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rogueshadeaux · 11 months

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Chapter Fifteen — A Surface Memory

I sorta froze; this was the history I knew. My life, the bits with Mom? It stopped here, on this page, and yet we had barely made a dent in the photo album. Why was the idea of turning the page so daunting?

Dad wrapped one arm around my shoulder, the other coming into view as it slowly turned the page.

5k words | 20 min read time | TRIGGER WARNINGS: Continuation on the mentions of loss, Pregnancy, Pregnancy Complications, Surgery, Drugs, Gangs, Terrorism, Mass Casualty. Not like, all at once or deeply described, but definitely mentioned. Imagine if that all happened at once, jfc

I turned the page again, this section surprisingly different; the photos were of Mom and some dude with a blue mohawk, all a bit rough at the edges; like they were old, but well preserved. Mom’s pink hair was still there, but she didn’t look as…edgy, I guess. Plain shirts and simple earrings and stuff. “This is Abbs and her brother,” Dad clarified for me.

Brent, the first Brent.

I didn’t know a lot about him at all. I imagine that was intentional, another thing Dad had to hide. “Did you know him?” I asked.

Dad shook his head. “He died before everything, even before your mom was a DUP prisoner.”

“How?”

Dad suddenly looked very uncomfortable. “I…” he trailed off, biting at his lip. “Gang war bullshit.”

Oh.

I mean, Dad said Mom had a history with drugs and the Akurans, but were they actually involved with that stuff? Not just victims? “Your mom had a hard start to life,” Dad started gently, as if reading my mind. “Had to…run away when she was a kid, ‘cause her parents were trying to turn her in for being a Conduit. Brent had taken her and ran and they…well, they had to survive somehow, you know?”

“They were gonna give her to the DUP?” I whispered.

Dad nodded. “It was worse back then than it is now,”

And that’s saying something, ‘cause it was still pretty fucking bad.

But they bought into the propaganda and were actually going to turn Mom in! How could a parent do that to their kid? “Were they gonna turn Brent in too?” I asked.

Dad hummed, confused at my question before realizing what I meant. “Oh, no, Brent wasn’t a Conduit. Just Abbs.”

I knew there was some genetic explanation to becoming a Conduit; something about both parents needing to have a recessive gene — and even then there was only, like, a 1 in 1,000 chance of a child being a Conduit. The fact that both Brent — my Brent — and I were Conduits was a lucky draw.

Or unlucky, depending on how you looked at it.

“So he—“ I faltered, looking down at the picture of Uncle Brent using Mom as an armrest, sat on some kind of retainer wall. “He ran away with her? Or to protect her?”

Dad shrugged. “Both.”

“Oh, wow,” I whispered. He didn’t look that much older than Mom — he had to only have like, three years on her, max. And if she left as a kid…there was a good chance Brent was one, too. A kid, a normal kid, who threw away a comfortable life for his sister. But…when those Akurans kidnapped me, and I had those three minutes where I thought Brent was the only Conduit out of the two of us…I can’t say I wouldn’t do the same. I was totally willing to, in fact — it’s why that gun was on my temple in the first place.

I turned the page; this next section time hopped forward, summer on the trees just in front of the house. Mom and Dad were next to an old white truck, the back full of stuff covered with a tarp and strapped down. Next to it was Mom, a shaky shot, sitting reclined in an old leather chair, staring at a TV above the fireplace. “I was really excited to move her in,” Dad said. “Y’know, not just because she’d be there but…it was the first time she really had a home since she was a kid. She deserved something stable.”

Another page, and another flash forward; Mom’s brown roots were taking over her hair, and she sat on a bench at the patio of the Longhouse, leaned back, arms protectively caressing a decent-sized bump. Another one had Dad sitting beside her and they just…stared off into the Sound. “I managed to get Betty to sneak quite a few pics because—“ he motioned towards the pile of books on his side, “—you saw my mom’s stuff. She’s barely in it. I wanted Abbs to be in pictures more,”

Well, Dad had quite the foresight, then.

