin from the teen and a gentle nudge of a foot through the blankets.

“There he is,” Max murmured with an amused grin and a small shake of her head. She waved a hand at the two of them, “Breakfast will be in an hour; I’ll come get you when it’s ready if you don’t come down before that.” She backed out of the room after that, closing the door behind her and leaving them alone.

He knew she’d been looking for Evan; it was a common enough occurrence for the tot to disappear from his room, usually to be found in either Daniel’s bed or the playroom down the hall, where he’d play quietly by himself until someone found him or he got hungry and went down to the kitchen to get a snack from his drawer. It was disconcerting every single time, but Daniel knew from talks with Max that it was a mix of their birth-givers’ neglect, Evan knowing how to read a space thanks to his limited empathy, and Evan’s hyperactive nature that was really only stifled by sleep or food or something to do.

Daniel shifted slightly on the bed, pushing himself further away from the wall and closer to Evan in the middle of the bed. He wrapped his arms back around his baby brother and sighed as he settled down again. He’d try to get some more sleep before breakfast, but he wasn’t expecting to get much more. He didn’t even notice when he fell back to sleep.

The final time that Daniel woke up for the day was to Max’s voice from the doorway and several bits of movement on his bed. He opened his eyes and found Evan squirming his way out of Daniel’s arms, wiggling himself down the bed to the little stairs, all under the blankets, while Elpis shifted her weight at the end of the bed to keep her balance as she watched the Evan-lump move around. It didn’t take long for little feet to poke out the side of the blankets and land on the stairs, Evan sliding the rest of the way out and down the stairs with a small thump. It wasn’t until the tot had his feet under himself and he was out of the way that both Elpis and Neeli followed him to the floor, waiting at the bottom of the stairs for Daniel to sit up.

Daniel sighed dramatically to get a laugh from Evan before he pushed himself up, flicking his eyes over the semi-righted travel cots on either side of his room. Both beds were empty, so likely their brother and cousin were downstairs ready for breakfast or curled up on the couch waiting for breakfast. Breakfast would be light since lunch would be a big meal, so it was probably only going to be toast and cereal, and they’d most likely be eating in the kitchen instead of the dining room, which had been set up for lunch the night before.

“Alright, Ev,” Daniel announced, pushing his feet into his slippers and getting up off the bed. He dropped his hand to the top of Elpis’ head, running his fingers over the soft fur of her ears as they headed for the door. He took Evan’s hand as they stepped out into the hallway, letting the toddler slowly lead him down to the stairs, where they released each other to go down. Daniel directed Evan to grab onto the pocket of his sweatpants instead once they reached the bottom, tucking his own hand into the unruly curls on the top of Evan’s head, attempting to make some semblance of order out of the chaos. “We’re both going to need haircuts soon,” he muttered, playing with one stray curl that refused to do anything but pop out of the top of Evan’s head.

“After the new year,” Max piped up as they came into the kitchen. “We’ll get you both set up with an appointment with at the hairdresser’s.” She motioned to the kitchen table where the other kids were all settled, “Sit. What do you want? There’s toast, some cereal, or the leftover fruit from the salad we made for lunch.”

“Fruit!” Evan demanded as he climbed up into his usual chair, wiggling his way up into the seat and settling at the table.

“Alright,” Max said with a laugh as she dug through the fridge for the leftover fruit. “And Daniel?” she questioned, poking her head out of the fridge to look at him as he crossed the room.

“I’ll just have some toast with some of that apple jam,” Daniel requested, settling into his place between Evan and Liam with a soft sigh, feeling the weight of Elpis disappear from his side as he got comfortable. He folded his arms in front of him on the top of the table, tapping his fingers as he waited.

It didn’t take long for breakfast to be served. Max brought over a plastic bowl of fruit for Evan, bringing him one of the bright purple sporks he was learning to use. She’d just set the bowl down on the table when the toaster popped, so she left to get that, putting the marble rye on a small plate and bringing it, a table knife, and the jam over to the table for Daniel. Everyone else at the table either already had their breakfast or was waiting for something to happen—either the other side of the toaster, the toaster oven near the fridge, or the milk to get passed around the table.

The next bit was quiet, just chewing and cutlery moving around on the plates since most were still half-asleep or just happy to bask in the quiet.

Daniel hummed when Evan tapped his arm, raising his toast to his mouth as he turned to look at his brother, finding the tot making grabby hands at the juice sitting on the table. He swallowed before asking, “Can I get a cup for Evan, please, Aunt Max?”