Next page was something Dad called a gender reveal, something that died off a few years ago. Not that there were many people in the photograph; I could pinpoint like, three of Dad’s friends I already met, some girls I didn’t know. That old lady that gave me pads was there, and one caught Dr. Sims hiding off on the side away from everyone else. They were in the recreational room of the Longhouse, I saw it when I walked by it to go to the bathroom. One of just Mom and Dad, a big group one, a few of them milling. Flipping the page came with the actual reveal, blue confetti everywhere on the wood floor beside Mom and Dad. “You guys really thought I was a boy,”

Dad laughed. “Like I said, Brent was the only one to ‘show the goods,’ so we had to assume.”

“That had to be a surprise,” I commented, turning the page to a baby shower feature. Everything was blue, including every piece of clothing they got.

“What?”

“Me, coming out a girl.” I looked up at him. “Was it weird?”

Dad chuckled. “Weird? No. A surprise? Oh yeah,” his laughter grew. “Your mom thought they brought back the wrong kid at first,”

“What?”

Dad nodded, flipping the page; this one was a selfie of sorts, Dad holding up a peace sign with Mom glowering behind him in a hospital bed, the captioning explaining something about inducing labor. “You’ve gotta remember; she had surgery. It…” the laughter suddenly evaporated. “This went bad. I wasn’t even allowed in when they wheeled her to the operating room. Just got shown you two before they took you to the NICU. She wasn’t awake to see you two come out.”

That shadow crossed his face again, that dark one when he was reliving something that involved loss. And I hadn’t realized it before, simply ‘cause I never really thought of it; if Mom had an emergency surgery, that meant it was an emergency. Could we have died, all three of us?

Maybe that’s why this page only had the one picture.

Dad turned the page again, two porty little potatoes wrapped up in white baby blankets, shoved under some giant warming light. They had tubing in their nose, wires sprouting from their blankets like growths on spuds. “Your mom…you know what a placenta is, right?” I nodded — I took health class. “She had an abruption. It…there was so much blood, and the heartbeat reads on both of you just took a nosedive. There wasn’t even any warning to it — one moment we were watching this zombie show and then she was gone for surgery. I only got a glimpse at you both before they took you to get oxygen.” He breathed shakily, rubbing a hand on his knee in an effort to rid himself of the nervous energy. “But after a few hours in the NICU, they figured you guys were okay,”

“But we did have to be taken care of?” I asked, pointing to the picture.

“For like, four hours. But I got to be there after finding out if your mom was okay,”

“Ah, made sure Mom knew her other boy wasn’t switched out.”

He smiled a bit. “Took some convincing but, yeah,”

There were a couple other snapshots of these little babies, barely distinguishable from each other. Funny, for a few moments, we really did look like twins; fat noses and fat faces and fat. Just fat. Was it normal for babies to look so squished? I was the slightest bit darker, that’s literally all that was different. That and the giant weird red mark on Brent’s forehead.

I turned the page again, greeted with the familiar face of Mom and Dad holding Brent and I, the same photograph Dad kept on his desk. The other page had some souvenir birth certificates from some hospital called Swedish, that same cursive on the wall in the nursery writing out my and Brent’s full name…with the last name Walker–Rowe.

“We weren’t always Rowland, were we?” I asked, as if the proof wasn’t right there.

Dad shook his head. “Your mom and I had a deal: hyphenated last name, and she’d be willing to change it if we ever got married.”

Rowland was probably a part of the witness protection program thing we had going on. Keep us hidden, safe. I definitely didn’t plan to ask, at least; the shadow was still on his face, and I didn’t want to make him spiral any further.

Dad wrapped one arm around my shoulder, the other coming into view as it slowly turned the page.

Mom was there, there for the trip home from the hospital and the Akomish Naming Ceremony, something Betty dressed up in full traditional garb for. There to hand one of us in a bundle of blankets over to Dr. Sims, there in the next pic laughing as he reacted to being spit up on. There for the sudden influx of pink clothes that she happily mixed with the masculine blues before forcing my chubby little appendages into them. There rocking Brent to sleep, there feeding me a bottle. Dad was there too, don’t get me wrong; there was a sweet one with him asleep on this very couch, me laid on his chest with some sort of headband-bow around my impossibly small head. But Mom.

Mom was there.

We got older, grew out of the awkward doughboy look and into actual, distinguishable babies. Brent started out blonde, surprisingly, and darkened rather quickly over the weeks. He matched Mom’s brown by the time he began pulling up to stand, propped up against furniture. I browned out a bit more from birth, never straying too far from Dad’s side once I started crawling. “You remember S’mores? How she’d always shove herself under our feet when we were walking in the kitchen?” Dad asked, and I nodded. I missed that cat. “You were like that with me when you learned to crawl.”

My cheeks heated up. “I was a bit needy, wasn’t I?”

Dad chuckled, “Oh, yeah,”

Once Brent and I got a handle on walking, though, the pictures changed drastically; anything with Brent always seemed to be mid-motion, snapshots of him running around like a miniature tornado while ones of me were more calm yet just as chaotic, on top of a kitchen table or under somewhere that looked impossible to reach. “You weren’t as energetic as Brent, but god you were a Houdini.” Dad laughed, shaking his head. “We had Betty babysit Brent once to just watch you and make sure there wasn’t anything Conduit you were doing to get wherever you wanted.”

I turned the page again, this time to one of me on the fridge. On the fridge, like atop it, standing in that space between the top of the fridge and the ceiling. “You guys had to study me to make sure I wasn’t using random powers?”

“Yeah. Turns out you’re just smart and don’t stop until you get what you want. Like the toy I put on the fridge to stop you and Brent fighting. You used the kitchen cabinets as stairs.”

Ah, that’s what that weird thing in my hand was.

Next set was of a birthday party, just Betty in attendance with Mom and Dad, stock little safari animals decorating the living room. The Christmas tree was still up, paper streamers wrapped around the branches in place of ornaments and with presents under it wrapped in paper that screamed HAPPY BIRTHDAY in bold. “Is this where the birthday tree came from?” I asked. We always kept our Christmas tree up till January 18th, the bottom of the tree holding bigger presents while the branches would hold smaller things like paint brushes or video game cases or gift cards. It was one of my favorite traditions.

“We were just lazy,” Dad shrugged. “You try finding time to put up Christmas stuff when you’ve got Brent learning how to open the front door and you trying to pull everything out of the kitchen cabinets to hide in them.”

Yeah we were definitely why he was graying fast at 44.

“But yes, your Mom and I talked about doing it after getting you two to bed that night,” Dad added. “I wanted…it didn’t hurt to keep the idea after we moved to Portland, you know?”

I nodded. A snippet of Mom in our life wasn’t something I was upset to have around.

The next pages were of the nursery gutted or tarped, Mom handing Brent a paintbrush while visibly holding me back from trying to eat some paint out of a bucket. Nice. Glad that’s a memory now. The wall was tarped too save for a cut out square, the elephant’s canvas in it. “So you made it before we were born?” I asked, Dad nodding. I looked back at the pictures, the next one a close up on Mom.

The smile began to slip off my face; Mom, she…she didn’t look the same. I mean yeah it looked like Mom but I hadn’t noticed her skin was a bit gray, cheeks seeming to become sullen. She looked sick. There was life in her eyes that didn’t match her body, but she just didn’t look right.

This had to be what Dad was talking about. Whatever our birth did to her was starting to become obvious.

I flipped the pages, ignoring a lot of what we were doing more so to track how Mom declined; her arms got a bit skinnier, her collarbones more pronounced. There were less pictures of her in action with us and more of her sitting or laying down. There were quite a few pics of her with little wrappings on her elbows, the after effects of a blood draw or something. She…she looked like she was on borrowed time. If the Akurans never got to her, would she have lived anyways? She didn’t even have the energy to keep up with the dye in her hair, the brown roots coming back with a vengeance. She took to wearing baggier tees as summer returned and I wondered if that was to hide that she lost weight. S’mores was suddenly there, a Burmese kitten that looked like a toasted marshmallow, Mom holding her as if she’d melt away in her hands. “S’mores was Mom’s cat?”