“Of course.” She got up from the stool she was sitting at to eat her own toast and crossed the kitchen to dig a sippy cup out of the cupboard for Evan. She passed it to Daniel as Liam passed the juice, both of them watching Daniel as he carefully filled the cup, only going back to what they were doing when he had screwed the lid on and given it to Evan.

“When you’re finished eating, we’ll go out and open presents,” Max announced as she grabbed the remaining bit of her toast up from her plate and took a bite, plucking up the plate to put in the dishwasher as she ate the remainder.

The reminder had all of the kids rushing to finish their food, their excitement rising as they rushed to get food shovelled into their mouths so they can get to the good part of the day—even Liam was rushing, a grin plastered on his face as he teased Lyra about missing out since she and Lauren had been so busy talking that their plates were nearly full still. Lyra shoved him before hurrying her eating, though Max had to remind them all that if they choked, it would be longer before presents.

It took five minutes, but eventually, everyone was finished eating, and dishes were put away either in the dishwasher or the sink once that was full. Then it was filing across the kitchen and out into the living room to settle down around the Christmas tree. The adults sat down on the couches and waited for the kids to sit down on the carpet before Killian, as the youngest adult, was sent to the tree to pass out the gifts.

There had been rules drawn up for gift-giving this year. Each kid got a present from every household, so there was no one left out, even by accident, and it meant each kid had a small pile of gifts. The adults, on the other hand, had drawn names from a hat and gotten that person a gift on a budget of $100. It meant that everyone got a gift, even if they didn’t really celebrate Christmas.

Daniel was quite happy with the stack of presents he’d gotten, sorting them into a neat pile to take back to his room. There was a small tote of yarn and some new crochet hooks that had been from his grandmother. Anders had gotten him all four of the Enchanted Forest Chronicles books, which sounded interesting from their cover blurbs. He was wrapped in his blanket from Max, loving the fleece against his skin. Mathilda and Yarrick had gotten him another tote full of yarn and a book of crochet patterns for baby items since he’d mentioned branching out from the simple hats and blankets he’d been making for the babies in the NICU. There was another blanket, a big heavy thing his Gr’Aunt Charlotte had made him. Martha had given him a gift certificate to the craft store for $50, and Richard had given him a gift certificate to Barnes and Noble for $50, too, even though he’d been told not to. Jennifer and Kelly had added to his pile of craft supplies by giving him a Beginner’s Kit for Knitting and a couple of balls of bright blue yarn. Other gifts included more yarn, some more books for pleasure reading and patterning, a couple of CDs for the stereo in his room, and a few movies he’d been interested in seeing but had missed out on during his time in the hospital.

Evan came over as Daniel set the last bit aside, dragging his new blanket from Max with him. He crawled into Daniel’s lap, curling against his chest and hugging his blanket like a toy. Daniel smiled and leaned down to kiss the top of Evan’s head, hugging his baby brother tight as Liam joined them, the older teen wrapping them both in his arms and almost too easily moving them around to sit in his lap as well. The move prompted a cuddle pile from other kids, with first Oliver coming over to curl himself up against Daniel and Liam’s legs with his own blanket from Max. The other kids joined them, all with their new blankets from Max, until they were curled up together in the middle of the rug in between gifts and piles of wrapping paper.

There would be plenty of time for a nap before lunch, so the adults left them to it, focusing on their conversations as the kids faded away into sleep. It had been a good morning, and the rest of the day was heading towards being the same. It was a good day.

Part 18—A day of conversations

The next morning after breakfast, while the kids were all enjoying themselves with their new games or toys in a variety of spaces, Max led the way into Anders’ office to speak with Kallen and Henri at Kallen’s request. She pulled one of the chairs from in front of the desk across the room to face the couch along the wall as Kallen and Henri settled down together in the middle of the couch.

Max studied the two of them, watching her best friend and his Bonded as they got comfortable on the couch. Kallen had changed his hair since the last time she saw him, the dark strands cut short but left long enough to flop over his forehead since there was no product to hold it up. Kallen had always been tall, but watching him and Henri, the difference was extremely evident as the Latino briefly dropped an arm around his auburn-haired companion and tugged the smaller man against his side. Kallen only had eyes for Henri for a moment, dark brown eyes meeting blue before flicking away to focus on Max.

“What did you want to talk about?” Max questioned, resting her elbows on her knees and folding her hands together down between her calves.

Kallen stared at her for a moment before his knee began to bounce in a tell Max knew meant he had something on his mind that he was too anxious to bring up. His leg kept bouncing until Henri finally put a hand on his knee and squeezed gently.

“Just tell her what you were thinking, Kal,” Henri told him, his French accent a delight to hear every time he spoke.

Kallen groaned and tipped his head back against the couch, raising both hands to cover his face for a moment and muffling another groan before he dropped his hands to his lap and raised his head again to look at her full-on. “We’ve been friends for a long time,” he started, raising his right hand to run his fingers through his hair and lacing the fingers of his left with Henri’s. “And there’s no one else I could trust with this, if I’m being totally honest, so of course I’m going to ask you.”

“I love you too, Kal,” Max cooed and reached forward to grab his free hand and squeeze before releasing him. “Just ask me what you want.”

“I’m feeling the urge,” Kallen muttered, gesturing from his chest out with his free hand. “Henri has been feeling it too, but his sister asked for his help a few months ago since she and her Bonded are also feeling the urge.”

Max sighed and leaned back against the chair. “I’ve been feeling it too,” she admitted, reaching up to ruffle her hair. “Taking care of Daniel and Evan have limited it a bit but I can feel it getting stronger again. I was going to put myself in for the program in the new year, either as a donor or a surrogate, but…”

“I’m offering, Max,” Kallen assured her. “I trust you, and I know that you won’t just keep us out of our kid’s life.”

“Kal, you’re my best friend,” Max retorted, “And if you two want to be involved in the kid’s life as their dads, I won’t stop you. In fact,” she reached forward to poke him in the leg, “I would encourage it. I would want you to be in their life as their dads, to know that they have someone to go to who loves them.” She took his free hand and squeezed it, “I want them to have the options that you did after we came Online. I want them to know that they have somewhere to go if something happens and me or my parents aren’t around. I know Mel would take care of them, but she’s so far away, and she has her own kids around. I know I can trust you with not only this kid, but the boys too.”

They were quiet for a moment before Kallen spoke again, “So we’re doing this then?”

“I mean,” Max shrugged, wiggling in her chair, “there is a bit more we should discuss, both alone and with a legal representative, but I think we should. I want this, you want this, Henri wants this. All we really need at this point is to come to agreements about the logistics of it, but we’ve already made a big step towards doing this.” She stretched her arms over her head and rocked back in her chair, “Are you two sticking around for a while or are you going back to work soon?”

“We’re going to be around for a few weeks,” Henri told her. “After our last assignment, we pulled ourselves out of rotation for a few months to handle this thing. My sister and her Bonded wanted to wait until the new year to do this. So we’ll be going back and forth between here and Nevada, but otherwise we’re here to stay in the States for about four months.”

Max nodded slowly, “Well, the law office contracted to the family doesn’t reopen until the second week of January, so if you wanted to take the time to see your sister first…”

“We’ll stay until the new year, then go see her. She’s had most,” Kallen shared a look with Henri, who nodded, “if not all of this stuff already arranged, it mostly just needs our signatures and then the process can be completed.” He tugged at his hair for a second, “Both Henri and Cecily’s brother will make donations and we’ll see where it goes from there.”

“Mariette has been very eager to get this done now that she’s gotten this last promotion; she’s been excited to be a mom since we were kids, and now we’re giving her the option.” Henri shrugged, tilting to rest against Kallen’s shoulder. “It’s something she’s been talking about since she and Cecily Bonded three years ago, but they haven’t been in a position to have a kid until now, so she’s extra excited.”

“I can imagine,” Max laughed, “I’ve always dreamed of having kids eventually, but it was never something I really imagined doing. It was always something that would just happen when it happened.”

Kallen laughed. “Do you remember that sub we had in high school who said that every girl’s goal in life should be to get married and have babies?”

“That woman was old enough to be our grandmother,” Max snorted. “I was a bit surprised that Casey didn’t get up and smack her considering how pissed he was getting.”

“The only reason I think he didn’t get up and do it was his mom would have been called to the school,” Kallen muttered, running his fingers through his hair. “And she would have lost her mind at that woman. He’d rather have saved her the stress than bringing her into that kind of a conversation.”

Max laughed, throwing her head back. “She would have chewed that woman out and it would have been glorious to hear,” she said, dropping her head into her hand as she rested her elbow on the arm of the chair. “She definitely chewed out the doctor that tried to separate us after the accident.”