Dad nodded. “I got S’mores for her as a late birthday gift. You guys were not nice to her—“ he pointed to a picture of me with my hand on her head in a bad pet, S’mores glowering but otherwise unmoving, “—but she was a great cat. Let you do almost anything to her, and would only swipe if you pushed too far.”

“She never used her claws,” I commented, remembering all the feverish little rapid patpatpatpatpat smacks she’d hit me with when I tried shoving her in doll clothes. She’d smack me, run to Dad yowling, and I’d get in trouble — but she never hurt me. I never even heard her hiss till her cancer got bad when we were 13.

Dad was torn up when S’mores died, and now I got why; it was another piece of Mom, ripped away.

There were Fourth of July pictures featuring only Dad and Betty, Mom missing from the festivities at the Longhouse. Betty playing with me, Dad holding Brent’s hand more to keep him in place than anything as they walked the shore of the Sound — but no Mom. Mom was on the next page, wrapped up in bed with Brent and Me under her arms, all three of us having some sort of movie night where she managed to placate us two into stillness. There was a little bit more color in her face, but it could have also been from the blush she gave the camera, caught by Dad. One beside it was Brent and I now fully active on the bed, chasing around a pink light that overexposed our faces on camera — but it didn’t erase the joy. Not at all.

Next page was a cute family one, Mom and Dad wrangling Brent and I down respectively, posed on the front steps of the Longhouse. Another one of Betty losing her grip on us, but nonetheless laughing, reaching out to try to snatch Brent back up before he could run too far as I was slung over her shoulder, looking back at the camera and laughing.

There weren’t any other pictures on the opposite side, nor the rest of the book as I flipped through. The memories stopped there on the Longhouse stairs. “That’s the day I proposed to your mom,” Dad said sadly. “Betty wanted a picture when we came back in celebration.”

And a week later, Mom would be dead.

I sniffed, trying to push back the tears. I had so many emotions flowing through me, all touched with a twinge of sadness. Mom was here. On this couch, in this house, at some point — and I had proof. I could sprint outside right now and scream to the heavens that I had a Mom, that she loved me and I had proof! It was right here in this old album, which I subconsciously brought closer to my chest as I closed it, breathing shakily.

Dad’s arm on my shoulder tightened a bit in a side hug, drawing me closer into his side. “You okay?” He asked gently.

I nodded rather feverishly, sniffing again. “Yeah, I…” I gripped the book tighter, like if I squeezed it hard enough it’d hug back. “She knew us.” I whispered.

“Hm?”

I tried to raise my voice higher, but couldn’t. I may as well have been vapor, the way it suddenly vanished. Everything welled up in my chest, trying to shove its way out.

Dad’s hand rubbed against my arm softly, and he breathed deeply before saying, “She loved you. Both of you, and it’s been hard keeping these memories from you two because you deserve to know how much she loved you.”

Tears began escaping without my consent. God, I didn’t think I could cry anymore today. Dad’s other arm came around to grab me fully and I couldn’t hold back anymore, pain and joy and sadness all flooding out on choked sobs as I cried. I even felt Dad’s breathing shake, his nose sniff — he joined at some point, but never stopped consoling me. Didn’t worry about anything but how I was doing, keeping a hold on me even as I pulled out of the hug, throat raw.

He let the silence hang as I composed myself, trying to steady my breathing and get those embarrassing hiccups to stop. I let the book rest on my lap again, freeing my hands so I could pull the sleeves of my shirt over them and wipe my face dry. Weird, you’d think the powers would deal with them.

Dad’s thumb was rubbing a gentle pattern into my bicep, and I tried to force my breathing to match the rhythm of his movements somehow. “She was really happy you were a girl, by the way. After the whole scare that you got swapped out and stuff, she actually was so happy she cried. Something about not being surrounded by testosterone,”

I snorted, the sound gross because of my congestion. Yeah, sometimes it sucked being in a house full of boys, I probably would have been relieved too.

“Brent needs to see this,” I eventually said, my voice a harsh croak that required me to cough to even it back out.