Kallen nodded, rubbing his mouth briefly. “I thought she was going to get into a fist fight about it. At least until Alpha Brandt stepped in and kicked that doctor out. We were lucky that Alpha Brandt was around that day, ’cause from some of the things we’ve seen…”

Max let out a deep sigh and nodded. “I know exactly what you mean,” she agreed, pushing her bangs back from her face. “From the things we’ve been through, and our work for the Council… we were lucky and Daniel’s been lucky with getting the right people involved who wouldn’t just brush it all off and ignore the concerns that were brought up.”

“At least there’s that,” Kallen agreed. “Daniel is also lucky that he had plenty of family to advocate for him, unlike we did when the accident happened.”

Max winced at the memories of the accident. They’d been seventeen years old, the five of them, and Emry had gotten a new car for his birthday after months of saving up for it. It was the middle of February, and the roads were slick and snow-covered; they’d been coming back from a weekend in Richmond of shopping and seeing a grunge concert when the car found a patch of black ice on the highway and they’d gone spinning off the road. The last thing Max had initially been able to remember was the snowbank getting closer and closer before they made impact and the airbags went off. The next thing she knew, she was hanging upside down in her seat from the seatbelt, it was cold, and Casey was shouting her name from the passenger seat.

They were there for over an hour, the car hanging upside in the snow, before hurried footsteps could be heard outside their little cocoon. An off-duty Sentinel state trooper saw the disturbed snow and stopped to investigate, having to climb down the steep ditch and down into the woods to find them. He called it in before approaching, and it was really only the fact that they’d all come Online that saved them. It took the ambulances almost twenty more minutes to get there, and by that point, he’d gotten them wrapped up in emergency blankets, and some better first aid applied than the bits that a concussed Max had been able to manage.

Since they were so close to Williamsburg, they’d been taken to the Council-approved hospital in Williamsburg to be admitted to the emergency room there. It had gotten a bit messy when they’d been asked who to contact; Emry’s parents were in New York for a business trip, Kallen’s parents had five younger kids to figure out what to do with, Lindsay’s parents were on a weekend trip to their cabin, Max had been too concussed to remember either her grandparents’ or her aunt Alicia’s phone numbers, so Casey’s mom had been the only one who could come and help them. It took her almost forty minutes to get there, and in that time, the doctor tried to separate them four times, only to be rebuffed by the agitation of the three Sentinels every single time he tried.

Cassandra Burkov had been about thirty seconds away from punching the doctor when he tried to convince her that they needed to be separated when Alpha Davis Brandt stepped in. Alpha Sentinel Brand had been on his way over anyway since their agitation had ruffled the psionic plane enough to make his Guide upset, so when he heard what the doctor was trying, he stepped in and removed the man from their care team. He’d immediately gotten a doctor from the Williamsburg Center to come down and handle their care instead before turning his attention to getting them registered and entered into the database as quickly as possible.

It had been a whole mess, and Ms. Burkov had been the saving grace there. She’d called Max’s aunt and grandparents to let them know what was going on. Max’s grandparents, the former Alphas of Baltimore, had driven in as soon as they were able, showing up only hours after Cassandra called. She’d managed to get a hold of Emry’s parents and get their permission to handle his care until they could get back into the state, and she’d wrangled a call to Lindsay’s aunt, who was able to come down only an hour later rather than wasting her time trying to get a hold of her parents. Kallen’s parents called her to give her permission to handle his care since there was no way they would be able to make it until the next day.

Their recovery had been slow, held up by the fact that it was hard for them to be separated. What had started as a weekend away turned into three days in the hospital and a week’s isolation at the Williamsburg Center while the adults discussed what to do with them. Eventually, it came to it that they’d stay at the Buckley house until they were healed enough and settled enough to go home.

Kallen just ended up staying since his parents weren’t able to care for him or his new senses in a way that wouldn’t be an obstacle considering his younger sister’s already fragile health. To start with, their house wasn’t set up for someone on crutches as all of the bedrooms were on the second floor up a steep flight of stairs, and Kallen was supposed to be on crutches for nearly two months. Second, many of the creams and medications that his sister was prescribed had scents that would set off a new Sentinel’s senses at even a lingering scent from the container in a plastic bag in a closet in the farthest room of the house. The diet she was on wouldn’t help either, some of the foods were ones that Kallen avoided, like the plague, before coming Online, and they could only imagine what it would be like now that he was Online with senses dialled up to 11.

“If our kid can have you, like we had Cassandra, then I will be happier than you ever know,” Max murmured and ruffled a hand through her hair. “Everyone needs someone in their corner.”