“He will,” Dad promised. “I’ll show him tomorrow at some point.” Dad then sighed hard, giving me a slight bit of room as he went from squeezing into me to leaned back on the couch. “How was he?”

I shrugged. “He…upset. I missed whatever fit he threw, but that construction site is completely unusable now.”

Dad blinked, looking down at me. “Really?”

I explained what I saw, how absolutely destroyed the site and surrounding trees were — but Dad didn’t look surprised. In fact he hummed, as if it was a curious outcome. “I’ll have to talk to him about it. I think I might know what happened,”

“Tommy just—“ I sputtered a moment, trying to find the words. “How could he? Not exactly being pro-Conduit is one thing but he sold you out! After everything!”

Dad stared into the fire, which really needed a stoke, thinking. “You know, when we left here and I became Damion and everything, I sort of thought that…maybe it was a good thing. I was scared of what being Abigail Walker and Delsin Rowe’s kids was going to do to you two. Not even the death threats or the stalking or the harassment but…stuff like this, with Tommy. Especially when I thought you two were normal, I felt like I made the right move. That maybe we should have done it earlier.”

What would that have done? Tommy would still be prejudiced, we’d still be Conduits, Dad would still be Delsin Rowe. Mom probably would have died from whatever made her sick. “We shouldn’t have to hide,” I huffed. “It’s not fair! I mean, why is it so wrong that we’re Conduits? You know how much good we could do?”

“People are scared of what they don’t understand,” Dad said sadly. “And with Empire City and the Plague and Augustine’s stunts — they have reason to be scared. They’re worried they can’t protect themselves.”

“They don’t need to protect themselves! It’s not like we’re hunting them for sport.” I scoffed. “And even if something happens, I mean — doesn’t it feel safer to have a Conduit help?”

Dad was giving me a weird look, like he was analyzing all I left unsaid. Probably to chastise me for the curse words I was keeping out. “Jeanie, I want you to think back to when those Akurans had you. You couldn’t do a thing to safely get out of that situation, right?”

I nodded, the idea of that day enough to cause knots in my stomach. Even after it all, the only reason I got away from his gun was because I turned to water in his arms. If I wasn’t a Conduit, or if I didn’t form powers then…would I even be alive?

“That fear is what everyone has about Conduits. Guns and stuff can only do so much. If someone shoots at us, we can dodge or block it — and we heal fast. What’s to stop us from killing them?”

Not much.

“But we aren’t killers, Dad! You’re not, me and Brent aren’t, and none of those Conduits in COLE were either.”

Dad’s soft smile he gave me was weird, sort of like he…felt sorry for me? “There’s a lot more to this than you know, Jean. It’s not always that easy.”

Then fucking make it easy, Dad! I’m not a child anymore, I’m 99% adult and you can tell me what you really think instead of hiding behind the ‘you’ll understand when you’re older’ excuse.

That’s what I wanted to say. Instead I sort of huffed under my breath and looked at the fire, grabbing the poker to stab at it a bit.

A few embers shot out from my poking, and I watched them flitter down to the cold tile that lined the edge of the fireplace, dying midair before they could even hit the ground. My mind wasn’t on the argument I wanted to start with Dad at all anymore, but the absolute tragedy that happened earlier. “Dad?” He hummed. “Did…is it still at nineteen?”

His hand came up from its lax position, running over his face. “Yeah. Didn’t go up, but there’s a couple people in critical condition,”

So it could change.

“So…how many of them did you know?”

Dad’s eyes didn’t leave the fire, the flames haunting him as if he watched COLE explode in person. “All of them.”

“I’m sorry,” I whispered. 19 acquaintances or friends gone, snuffed out like those embers. It wasn’t fair, it wasn’t right.

“There’s a vigil tomorrow,” Dad said. “Got an email about it. They’ve kept me on the email chains just in case I…” he shook his head as if resetting the thought, trying again with, “I hope they stay safe about it. Another big gathering isn’t the best idea.”

The thought came to me, and left my tongue just as quickly: “You should be there.”

Dad turned to look at me like I just ate ash out of the fireplace for a midnight snack. “What?”

There was a brief second where I thought about shaking my head and saying ‘never mind’ — but there wasn’t a good enough reason not to. We didn’t have the liberty of reasoning anymore. “You should go. They — the Conduits need a voice right now and I know Dr. Sims is there but it’s—“ I shrugged, finishing lamely with, “It’s not you.”

“Jeanie, I need to make sure you two stay safe—“

“Dad,” I cut him off, pulling out of his embrace to face him fully. He blinked, surprised by how serious I was being. “I don’t think we can hide anymore. It didn’t work, anyways — they found us. And besides, staying silent right now is admitting it’s the truth. They know you’re Delsin, and they know about me and Brent. There’s video and Tommy is ratting us out anyways so it isn’t like we can just pretend things are okay.” I thought back to that one on one I had with Betty on the patio; maybe she did know what she was talking about. “COLE was just blown up and I don’t — maybe if we did something no one would have died—“

“Jean—“

“But we can’t just leave them to fend for themselves! They need you. Not Sims, not some other guy, not the politicians, but the man they credit for freeing them. I don’t think anyone but Delsin Rowe can fix this.”

Dad shook his head. “I’m not — Jean, this isn’t one of those comics you want to write. I can’t be that guy, I just care about you and your broth—“

“But you are.” I stressed, a few seconds away from dropping to my knees in a plea. “You’re that guy to them. I thought you were that guy too: you didn’t have to help them, but you did, and that’s what they care about. That’s why they need you. And I know you care, Dad! You wouldn’t have made COLE if you didn’t.”

He looked at me for so long I eventually dropped my vision to my hands, chickening out of the staring contest. But it’s the truth: he should be there. For the people he knew, for the ones he helped. Everyone knew Delsin Rowe was alive, and it was too late to shove that fact back into its little box. We did have a choice, and ours was probably more important than any other average Conduit, because I fully believed Dad’s involvement could change the tides.

“You really think that?” Dad finally asked, just above a whisper. I looked up; he was still staring, the ghosts of a thousand fears and the shadows of a dozen emotions crossing his face.

“Yeah,” I answered with no hesitation. “I think they need you again.”

Dad breathed deeply, squinting his eyes shut like the action hurt him. “I don’t want to leave you two alone, but I can’t take you back there right now,”

“We aren’t alone,” I shrugged. “Betty can babysit us so you know we aren’t drinking.”

“Oh I’m not worried about that,” Dad suddenly chuckled. “You have a super high metabolism now. You’ll need to drink an entire handle to feel a buzz.”

“What?”

Dad’s stare tried to be disapproving, but cracked under the amusement. “You could pretend to not be so heartbroken, y’know,” but that pensiveness came back, and Dad went quiet.

I couldn’t think of anything else to say. What could I say? I couldn’t force him there, and it definitely didn’t look like he was ready to decide what to do.

So instead I shifted to lean against him again, grabbing the photo album and asking, “Do you remember anything about these pictures? Like, what was going on that day?”

I didn’t look at Dad, but I could tell he was caught off guard by the sudden change in topic as he said, “Y-yeah, a few of them, why?”

“Tell me about them?”

For a moment, Dad tensed, and I was sure he was gonna shrug me off and tell me to just go to bed. But then he shifted, leaned into the couch so I fit more to his chest and opened the album like it was a storybook. “So it’d been…almost two months since I heard from your Mom — there were so many interviews with the FBI and Reggie’s funeral and Curdun Cay that we barely got a moment of peace. Didn’t even really say a proper goodbye to each other. But one day she called and asked if I was still close to Seattle, if I’d meet her at the warehouse where she sorta kicked my ass…”

I fell asleep there, the rumbles of Dad’s chest becoming a white noise as I listened to him explain a past I was only becoming acquainted with.

#infamous second son #infamous #infamous erosion #delsin rowe #sucker punch productions #Fetch Walker #Reggie Rowe #Brent Walker #Abigail Walker #Eugene Sims #the gang’s all here!!#for a moment but whatever #fanfiction #fanfic #infamous OCs #i couldn’t think of a better banner either #MAN I wish I could draw I’d hand make every one of those lol #oh!#infamous first light

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