“And if we can give them that, no matter where we are in the world,” Henri told her, leaning forward to grab her hand and squeeze it with a smile, knowing the entire story of what brought them Online, “We’ve done a good thing.”

They settled into silence, basking in their decision. Max was excited to do this, to have the chance to bring a member of their Pride into being, to add to their Pack directly in a way that hadn’t happened yet. And to do it with Kallen… Max suddenly remembered something they’d agreed upon as kids and couldn’t help but laugh.

“Do you remember that promise we made as kids?” she asked between giggles.

Kallen’s eyebrows came together as he frowned, trying to remember what she could possibly be talking about. “When we were…” he trailed off as it clicked, and a laugh escaped him. “We were twelve!” he pointed out, waving a hand for emphasis. “We promised that our first kids would be had together,” he explained to Henri, “This was before we had any kind of biology lesson on that, or we figured out that you know, I was gay and Max was—” He squinted at her. “Did you ever figure that out?”

Max shrugged. “Eh, doesn’t really matter,” she muttered, waving off the question. “Point is: we’re finally going to fill that promise we made when we were twelve,” she replied with a laugh.

Kallen shook his head in amusement and waved a hand at her. “I suppose that’s one way to look at it,” he agreed.

Henri laughed at the two of them, leaning back in his seat and folding his arms over his chest. “You two are strange,” he commented.

In a peak of maturity, the two of them stuck their tongues out at him and settled back in their seats. “Let’s make up a brief idea of what we want to happen with this,” Max suggested, standing up and moving to the desk to get a blank legal pad out of the drawer and a pen.

“We can start a list,” Kallen agreed, shuffling forward on the couch to get comfortable for the conversation.

Max grinned at him and came back, sitting down in her chair and pulling her legs up to have a surface to write on. “Let’s begin.”

–

After dinner, Jennifer found Max in the library, curled up in the bay window, reading one of her new books. The older woman closing the door behind her had Max looking up from her book and tilting her head at the serious look on her face.

“Is there something wrong, Jen?” Max questioned seriously, putting the bookmark she’d had tucked under her thigh into the book to mark her place before setting it down out of the way.

Jennifer winced, tilting her head to the side briefly as she came to lean against the bookshelf closest to the window. She tipped her head against the edge of the shelf and sighed. “Not at the moment, but this is something that will eventually become an issue,” she admitted.

“What’s the issue?” Max questioned.

Jennifer bit her lip for a moment before sighing and rubbing her face with her hands. “I have cancer,” she said firmly. “Stage three.”

Max stared at her in wide-eyed disbelief as she struggled to find words. It took a minute before she could think of anything to say, “I’m so sorry.”

Jennifer huffed a laugh. “It was something I hoped would never happen, but considering my family history—” she shrugged and tilted her head back against the wood. “There was a very limited chance that I wouldn’t get it.” She crossed her arms over her chest and tapped her fingers against her elbows. “The thing is, with my family history, even at stage three, I don’t have the greatest chances. My mom’s cancer was stage two when they found it, and she took the treatments, but still, four years after her diagnosis, she died. Same with my dad, two years after his stage three diagnosis, he was also dead.”

“What did the doctors say?” Max asked seriously, setting her feet on the floor and gripping the cushion of the bench seat.

Jennifer sighed and ran a hand over her braid, tugging at the end of it. “At best guess, without any medications, I have a year or two considering how far it’s gone already. I plan to take the medications he’s prescribed, but nothing is ever certain, especially with this kind of thing.”

“No, you are right,” Max sighed, reaching up to run a hand through her hair. “But it isn’t that simple, is it?”

“No, it isn’t,” Jennifer agreed. “I have cancer, and I cannot trust my to-be ex-husband to care for our son if the inevitable does happen and I do die. Benny is at the firehouse more than he is at home, and when he is at home, he’s more absentminded than a half-witted cat. So I’m going to make it clear when I go see my lawyer after the new year that if I am unable to take care of Kelly that he comes here. My parents are gone, and my sister has enough on her plate already, but between you and your parents, taking care of the boys should be relatively simple.”

“My parents are young enough and active enough to keep up with them,” Max agreed as she stood up from the bench and crossed to Jennifer’s side. She paused a second before wrapping her arms around the other woman, hugging her tightly. Whispering against the side of Jennifer’s head, Max assured her, “I promise we’ll take good care of Kelly, Jen. Don’t worry about him.”

Jennifer sighed and squeezed Max just as tightly. “Thank you.”

“You’re very welcome.”

 

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